A group of teachers in Oakland are on a hunger strike to protest a plan to close and merge over a dozen schools that activists say will displace hundreds of Black and Brown children from their neighborhood schools.
It happened in Chicago under Rahm Emanuel. So it’s been a process in all these major cities now of this. What is the argument that the Oakland school board says why they have to close these schools?It’s a laughable one, and one that I was really glad to witness. They proposed it at the board meeting. They were on full display and showed these magic numbers and gave reasons that were antiquated as to why they want to close our schools, which were that our schools are under-enrolled.
Another reason was to save money for them, which is about $14 million, which only equates to about 2% of their budget. They have many other options they can choose as to how to save this money versus using Black and Brown bodies and taking away community hubs that have been in our communities for over 150 years, at the stroke of a pen or at the click of a Zoom button.Moses Omolade, the vote is tonight. I mean, it is astounding that 2,000 people logged in to the school board meeting.
But right now we’re not stopping. This movement is no school closures at all and no mergers at all. So, San-Chez and I will be on this until they decide to inject some humanity into the process by which they choose to close schools and engage with our community about these choices.And what’s your assessment of the political leadership of Oakland in the face of this? Are they 100% behind this, or can they be moved to pressure the school board?They can be moved.
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