Happy Black History Month! It was a joy to help organize a celebration at Sankofa United Elementary on Feb. 3, featuring a performance by the Afro-Cuban musician Dos Four, who has performed at OMCA and Yoshi’s, and also has a day job at Frick United Academy as a P.E. teacher. (Oakland teachers are so talented!)



I’m so grateful to him for bringing his endless energy to Sankofa, as well as to Principal Arnold (who brings the same endless energy!) for hosting, and to Ali Medina and the Oakland Public Education Fund for sponsoring the event.

If you want to enroll your student at Sankofa, remember that the deadline for on-time enrollment applications for the 2024-25 school year is this Friday, Feb. 10.



Dos Four performing at Sankofa United Elementary to celebrate Black History Month

There are so many more Black History Month celebrations coming up, and I hope every Oaklander takes the time to go to at least a couple of them.

For example, on Sunday, Feb. 25, there is the Black Joy Parade in downtown Oakland at 12:30, as well as OUSD’s celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr., Oratorical Festival finals at Skyline High School at 1:00.



Analyzing the equity impact of possible school closures and consolidations

Thanks to everybody who participated in the Town Hall last Thursday, hosted by Board VP Mike Hutchinson and myself, for feedback on the equity impact analysis metrics leading to any staff recommendation for school closures and consolidations in August of 2025 (eighteen months from now).


We had an excellent discussion (here are links to the recording and the slide deck). District staff asked community members to fill out a survey (also available in Spanish) to provide feedback by the end of February.

Click here to watch the recording of the Town Hall hosted by Board VP Mike Hutchinson and myself on Feb. 1.

One question was why charter schools are held to high academic standards for their renewals, while district public schools are being examined more for fiscal sustainability under the proposed metrics. 




One answer to that question is that our Board is following different laws in each case: AB 1505 was passed in 2019 to regulate charter renewals more strictly, while AB 1840 (authored by then-Assemblymember and now-Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2018) urges Oakland Unified to consolidate our campuses to be more sustainable.




Another answer is that charter schools are exempted from many education regulations, and given permission to enroll students who would otherwise attend our neighborhood schools, with the expectation that they will achieve markedly better results. So if they are not doing so, then it is not clear why they are being given those privileges by our society.




For example, North Oakland Community Charter School (NOCCS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2019 that they would voluntarily dissolve if their test scores remained low. (A pandemic then occurred, during which statewide standardized testing was suspended, and only recently have new, but still low, test results from NOCCS been posted on the California Dashboard.)




Neighborhood schools, on the other hand, are widely appreciated as being an important resource to every community, and should only be closed in extreme circumstances to save the school district as a whole from fiscal crisis.




The equity impact analysis metrics will come back to the Board for a vote on March 13.

Young Adult Program (YAP) Director David Cammarata and I hosted a community tour of the Santa Fe campus. The elementary school closed in 2012, and in 2021 reopened as both YAP and the Special Education HQ for Oakland Unified.

Next Steps on Budget Adjustments

We also just held a Town Hall on Oakland Unified’s 2024-25 Budget last night, hosted by Director Thompson and myself, with special guest CBO Lisa Grant-Dawson—here are links to that recording and slide deck.



With declining revenue at the state level, and declining enrollment due to demographics, our priority in Oakland needs to be making budget adjustments so that we can increase compensation to be able to recruit and retain people in every job classification—recognizing that we were able to provide a historic raise for some of our employees last year, but those increases have not yet applied across all the groups in our District.



The first round of those budget adjustments will be coming to our Board for a first read on February 14, and a vote on February 28.



Recording of last night's town hall on Oakland Unified's 2024-25 budget, hosted by Director Thompson and myself.

Volunteers Needed

Kids are struggling with their homework. You can be a fantastic homework tutor!



All you need is a caring heart and a desire to be part of the team of parents and educators that nurtures our community’s children. No experience is necessary, because the non-profit organization Children Rising will provide training and support.

• Sankofa United Elementary, 581 61st St.: Opportunities on Mon. & Fri. 3-5 pm and Weds. 2-4 pm.

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary, 960 10th St.: Opportunities on Tues. & Thurs. 3-5 pm.

To learn more and apply, click here today: www.Children-Rising.org/volunteer



Endorsements for the March 5 Primary Election

This is a crucial election for California and Oakland, and your ballot should be arriving in the mail this week. Make sure to vote in every contest and to return it by mail by March 5.



(A reminder that this email is from my political account and of course does not reflect the opinions of the Oakland Unified School District!)





United States President: 

Joe Biden

There's lots to criticize as always in a mainstream presidential candidate, but no real alternatives.





County Democratic Central Committee: 

This committee is made up of delegations from each Assembly District. Once elected, these party activists decide which local candidates get the very influential official Democratic Party endorsement, so it's important to elect people who choose their progressive battles carefully--as opposed to those who fight all the time, but don't win very much.



County DCC, AD14: Wendy Bloom, Ana Vasudeo, Igor Tregub, Terry Taplin, Julie Caskey, Alfred Twu, Elizabeth Echols



County DCC, AD16: Cheryl Cook-Kallio, Trish Munro, Jacqueline Tarin-Rankl, Yeon Park



County DCC, AD18: Rowena Brown, Regina Chagolla, Amber Childress, Sean Dugar, Mario Juarez, Harold Lowe, Zac Bowling, Adrien Abuyen, Nicole Grashton, Hannah Groce



County DCC, AD20: Dolly Adams, Austin Bruckner Carrillo, Aisha Knowles, Elisa Marquez, Julie Roche, Joseph Mauro, Anish Mohanty, Barisha Spriggs





United States Senate: 

Barbara Lee—Make sure to vote in both the Full Term [2025-2030] and the Partial/Unexpired Term [2024] sections!



Our congresswoman Barbara Lee speaks for me and so many others. If elected she would be the only Black woman in the Senate, and a vital radical voice in the event that we all spend most of her term defending ourselves against an attempted dictatorship imposed by the likely 47th (and final) president of the United States, Donald Trump.





Congress: 

Lateefah Simon

There are several generational transitions on this ballot, and this is one of them. Barbara Lee is passing the torch after 27 years in this office, where she succeeded Ron Dellums who also served for 27 years. 



Lateefah is a brilliant woman whose speeches are so moving they give me goosebumps. She's currently on the BART Board, and was also the board president of the Akonadi Foundation, an influential Oakland-based racial justice philanthropic non-profit. She worked in Kamala Harris's office when she was the DA of San Francisco, and also received a MacArthur genius award in 2003. 



I pity the Republican Congressperson who first provokes Lateefah to speak up on the floor of the Capitol in 2025.





California State Senate: 

Dan Kalb

Dan is our councilmember for District 1, and it's been great to be his counterpart on the school board, because he is such a diligent, thoughtful, and hard-working elected official. I'm grateful for his advice and mentorship, and impressed that he stays up on all the statewide policy issues as well as managing the local ones. We'd be lucky to have him in the Senate.





California State Assembly: 

Re-elect Buffy Wicks, Mia Bonta and Liz Ortega

Hooray for progressive diligent incumbents-- there aren't enough of them on this ballot!





Superior Court Judge, Office #12: Mark Fickes

Mark is a public school parent and a dedicated and brilliant legal mind.





Alameda County Board of Education, Area 2: 

Angela Normand

Angela is endorsed by all four of her colleagues on the Board, which is a sign they are working well together. I've even heard positive things from some of those who opposed her when she first ran four years ago. We're lucky she is running again for this important role in our education ecosystem.





Alameda County Supervisor, District 4: 

Jennifer Esteen

Jen is a fresh voice of change, bringing new ideas for improving public safety and public health to a seat that has been held by Supervisor Nate Miley for 24 years. Her energy, forward-thinking ideas, and responsiveness will be welcome. She is also a public school parent and understands how the County could bring their great resources to bear to support our schools.





Alameda County Supervisor, District 5: 

Nikki Fortunato Bas

This is another generational change, as Keith Carson retires after 32 years in office. Like Dan Kalb, Nikki is a very hard-working Oakland City Councilmember, currently serving as its president.



Nikki's responsiveness and communicativeness to her constituents have motivated other councilmembers to step up their game. While some blame Nikki for the current level of crime in Oakland, I don’t believe that any one person bears that responsibility: we shouldn't judge Nikki because she chose to take on elected office at one of the most challenging times in Oakland's history, rather we should celebrate her for all she has done to help us get through the pandemic and to take on Oakland's tremendous headaches. 



As supervisor, she would make sure the County's tremendous resources are used more effectively to address homelessness, safety, health and education.





Measures:

Measure B: YES

Would align the rules for Alameda County recall elections with the state's, to reduce confusion. 



(I don't support recalls except in extreme circumstances, because we need to give elected officials time to learn how to do their jobs before replacing them with other newbies who will likely not do any better.)



Measure D: YES

Would allow the City of Oakland to continue implementing existing parcel taxes, with no increase in taxes.



Measure H: YES

Would renew a Berkeley parcel tax that supports schools, with no increase in taxes. I led the 2022 Measure H campaign in Oakland to support our schools, and this one is the same general idea and even the same letter, just on the other side of the border!



Some awesome student work seen this week at Life Academy, an excellent 6th-12th grade program in Fruitvale for students who are exploring careers in medicine, life science, or public health.

samdavisforoaklandschools.org is paid for by Davis for Oakland School Board 2024, FPPC #1464418. It is not sponsored by or hosted by the Oakland Unified School District.