Alma Reyes, a parent of a middle school student at Unified for Success, talks about how she gets in touch with teachers during the Parent-Teacher Summit on Thursday evening at International Community School.
Oakland North
Posted on April 27, 2012
Written by Ryan Phillips
Teachers want parents to be more involved, and parents want to know teachers are doing their best to educate their children. While that may sound easy to accomplish, it becomes impossible when the two sides don’t communicate.
On Thursday evening, parents and teachers from schools around the Oakland Unified School District gathered in the gymnasium of the International Community School in the Fruitvale area to talk about how to overcome communication barriers and learn how parents and teachers can better work together.
Truly CA Shorts is KQED’s monthly podcast of short documentary films by California filmmakers. Serious to absurd, the truth is always stranger than fiction!
Poetry Inside Out captures the struggle of bilingual kids who are crossing boundaries of culture and language within Bay Area public schools. The documentary follows several ethnically diverse students in San Francisco and Oakland over a year-long period. Coming from families where English may be the second or even third language, Carmen, Ke’Shae, Gentail, Caroline, Ricardo, and their friends create imaginative worlds of dragons, space aliens, love, and death in a unique writing program based on literary translation. The students’ spirited and insightful poems transcend their imperfect urban world.
Teacher evaluations — And Surveys of Students and Colleagues
Posted on April 25, 2012
Written by: Dave Orphal
In my last post, I offered an overview of a proposed teacher evaluation system that two Oakland schools are piloting. The proposed system would replace the six performance criteria outlined in the California Standards for the Teaching Profession in favor of five new, but remarkably similar, criteria. I also examined one major departure from the current system of teacher evaluation, specifically the use of student performance data.
In this post, we will look at another significant difference from the current and piloted systems: feedback from a teacher’s students and colleagues.
The proposed teacher evaluation system will add a component called 360-Degree Feedback. In essence, this is corporate jargon for using multiple perspectives and sources of information to inform an evaluation. Jargon aside, I applaud the effort to draw in more voices and viewpoints that just one administrator’s in the evaluation of a teacher.
Originally aired on Forum with Michael Krasny, April 24, 2012
More than 30 students have been suspended from Berkeley High School for breaking into the school’s attendance system and changing records. We begin with a look at the Berkeley High scandal, and then we’ll discuss cheating more generally with David Callahan, author of “The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.” Listen to more.
A New Teacher Evaluation System Being Tested at Two OUSD Schools
The Education Blog
April 23, 2012
Written By Dave Orphal
Dave Orphal, a teacher at Skyline High School in Oakland, will write a series of blog posts for The Education Report about teacher evaluations — including a pilot program that two middle schools are using this year. He serves as a veteran teacher leader for the Bay Area New Millennium Initiative and works with the California Teachers Association’s Institute for Teaching. You can read more of Dave’s thoughts on teaching and educational reform at TransformED.
In the last session of the OEA/OUSD teacher conference last Saturday, I sat in a session about a new teacher-evaluation system piloted by two Oakland schools. Like my own school, these two are under interdict from the state and federal education authorities to dramatically remodel themselves because their test scores remain unsatisfactory.
The schools applied for, and received, a federal grant to help them with their remodeling. One of the conditions for the money is to revamp their teacher evaluation system so that student achievement data is included. Additionally, the new system will have to include provisions for teacher improvement, reward, and removal.
The panel talking about the evaluation system included teachers, principals, and district personnel in charge of school transformation. Read More
KDOL production made possible with funds from the City of Oakland
KDOL Video Production
Producer: Mario Capitelli
Director: David Castaneda
Cameras: Mario Capitelli
Grip: Juan Lopez-Rivera
Graphics: David Castaneda
Post Production: David Castaneda
My classmates did a great job presenting! The response at the convention was great!
We practiced all morning with two practice sessions for both groups. They then began to practice on their own to better themselves. When we finally got done practicing we got in our vans and left the house. Driving to the center we began to see all the different looking places that looked amazing, and we saw three different types of communities like the urban, middle, and very poor communities. When we got up to the AERA convention we walked up to the room, then waited for a minute until it was time to go in. We were finally able to go in the room where my classmates would be presenting. We got set up and begin as planned. When the presentation was finished, many people were very surprised at the true effort that was shown in their work.
Jeff Duncan-Andrade and Step to College students
After we were done with the Q&A we headed to dinner with the small Maori community from New Zealand. The night with the Maori community was very interesting and stimulating. I feel like I learned a lot from them even some of their language was being taught to us in the restaurant. The Maori were very generous and so full of life, it was pretty new to us and we all got along very fast and quickly became close to them like family. When we left we took many pictures and finally got to our cars and headed back to our house, and later on picked up our new Maori friends to play some games. The most memorable game I remember was Night Mafia. We played the game for hours, almost until 2am.
On Sunday we had a pretty fun day by going to a place called Capilano. They had a suspension bridge, it was very interesting. We then went to a place called Granville Island for a couple hours. Some of us watched outdoor entertainers doing stunts and tricks involving fire and other things, while others went to the indoor market. We left and went to the Vancouver’s downtown “strip” and bought many items. Later we came back to the house had an amazing dinner and played more games.
On our way home the Step students and staff began to talk about the beautiful and inspiring presentation they presented. Our faces grinning from ear to ear from the excitement knowing they did great and people loved the things they talked about, like about our schools and equal learning conditions.
We had a lot of fun and I enjoyed every bit of this whole trip. I think the best part was seeing the presentations unravel so professionally possible of course there was a few things that went wrong but they were able to not show fear or weaknesses when something was not 100.
My friends and TA’s experienced many exiting things and here are a couple people that had something to say:
“The trip was fun and I think the presentation was exhilarating. Also Canadian play structures are dangerous.” – Darrell Tingle
“I’m extremely proud of all the young people because the day of the presentation you all really taught people what social justice is about. Your powerful voices shined through in your presentation and the “question and answer” session reflected the strength of your leadership and the power of the community. Life is like a “question and answer” session, your purpose will always be questioned. To me, your critical response shows a genuine level of growth and leadership.” – Gladys Puente (Staff)
Originally aired on Forum with Michael Krasny
April 17, 2012
Van Jones is well-known in the Bay Area for founding several locally based social justice and environmental groups. He rose to national fame through his work on green jobs, which took him all the way to Washington. Now he has written a book about his time in the Obama administration. Van Jones joined Forum to discuss “Rebuild the Dream,” a memoir and a call to action around his latest passions: student debt and foreclosures. Listen to this insightful program.
Written by Sydnee Logan
Posted on April 14, 2012
Okay, so this has been a very exiting trip so far! My classmates and I have been stressed out, but still super exited about being in Canada, I personally cannot wait for us to get in Canada and see the communities of Vancouver. The early morning (3am!) trip to the airport was very new to us and we loved every bit of it. The wait on the plane was worth it. It was the first time flying for one of my classmates and I, and it was great to see that experiences firsthand. When we took off the plane ride was pretty bumpy and moving faster than I thought. When we got above the clouds it was smooth sailing from there. Soon everyone was falling asleep and even myself later from total fatigue.
I awoke to the loud voice of the flight attendant, my ears ringing and popping from the air pressure. I think that moment was the worst moment of the whole flight, but I also realized we were flying above Seattle. We finally landed in the airport and walked to the check in place then got us our vans and we tried our best to leave but the garage was like a maze with spiraling avant-garde art. We finally start driven and we finally came up to the border of Seattle and Canada. We get through, but the car full of my other class mates got pulled over in the border lines and they had to get out the car and give the information to the border patrol. We then are able to leave and we immediately headed to the AERA convention center, were Step would be presenting. I am looking forward to seeing my friend’s excel tomorrow. Working to be at our best we then practiced one more time and left to see the beautiful communities of Canada. We then got to our rented home in the north of Vancouver. The house looks really nice we ordered some pizza and everyone got back to work practicing their scripts, I know we will do great tomorrow. I will be recording the whole thing and posting it up on YouTube with my blog.
Here are the comments of my classmates about the first day.
“Hey I was pretty happy about the plane ride because I haven’t been on one for a while. The car ride was okay because I got to see the nice buildings of Canada then it was a pretty long ride. I am exited about presenting I literally cannot wait!” –(Nixon Callejas)
“I felt very nervous about the plane ride and I felt like it was too long. The car ride was even longer; we were sitting in those cars for hours I think my bottom fell asleep. I can’t wait to present tomorrow but I so nervous I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight. I also thought that the buildings were very unique and something I didn’t expect from Canada over all this is an exiting experience.” –(Rebecca Pine)
Currently, a few of my classmates and I from Step are preparing to attend and present at the American Educational Research Association Conference also known as AERA. This year the conference is being held in Vancouver, Canada on April 13th through the 17th. In our previous two years, my classmates presented at the AERA conference in New Orleans and Denver. AERA is a convention for teachers, researchers, and other people that are interested in learning about effective schooling, teaching and pedagogy.
The reason we are attending this conference is to present on our Build Your Own School (BYOS) project. The unit is about us literally trying to tell people about the resources we need as a community to improve Oakland Public Schools, and schools like it in America. For this project we conducted our own research and will share what we found. The reason we feel this is so important is because we attend an Oakland Public School and know how ineffective they can be, but also know effective schooling with our Step program. We believe that we should have the best opportunity to learn and experience school, like everybody else.
To prepare for this trip we have been working hard every day (weekends and on our spring break!!!) on our power-point to practice our presentation and put finishing touches on the short films we created. We look forward to sharing our research with people in Canada and around the world.
My classmates and I have a mixture of excitement and worry going into this trip. The School Structure research team consists of Rebecca Pina, Darrell Tingle, Charlie Va, D’Shari Frison, and Daryl McDaniel; and the Leadership research team consists of Nixon Callejas, Mohammed Taleb, Naja Herron, Javote Long, and Nick Ross.
Here are some of their initial reactions:
“I am stoked out about leaving the country, I am going to meet as many people as possible and I am buying so many souvenirs.”-Nick
“I am excited about leaving. I am excited about getting on the plane and happy about doing a presentation in another country. My main worry is that we have to come back to Oakland so soon.”-Nixon
“I am excited and can’t wait to meet new people and explore Canada. Well my biggest worries/fears is to get on a plane and to be away from my mother.”-D’Shari
“I am very excited about leaving to Canada and being in a new place because I am very nervous. Well I don’t have any worries because I have been on a plane before so I know what to expect.”-Rebecca
Teacher evaluations — And Surveys of Students and Colleagues
Written by Sydnee Logan