oakland-teachers-planning-strike

Oakland Teachers Planning Strike For Contract, Working Conditions, Salaries

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The woman above is Oakland Teacher (and Teacher Scholar) Kathryn Ruggiero (actually, an instructor at Oakland Tech High School at the time) who was walking around the Lake Merritt Farmers Market on the Saturday I interviewed her in June 18th 2016. She was in search of affordable housing and a giant sign on her person that said so. The 18-year Oakland teacher was having a hard go of finding an affordable new place to live, and to make matters worse, was asked to move out of her then-current home. She was under a time crunch.

Kathryn Ruggiero was complaining to me about how expensive housing had become in Oakland. But that’s just one of the many issues facing Oakland teachers like Kathryn Ruggiero.

In this year, 2018, Oakland Teachers Union members have held demonstrations to bring attention to the need for a Living Wage, smaller class size, and student supports. So far, their calls have fallen on deaf ears.

And the Oakland Teachers Union posted this paragraph after a meeting at my old elementary school, Allendale: “Allendale is ready to fight for the schools our students deserve! OUSD must end the teacher retention crisis. #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA.” See:

While the Oakland Teachers plan for a walk-out on December 15th (and part of a California-wide protest), the Oakland Unified School District continues to recruit for substitute teachers via social media:

The best way out of this situation is for Oakland schools to have access to the property tax revenue dollar that’s divided up between the City of Oakland, The County of Alameda, BART, AC Transit, and the flood control district. Imagine a school redevelopment area? Why does tax increment financing have to be for private developers, only? Why can’t that money be used to make a better public school, where it’s needed?

Until then…

Raise Your Hand To Help Oakland Teachers at https://twitter.com/TeachersOfOak

Stay tuned…