Oakland Unified parents upset after seeing data about how students are doing
On Wednesday night, parents and students in the Oakland Unified School District were organizing for a rally and march on the district's meeting.
A local parents' group said they'd seen the data showing how students are doing academically, and they don't like what it shows. And they are demanding that the district be more transparent about the situation.
Cecilia Perez-Cervantes had her hands full with two young children bouncing around the house. But next year they both start school, and she said she hopes they'll do as well as her older daughter who is on her middle school's honor roll with a 4.0 gpa.
Still, she planned to be one of the people marching on the district's meeting.
"Just because my child is doing good doesn't mean other kids are," she said. "So, I do want everybody to be aware of the data. That's our goal for the march, is just to bring the data to everybody's front doors."
A parent's advocacy group called Families in Action was organizing the protest. Founder and CEO Kimi Kean said they've pored through the district's data and found some pretty damning results.
"80 percent of Black and Brown students here in Oakland cannot read at grade level," she said.
Kean said the district promised last year to commit to improving minority academic performance, but the results have been slow to come.
"I think we had a two percent increase in reading/math," she said. "If we keep continuing at this really slow pace, it's going to take four generations for all of our kids to be at grade level. For our parents and youth, that's just not OK."
She blamed a lot of it on a lack of transparency, saying many parents simply don't understand how poorly their school may be doing. So, they had three demands.
They want schools to post their performance scores for all to see.
They want there to be better collaboration between the schools and home.
The third demand might be surprising to some. They want the district to stop wasting resources on having so many small schools.
"How about we condense the schools," said Cecilia. "How about we make it from about 80 schools to 40 schools? And we make those 40 schools really good schools?
That's ironic, because for several years, the district had been suggesting closing or consolidating schools. But each time, parents at those schools turned out in massive protests against it.
"I know," said Perez-Cervantes. "I feel like they're not given the data, and they don't understand why."
Families in Action was also angry that, during such a time of turmoil, it was revealed that the district is considering firing long-time Superintendent Kyla Johnson Trammell, despite giving her a new three-year contract in 2024.
It is once again something that is being discussed behind closed doors and without informing parents.
"We are angry, but peacefully angry," said Cecilia. "I tell my family, this is my angry mob pitchfork," she said, holding up a sign shaped like a large heart covered in flowers. "Because we're coming with love. We want our children to succeed."
Neither she nor anyone else at Families in Action claims to have all the answers about how the schools should operate. They simply point to the results and say something has to change — quickly. And they would like to be kept informed about what's going on.
