New Ideas for California's Future
An Alameda Superior Court judge was robbed at gunpoint in a parking lot near an Oakland courthouse Thursday morning, the county Sheriff’s Office confirmed.
The incident took place around 8:50 a.m. in a parking garage near 13th and Madison streets in Oakland, just a block from the Superior Court courthouse. The assailants were described as three males wearing masks, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The judge, whom law enforcement officials did not identify, was uninjured, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Oakland teachers will strike again on Monday – the third day of walkouts affecting 34,000 children across the city.
“Please prepare for the strike to continue Monday,” the teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association, posted on Facebook Sunday afternoon. “Our bargaining team is working hard. We will let you know as soon as possible if the district makes the movement necessary to reach an agreement.”
Oakland Unified School District officials postponed a press conference Sunday evening before issuing a statement acknowledging the strike would continue Monday, with schools expected to continue operating the way they did Thursday and Friday – with office staff instructed to “educate and supervise” students who showed up.
“The District’s negotiating team continues to talk with the team from the Oakland Education Association (OEA), and we are hopeful that we are making progress towards a deal that will end the strike,” the district’s statement said in part. “We continue to focus on finding common ground with OEA to get this deal done.”
“I hope they resolve this soon,” said Tunisia Harris, whose youngest daughter attends the Oakland Academy of Knowledge. “It’s been several rough years for our children, and they’re all still trying to catch up.”
On Sunday afternoon, union representatives were still reviewing the latest package from the school district, which includes pay bumps for teachers and staff, one-time bonuses of $5,000, and responses to some of the union’s demands, such as training staff to de-escalate mental health crises.
The two sides appeared closest on compensation changes, as the district was offering to boost salaries from 13% to 22% for the next school year.
Monday’s strike comes after days of negotiation between the district and the union – on top of mediation efforts led by the state superintendent of education, Tony Thurmond. The impasse was largely due to the union’s focus on “common good” demands, which aim to address broader societal issues facing students across the city — like homelessness, racial justice, and environmental concerns.
“We miss our students like crazy. But we’re doing this for them,” Carrie Anderson, a second-grade teacher at Oakland’s Manzanita Community School, said Thursday afternoon.
The union’s common good demands included smaller class sizes, free student transportation, housing for homeless students, and creating school-site committees to share decision-making among administrators, faculty, and families. The union was also asking for school safety improvements that include more staff trained to de-escalate mental health crises and school time dedicated to fostering a positive social climate.
But Lakisha Young, the founder of parent-run organization Oakland Reach, said a strike won’t solve these issues – it will just make things worse by keeping children out of the classroom.
“These things need to be handled in a different way,” Young said Sunday. “The list of things folks want to be right in the district is so long that they’ll never go back to school if striking is the mechanism.”
Young said that on Sunday, her youngest son – a 13-year-old who goes to school in Oakland Unified – asked her whether he was going to school tomorrow.
“I just had to say: ‘I don’t know. I have no idea,’” Young said.
Young’s frustration echoed that of other parents scrambling to find a place for their kids to learn, especially with only 14 days left in the school year. Katya Caballero, who has one child at a school affected by the strikes, said she felt backed into a wall: she wants to support the teachers, but she doesn’t feel they fully understand what parents go through when a strike occurs.
“It’s the end of the year, and it’s a very important time for students,” said Caballero, speaking in Spanish through a translator. “I’ve seen the data, and if children are out of school for two days – that’s a lot.”
In a recent press release, the district said it understands the importance of the common good proposals, but feels it should be working with “all labor partners and city, county, state, and federal government leaders to address them.”
The district also has claimed many of the common good demands are outside the purview of a school district, and that Oakland Unified isn’t authorized by the school board to address them.
Opponents of a measure approved by Oakland voters to allow noncitizen parents to vote in school board elections filed suit Thursday, claiming it violates voting restrictions in the California Constitution, an argument endorsed earlier this year by a judge considering a similar measure in San Francisco.
Measure S, backed by 62% of Oakland’s voters on Nov. 8, authorizes the City Council to pass a law allowing non-U.S. citizens who are parents or guardians of school-age children to vote in the next local school elections. Council members, who voted to place the measure on the ballot, said noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants as well as legal residents, make up about 14% of Oakland’s population, about 13,000 are parents or guardians of children younger than 18, and they lack “representation in key decisions that impact their education and their lives.”
The lawsuit, filed by the conservative United States Justice Foundation and its president, James V. Lacy, cites a long-standing provision of the state Constitution that says, “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.” That means, they argued, that only U.S. citizens can vote in a state or local election in California.
“Voter qualifications is an issue of statewide concern, not subject to local regulation by a charter city,” attorney Chad Morgan wrote in the suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court.
“If noncitizens are allowed to vote, the voting rights of all citizens are unconstitutionally deprived, diluted and devalued,” Lacy said in an accompanying statement.
The same plaintiffs filed a similar suit to try to remove Measure S from the ballot, but Superior Court Judge Michael Markman refused, saying it was too early to consider the arguments. He noted that the measure would merely authorize the City Council to act, and that courts generally wait until after an election to decide the validity of ballot measures. He also said the issue was likely to be decided by higher state courts.
But Lacy and his organization have made more headway in San Francisco, whose voters approved the state’s first such ordinance. It took effect in 2018 and was extended by city supervisors in 2021.
The San Francisco city attorney’s office argued that the constitutional language saying citizens “may vote” was permissive and did not prohibit local governments from allowing others to vote. Self-governing charter cities like San Francisco can serve as “laboratories of democracy demonstrating the benefits of noncitizen voting in local contests,” Deputy City Attorney James Emery wrote in a court filing.
Superior Court Judge James Ulmer disagreed in July. “Transcendent law of California, the Constitution… reserves the right to vote to a United States citizen, contrary to (the) San Francisco ordinance,” Ulmer wrote in a ruling that would prohibit the city from enforcing the ordinance or counting noncitizens’ votes. Based on the logic of the city’s argument, he said, “children under 18 and residents of other states ‘may also’ vote in California elections, which our Constitution does not allow.”
Lawsuit says judge struck down similar San Francisco law
A judge’s recent ruling that a San Francisco law allowing noncitizens to vote in school board elections is unconstitutional threatens a similar plan in Oakland, as well as efforts in other cities like San Jose.
The same organizations and law firm that won their case against San Francisco’s 2016 law sued Oakland officials Aug. 16 to keep their proposed measure off the November ballot.
“Oakland’s noncitizen voting measure should be removed from the ballot because it will be a waste of public resources to spend money … to submit a measure to voters that can never be enacted,” the complaint said. “Allowing a vote on an unconstitutional measure will undermine the integrity of the initiative process.”
Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker said the city has yet to be served with the complaint and could not comment.
Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb, who is leading the effort to get the measure on the ballot, believes it is legally sound because it would not directly extend voting rights to noncitizens, but allow the city to do so if it is not prohibited by state law.
“There’s no legal basis for their lawsuit,” Kalb said.
In January, the San Jose City Council voted to study the possibility of letting noncitizens vote in municipal elections, but they weren’t pressing to get a measure on the November 8 ballot.
San Francisco voters extended voting rights to noncitizens – both legal and unauthorized residents – to cast ballots in school board elections in 2016, and the Board of Supervisors extended the law indefinitely in 2021.
The conservative nonprofits United States Justice Foundation, based in Phoenix, and the California Public Policy Foundation in Laguna Niguel filed suit, arguing the provision was unconstitutional.
In a July 29 ruling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer, Jr. agreed, citing the California Constitution stating that only “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this state may vote.” Ulmer also noted that several sections of the Elections Code say voters must be U.S. citizens.
Ulmer rejected the city’s argument that the state constitution’s “may vote” language isn’t restrictive.
“By the same logic, children under 18 and residents of other states ‘may also’ vote in California elections, which our constitution does not allow,” Ulmer wrote, adding that had the constitution said “shall vote,” it would have made voting mandatory in the state.
Ulmer’s ruling came just days after the New York Supreme Court justice struck down a New York City law passed in November that would have let 800,000 noncitizens who are permanent legal residents or authorized to work vote in municipal elections, citing similar barriers in the state constitution.
On Aug. 12, Ulmer also rejected San Francisco’s request to stay his ruling while the city appeals, saying he disagreed with the city’s contention that the case presented “difficult questions of law.”
“This is not a difficult or close question,” Ulmer wrote.
The Oakland lawsuit argues that the city’s voters have “a constitutional right in avoiding the vote dilution that flows from extending voting privileges to those not authorized to vote in the state.”
James V. Lacy, the lawyer representing the organizations that sued over the measure, argued it would benefit Asians, Hispanics and Whites who have larger shares of noncitizens among them at the expense of Oakland’s nearly one in four Black residents. But Kalb said the city is home to a large number of noncitizen African immigrants as well.
There is a history of noncitizen voting in the United States. New York allowed it for school elections until 2000. Advocates for the Oakland measure said noncitizens could vote in the United States until 1926. Sin Yen, spokeswoman for Chinese for Affirmative Action, which led the coalition that campaigned for San Francisco’s law, said noncitizen voting efforts are also afoot in Santa Ana, New York, Boston and Chicago.
Advocates argue that immigrant parents of kids in city schools shouldn’t be denied a voice in their governance just because they aren’t citizens. Oakland estimates that 13,000 of 230,000 voting-age residents are noncitizens of various ethnic backgrounds, including Hispanic, African and Asian.
“If you’re a parent or legal guardian of children under 18, you should be able to decide who runs the schools,” Kalb said. “It seems so obvious, like such a no-brainer. It’s sad there are some people who don’t want that to happen.”
Critics say they’re not anti-immigrant but that extending the vote to noncitizens unfairly benefits foreigners at the expense of the country’s own citizens.
“The purpose of our lawsuit is not to denigrate noncitizen rights in the state – noncitizens have all kinds of rights,” Lacy said. “But the idea of voting is something completely different. If you talk to a general person in the state about what is the qualification for voting, the general feeling is, well, you have to be a citizen.”
Click here to read that the full article at the Mercury News
Judge overturned San Francisco law allowing noncitizens to vote in July
In July, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer overturned a San Francisco law allowing noncitizen parents to vote in local school board elections in Lacy et. al. The judge said the California Constitution permits only citizens to vote,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The Globe spoke with Attorney James Lacy who said the local law violates the California Constitution and Elections Code.
Lacy has just filed a second lawsuit in Superior Court in Alameda County against the City of Oakland and the County Registrar of Voters seeking a Court Order to remove from the November ballot a measure that if approved, would allow for the counting of noncitizen votes in Oakland school board elections.
“The City of Oakland proposes a ballot measure that would allow noncitizens to vote in elections for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). This measure is plainly unconstitutional because it violates a constitutional mandate allowing only United States citizens to vote in California elections. This requirement applies to every election in the state, even those conducted by charter cities,” the lawsuit alleges.”
“Oakland’s noncitizen voting measure should be removed from the ballot because it will be a waste of public resources to spend money to consider to submit a measure to voters that can never be enacted, and allowing a vote on an unconstitutional measure will undermine the integrity of the initiative process.”
Lacy said the lawsuit is necessary because “Oakland’s ballot measure violates the fundamental rule that in an election, only citizens vote, and if noncitizens are allowed to vote, the voting rights of all citizens are unconstitutionally deprived, diluted and devalued.” Other plaintiffs in the case include two nonprofit organizations of which Lacy is an officer: the California Public Policy Foundation and the United States Justice Foundation; and Oakland voter Jim Eyer.”
The Oakland lawsuit explains “These interests extend to everyone in the state because integrity of elections is a matter of statewide concern. Additionally, school districts are funded with the taxes paid by each of the state’s taxpayers into the state’s general fund. When OUSD spends taxpayer funds, it is not spending local taxpayer funds; it is spending state taxpayer funds. In this regard, everyone in the state has an interest in OUSD. From that interest, everyone in the state also has an interest in ensuring that OUSD’s governing board is elected in accordance with state law.”
The California Constitution establishes who may vote in the state:
“A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.” The plain language of this provision does not allow the Legislature, any charter city, or any other body to establish voting rights for anyone who is not a United States citizen, 18 years of age, or resident of the state.
Pew reports that this part of a trend across the country that is drawing legal challenges. Supporters claim that because non-citizens pay local taxes they should be able to vote in local elections, arguing they deserve a say in who represents them. However, Pew acknowledges “no state explicitly allows noncitizens to vote in statewide elections such as for governor—nor have there been serious proposals to legalize statewide voting by noncitizens.”
In the San Francisco case, the judge told a lawyer for the city that the power of charter cities such as San Francisco to regulate municipal affairs “does not override the Constitution,” the Chronicle reported. “A permanent injunction has been issued to stop San Francisco from processing noncitizen voting and the Court has invited Lacy and the plaintiffs to file a motion to claim attorneys fees against the City for the action.”
“When noncitizens vote in an election, the voting rights of citizens are wrongly diluted,” Lacy said.
It also appears that this issue is divided along party ideology, with Democrats introducing most if not all city proposals seeking to allow non-citizens to vote.
“When California and Illinois implemented laws in recent years that automatically register people to vote when they visit departments of motor vehicles, hundreds of noncitizens were accidentally registered to vote due to technical glitches,” Pew reported.
Lawsuit says judge struck down similar San Francisco law
A judge’s recent ruling that a San Francisco law allowing noncitizens to vote in school board elections is unconstitutional threatens a similar plan in Oakland, as well as efforts in other cities like San Jose.
The same organizations and law firm that won their case against San Francisco’s 2016 law sued Oakland officials Aug. 16 to keep their proposed measure off the November ballot.
“Oakland’s noncitizen voting measure should be removed from the ballot because it will be a waste of public resources to spend money … to submit a measure to voters that can never be enacted,” the complaint said. “Allowing a vote on an unconstitutional measure will undermine the integrity of the initiative process.”
Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker said the city has yet to be served with the complaint and could not comment.
Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb, who is leading the effort to get the measure on the ballot, believes it is legally sound because it would not directly extend voting rights to noncitizens, but allow the city to do so if it is not prohibited by state law.
“There’s no legal basis for their lawsuit,” Kalb said.
In January, the San Jose City Council voted to study the possibility of letting noncitizens vote in municipal elections, but they weren’t pressing to get a measure on the November 8 ballot.
San Francisco voters extended voting rights to noncitizens – both legal and unauthorized residents – to cast ballots in school board elections in 2016, and the Board of Supervisors extended the law indefinitely in 2021.
The conservative nonprofits United States Justice Foundation, based in Phoenix, and the California Public Policy Foundation in Laguna Niguel filed suit, arguing the provision was unconstitutional.
In a July 29 ruling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer, Jr. agreed, citing the California Constitution stating that only “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this state may vote.” Ulmer also noted that several sections of the Elections Code say voters must be U.S. citizens.
Ulmer rejected the city’s argument that the state constitution’s “may vote” language isn’t restrictive.
“By the same logic, children under 18 and residents of other states ‘may also’ vote in California elections, which our constitution does not allow,” Ulmer wrote, adding that had the constitution said “shall vote,” it would have made voting mandatory in the state.
Ulmer’s ruling came just days after the New York Supreme Court justice struck down a New York City law passed in November that would have let 800,000 noncitizens who are permanent legal residents or authorized to work vote in municipal elections, citing similar barriers in the state constitution.
On Aug. 12, Ulmer also rejected San Francisco’s request to stay his ruling while the city appeals, saying he disagreed with the city’s contention that the case presented “difficult questions of law.”
“This is not a difficult or close question,” Ulmer wrote.
The Oakland lawsuit argues that the city’s voters have “a constitutional right in avoiding the vote dilution that flows from extending voting privileges to those not authorized to vote in the state.”
James V. Lacy, the lawyer representing the organizations that sued over the measure, argued it would benefit Asians, Hispanics and Whites who have larger shares of noncitizens among them at the expense of Oakland’s nearly one in four Black residents. But Kalb said the city is home to a large number of noncitizen African immigrants as well.
There is a history of noncitizen voting in the United States. New York allowed it for school elections until 2000. Advocates for the Oakland measure said noncitizens could vote in the United States until 1926. Sin Yen, spokeswoman for Chinese for Affirmative Action, which led the coalition that campaigned for San Francisco’s law, said noncitizen voting efforts are also afoot in Santa Ana, New York, Boston and Chicago.
Advocates argue that immigrant parents of kids in city schools shouldn’t be denied a voice in their governance just because they aren’t citizens. Oakland estimates that 13,000 of 230,000 voting-age residents are noncitizens of various ethnic backgrounds, including Hispanic, African and Asian.
“If you’re a parent or legal guardian of children under 18, you should be able to decide who runs the schools,” Kalb said. “It seems so obvious, like such a no-brainer. It’s sad there are some people who don’t want that to happen.”
Critics say they’re not anti-immigrant but that extending the vote to noncitizens unfairly benefits foreigners at the expense of the country’s own citizens.
“The purpose of our lawsuit is not to denigrate noncitizen rights in the state – noncitizens have all kinds of rights,” Lacy said. “But the idea of voting is something completely different. If you talk to a general person in the state about what is the qualification for voting, the general feeling is, well, you have to be a citizen.”
The conservative groups that successfully challenged San Francisco’s law allowing noncitizen parents to vote in local school board elections have sued Oakland to remove a similar proposal from the city’s November ballot.
The Oakland City Council voted 6-0 on June 21 to place a measure on the ballot that would enable the city to authorize about 13,000 noncitizen parents or guardians of school-age children to vote in elections for the city’s seven school board members. The ballot measure said noncitizens, including legal residents and undocumented immigrants, make up 14% of Oakland’s population and now lack “representation in key decisions that impact their education and their lives.”
But the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court, said such a law would violate a provision of the California Constitution that declares “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.”
Qualifications of voters are “an issue of statewide concern, not subject to local regulation by a charter city,” the suit said. It said the proposal also violates the rights of U.S. citizens in Oakland “by unconstitutionally diluting the impact of their votes.”
The suit was filed by James V. Lacy and two organizations he leads, the United States Justice Foundation and the California Public Policy Foundation, with an Oakland resident as an additional plaintiff.
Lacy and his groups also sued San Francisco over its ordinance, the first of its kind in California. It was approved by the city’s voters in 2016, took effect in 2018 and was extended by the Board of Supervisors in 2021. Turnout has been small, reportedly because of concerns about disclosure of information to immigration officers; election officials said a total of only 92 noncitizens voted in three school board elections between 2018 and 2020, though 328 registered and 235 voted this February, when three board members were recalled. Overall, nearly 180,000 votes were cast in the recall election.
Defending the San Francisco ordinance, the city’s lawyers argued that the state Constitution’s “may vote” language does not prohibit a local government from allowing others to vote. But Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer said the constitutional provision bars noncitizens from voting.
“Transcendent law of California, the Constitution … reserves the right to vote to a United States citizen, contrary to (the) San Francisco ordinance,” Ulmer said in a June 29 ruling that prohibited San Francisco from enforcing the ordinance or counting noncitizens’ votes in future elections.
He also cited a state law passed by the Legislature that specified “a person entitled to register to vote shall be a United States citizen.” Such laws “address matters of statewide concern: education and voter qualifications,” and cannot be overridden by a local government, Ulmer said.
The judge has refused to put his ruling on hold while the city prepares to appeal it. City Attorney David Chiu’s office told The Chronicle it will ask a state appeals court to reinstate the ordinance.
Ulmer’s ruling prompted City Council members in Santa Ana to delay plans for a ballot measure that would allow noncitizens to vote in all local elections. The measure had been proposed for the November ballot, but according to news reports, city officials needed time to review the legal issues and try to draft a revised proposal for the 2024 ballot.
“We sense the momentum now in California is against allowing for noncitizen voting,” Lacy said in a statement announcing the Oakland suit.
And on June 27, a judge blocked a law that would allow more than 800,000 noncitizen legal residents of New York City to vote in municipal elections, saying it violates a provision of the state Constitution entitling “every citizen” to vote.
City Council member Dan Kalb, a co-author of the ballot measure, said Wednesday the suit was premature because the measure would merely authorize the council to draft an ordinance enabling noncitizens to vote, If it passes, he said, the council will wait until higher state courts rule on the constitutionality of the San Francisco ordinance before acting.
CFER, PLF say that the County is violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment
The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER), along with co-plaintiffs represented by Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), filed a lawsuit against Alameda County on Monday, challenging two public contracting programs that impose race-based preferences for minority-owned companies.
For decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against using racial quotas in the awarding of governmental contracts, such as in the 1989 landmark City of Richmond v. J.A. Cronson case, or in the 1996 Adarand Constructors v. Federico Pena decision. Both of those times, the justices found that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment had been broken. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has even said that such programs are not permitted.
However, since these rulings, many cities and counties have found work-arounds to try to impose racial quotas in governmental contracts. In Alameda County, instead of imposing one of these “set-aside” programs, they went for a different name. Specifically, the Alameda County Public Works Agency implemented the “Construction Compliance Program,” with the General Services Agency overseeing the “Enhanced Construction Outreach Program.”
Both programs have “participation goals” for minority-owned businesses for county construction projects, essentially being a racial quota in all but name. These programs have been found to discriminate against subcontractors by excluding those not minority-owned from being considered for a job because the “participation goal” needing to be met.
As a result, the CFER and PLF filed Californians for Equal Rights Foundation v. Alameda County in the Superior Court of California in Alameda County on Monday.
“Racial quotas in public contracting, just as racial quotas elsewhere, are wrong and unconstitutional,” said PLF senior attorney Wen Fa in a statement on Monday. “The government should not be depriving opportunities for small businesses engaged in public contracting — and the Alameda County public contracting programs are particularly pernicious because they deprive opportunities based on race.”
Like similar prior cases, the CFER/PLF case is challenging the County based on the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, as well as California’s Constitutional ban on racial preferences, which was recently upheld by voters in 2020 through Prop 16’s failure.
“California’s voters sent a strong message that they are serious about protecting the time-honored right of equality before the law, in 1996 when they approved Proposition 209, and again in 2020 when they defeated its repeal,” added CFER executive Vice President Gail Heriot. “Government favors on racial grounds have a pernicious past and do not belong in the 21st century.”
While many have also rushed to defend the case, affected construction company owners, including many who would benefit from racial quotas, noted that they have been more negative for the County and state.
“Minority-owned company set-asides and quotas have proven to be more harmful than good,” said Andrew Salazar, a mixed-race Construction company planner in Los Angeles, to the Globe on Monday. “These set-asides really do help many minority-owned businesses stay afloat by giving them a part of, say, a construction or renovation job. However, besides being constitutionally illegal, many have been associated with fraud, and taxpayers sometimes have to pay for a more expensive option. Rather than go with quality or the lowest-bidder, they go with a minority-owned firm.”
“And, here, especially in California, a lot of places see regular use of minority-owned companies because they are good and are not expensive. But a quota system muddles that up and quality can go down and cost goes up as a result. A lot of people also conveniently forget that any firm always hires a wide range of people, with many actually having a majority of Latino workers, so people of all races are getting work out of a normal and fair awarding of a contract. Things just become unfair when the quotas are put in place.”
Hundreds of teachers, students and parents walked picket lines at Oakland’s public schools Friday in a one-day strike over controversial school closures to save money.
While the district’s nearly 80 schools remained open during the labor action, officials said there weren’t enough substitutes, administrators or other staff to accommodate or keep students safe and so urged families to keep their children home for the day.
While other unionized district workers were not directly participating in the strike, many were expected to be absent Friday as well, with their labor leaders advising them to notify supervisors that they wouldn’t feel safe given the picket lines.
The strike is just the latest challenge for Oakland Unified. It comes months after Oakland teachers planned a “sickout” during January’s Omicron wave, prompting the district to cancel classes and angering some families. It also comes two years after schools shut down due to the pandemic, forcing Oakland families to endure one of the longest school closures in the country.
Oakland Unified said in a statement that a state board had denied the district’s effort to get an injunction to stop the one-day strike. Spokesman John Sasaki said while the district is “disappointed” in the decision, it “will continue to put the needs of kids first and do what it thinks is best for them.”
On Friday morning, about 20 students and teachers were marching in front of Oakland Technical High School just after 8 a.m., carrying signs and chanting, “Hey, hey, ho ho, school closures have got to go.”
The 2,000-student high school was otherwise quiet.
Junior Satya Zamudio took a break from marching with friends to speak about her opposition to closures.
“We’re so disappointed in what our district is doing,” she said. “It’s very blatant the district doesn’t care about what we say.”
Kaia Palmquist, also in 11th grade, said her statistics professor has been talking to them about the closures in class, about the costs and other ways to save money, like “turning off the lights at night.”
“OUSD isn’t supposed to be a profitable organization,” she said. “They’re treating us like a company.”
Her statistics teacher, Errico Bachicha, was also on the picket line.
“It doesn’t make any sense to effect so many students to save $4 million,” he said. “Among the many things wrong with closing schools is how it will disrupt education. There’s been enough school closures to know it will make things worse.”
Oakland Education Association officials said 75% of the union’s 2,300 educators who participated in the strike vote, supported the one-day walkout, although they declined to say how many teachers submitted a ballot.
District officials said the strike was illegal while union leaders argued they were striking over unfair labor practices related to the school board’s decision to shutter schools without consulting with the community.
The school board voted in February to close or merge 11 schools over the next two years, a decision made in large part to address the district’s declining enrollment and ongoing overspending, which could leave the district in financial ruin in the years to come. The district has lost about 15,000 students over the past 20 years.
It was the final City Council meeting of a violent and difficult year, and the people and politicians of Oakland were worked up — about where to build a dog park.
On Dec. 18, 2012, more than five dozen residents signed up to speak about a convoluted journey to bring a play area for furry companions to Lakeview Park, an issue that didn’t get resolved that night, even after a 90-minute discussion that featured three deadlocked votes and council members raising their voices about civic duty.
Despite Oakland reaching 126 criminal homicides that year (two more than police recorded in 2021), no one in attendance remarked on the toll until Hour Eight, when a few patient religious leaders took turns at the podium to urge investment in a promising anti-violence program.
It was called Operation Ceasefire, and it would be credited for a sharp reduction in violence in the years to come.
“We wanted and needed something here in the city of Oakland to curtail the gun violence,” recalled the Rev. Damita Davis-Howard, one of the pastors who pressed the city to adopt a Ceasefire program then and now serves as its director.
In some ways, 2012 stands as a funhouse mirror to 2021. The political discourse around policing is more charged today, but the problems facing the city are familiar. A decade ago, Oakland was still emerging from the Great Recession and dealing with a worse trajectory in violent crime. Then 2013 arrived and the number of homicides began a steady if staggered multiyear decline, reaching lows not seen since the turn of the millennium.
That stayed the case until the COVID-19 pandemic came and warped every aspect of society. With Oakland navigating a new year in the midst of a draining public health quagmire and an ongoing debate about public safety, the question is whether what quieted the gunshots a decade ago can do so again today.
Like many local religious leaders at the time, Davis-Howard wanted to see the “Boston miracle” replicated out West.
That was the nickname given to a dramatic decline in youth homicides in the Massachusetts capital during the late 1990s, when a working group of researchers, city officials and residents tested the hypothesis that most violence can be traced to a small group of people in neglected and over-policed communities, and that the way to address it was through unified anti-violence messaging, assistance for those who wanted out of the life and focused law enforcement attention for those who didn’t.
Click here to read the full article at the San Francisco Chronicle
