Tag Archives: KQED American Graduate

Local

Oakland Tribune: School lunches, revamped: Food service employees meet in Oakland to share ideas, recipes

September 25th, 2012
By Katy Murphy

Donna Irby has worked behind the cafeteria lines for 13 years, serving meals at dozens of Oakland schools. But only recently has she been able to do what she loves with any regularity: cook food from scratch.

Those were the kind of lunches she remembered from her school days, before school districts shifted to prepackaged, processed fare that could be bought and served cheaply, without a working kitchen.

Now, despite their shoestring budgets and countless other obstacles, Oakland and many other California school districts are working to bring more cooking back to the cafeteria — this time, with an emphasis on local, seasonal produce and flavors from different regions of the world.

“This is the direction we need to go and, like I say, this is a long time coming,” Irby said.

On Monday, food service employees from 21 counties statewide, including Alameda, San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin, shared ideas and recipes at a two-day conference, “Rethinking School Lunch,” organized by the Berkeley-based Center for Ecoliteracy. The conference, held at the Oakland Museum of California, is covering everything from innovative ways to buy local food for school meals to the nutritional benefits of scratch cooking.

To read more.

 

Local

Oakland Tribune:Oakland schools launch anti-bullying campaign by showing 'Bully' documentary

September 17th, 2012
By Katy Murphy

Busloads of teenagers streamed into a movie theater in Oakland’s Jack London Square on Monday morning, past their superintendent of schools and the director of the film they were about to see.

In the next two weeks, 14,000 Oakland middle and high school students will watch “Bully” with their classmates. It’s a wrenching documentary about the devastating and sometimes deadly consequences of bullying — especially when school personnel don’t take it seriously.

“I spent most of my childhood being bullied,” Lee Hirsch, the director, told the young audience as he stood before the big screen. “I used to get hit so much that my arms were yellow from top to bottom. … I couldn’t make it stop.”

Then he made a request: “As you watch this movie, think about the ways in which you can make a difference.”

Last week, the Oakland school board updated its anti-bullying policy; the screening is part of a broader effort to address bullying in the schools. A new law that took effect July 1 has forced California school districts throughout the state to revise their handling of bullying, harassment and discrimination complaints.

“Seth’s Law” is named after Seth Walsh, a gay 13-year-old from Tehachapi in Kern County, who was harassed by classmates and later took his life. The law establishes a timeline for the investigation and resolution of such incidents and requires school personnel who witness acts of bullying to intervene. One of the administrators featured in “Bully,” Kim Lockwood, is shown repeatedly minimizing complaints of bullying from students and parents, even those which involved serious physical abuse.

To read more.

Local

The Education Report: In Oakland, new player eligibility rules and forfeited games

September 20th, 2012
Written by Katy Murphy

Castlemont High has canceled its second football game on Friday because it lacks enough eligible players.

Skyline High, a school of nearly 2,000 students, forfeited its very first football game of the season — also, because it couldn’t field a team. At the time, its coach wrote a widely circulated letter to Superintendent Tony Smith saying the Oakland Athletic League’s new rules were keeping many of his otherwise-eligible players off the field.

The new rules, passed in the spring by high school principals who sit on the Oakland Athletic League policy committee, caused a big stir and plenty of confusion and alarm in the prep sports world. The policy originally stated that a student needed an overall 2.0 GPA, or C average, to be eligible (rather than a 2.0 in the previous marking period) as well as a certain number of credits. If not, the student would be sidelined for the entire school year.

So in the last few weeks, after plenty of, well, `input’ from coaches and others, the policy has softened. The GPA policy went back to the way it used to be (and the same as nearly every other league).

And perhaps more significantly, some players with poor academic records will have a second chance to participate on a team if they show they’re making up credits and raising their GPAs — if not for the fall season, possibly for a sport they play in the winter or spring. The OAL policy committee on Wednesday created an appeal process for players who are behind on credits or who received a GPA below a 2.0 in their last 6-week marking period.

What’s new this year, after all of the changes, has to do with making sure players aren’t falling behind on their course credits.

To read more.

Local, Research

KQED Education and American Graduate Present: Fall 2012 STEM Educator Training Series

Join KQED Education for a free four-part professional development series designed to support middle and high school STEM educators. Learn to integrate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education in the classroom while earning up to $250 in educator stipends. Sign up for one workshop or attend all four! Space is limited register today!

To learn more.

About KQED's American Graduate, National

Public Media to Launch First-Ever AMERICAN GRADUATE DAY on September 22, 2012

September 21, 2012

September 22, 2012 is American Graduate Day, a multi- platform event featuring a live television broadcast, radio playlist with premiere documentaries, and participation from more than 20 national partner organizations, celebrities and athletes to spotlight solutions to the nation’s dropout crisis in which one in four students do not finish high school. Viewers and listeners will be encouraged to become an “American Graduate Champion” by offering their time, donating resources, connecting with the organizations on social media or learning more about the crisis. American Graduate Day is part of the public media initiative, American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

With special guests including Michael Powell, representing America’s Promise Alliance, and PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Ray Suarez, the national television broadcast will air live on public television stations from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center from 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. EST on Sept. 22 (check their local listings). The event will feature 20 national organizations that are working with local public media stations to help young people stay in school and on track for on-time graduation, segments about local community groups, compelling stories from students themselves, and highlights from PBS national and local content – from PBS NewsHour and Need to Know to Jim Glassman’s Ideas in Action and Tavis Smiley Reports: Too Important To Fail. The broadcast will also include the premiere of a new student film from Reel Works New York and a preview of the upcoming FRONTLINE documentary, Dropout Nation.

To read and watch more.

Local

KQED News: Oakland Schools Try New Model to Provide Safe Place for Youth

September 13, 2012
Written by Barbara Grady

McClymonds High School juniors Starletta Andrews and Astiee Carver remember how tough it was to find a safe place to hang out with friends after school this time last year.

“It’s not safe to hang outside, even outside of the school,” Astiee said about the streets surrounding this West Oakland high school.

But now, thanks to the full service community school strategy of the Oakland Unified School District, McClymonds teenagers have a brightly painted lounge with couches and games and books to hang out in or their choice of a computer room or a dance workout room at the new McClymond’s Youth and Family Center. Moreover, they have access to tutors, counselors and peer mentors all at the place a mere walk across the parking lot from their school.

To read more.

Research

KQED The California Report: School Suspensions Highlight Different Discipline Standards

Sep 11, 2012
Written by Ana Tintocalis

UCLA researchers shocked the education community last spring when they found California public schools issued over 700,000 suspensions last year, mostly to black and Latino students. The study touched off a statewide effort to find out how schools apply discipline.

To hear more.

Local

KQED Perspectives: One Man's Education

Sep 13, 2012
Written by Carlyn Bynes

Young. Black. Poor. From Oakland. If someone heard that description, they probably wouldn’t picture someone well-spoken and educated. But I want to change the way the world looks at people like me.

When I was born, according to the U.S. Census, I had a 30 percent chance of being born into poverty because my parents were African-American. And I was poor.

Having no money introduced me to a life of humility. I was constantly borrowing from others and asking for favors. Hunger was no stranger to me, either.

To hear more.

 

Events, Local, National, Youth Media

Behind "An American Graduate" Album

BAVC Blog
August 14, 2012
Written by: Chris Runde

Since March of this year, musicians and filmmakers in BAVC’s Next Gen youth programs have been contributing to a nationwide project focusing on the high school dropout crisis in the United States. Supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, American Graduate is a public media initiative created in response to the staggering 1.3 million young people who drop out of high school each year. The project engages with 68 public broadcasting stations and 300 community partners throughout the country to create locally-based solutions and media content.
Working in partnership with KQED, youth from BAVC’s Factory and BUMP Records programs were recruited to create work that documents the state of the American educational system as experienced by the students in it. Artists in BUMP Records recently completed a compilation of music that explores the complexity of the situation in Oakland, California. Touching on topics like the links between education level and income/incarceration, student alienation, and the challenges faced by teachers working in the system, the songs approach difficult subject matter with nuance and honesty. The album, An American Graduate, can be downloaded for free at BUMP Records’ Bandcamp site: http://bumprecords.bandcamp.com/
In support of the album release and larger project goals, BUMP artists Bhindi G, JustKidding and 3ss3ns3 performed a short selection of songs from An American Graduate on Saturday, August 18 at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland.
Visit: KQED’s Sound Cloud site to listen to the album.