Parents and teachers know first-hand the issues in the schools, and what kinds of changes will help our students. I have been in the Oakland schools as a public school parent, and before that a teacher, for 17 years. As active parents, we went to school board meetings innumerable times to advocate for protecting school site budgets when cuts were being made. We advocated for big changes, like Measure N (Linked Learning), which raised graduation rates across the city, as well as leading with many other volunteer projects, policy initiatives, and ballot measures over the years. Through this work I developed relationships across the district, learned what works and doesn’t in our schools, and saw the importance of involving families and school staff in creating policy if it is to take root and create lasting change in OUSD.

Much of my volunteer work has been with Faith in Action East Bay, formerly OCO, where I serve on the board of directors. I also have experience as a member and site representative for OEA from my time as a teacher.

Over the past year and a half, I have been developing relationships with parents and educators at every public school in District 1. This district can learn a lot from other parts of Oakland where parent organizations are more diverse, and there are more systems to lift up the voices of parents of color. As the Family Outreach Coordinator at Manzanita Seed Elementary for three years, I learned a great deal about supporting families of color at schools.

Finally, in my professional life at UC, I have worked for 5 years on the Transcript Evaluation Service, a data project to increase college eligibility for historically underserved students. This gives me experience in analyzing, understanding and presenting numerical data to the public.

For more information, visit my website: www.samdavisforoaklandschools.org

The pandemic has exposed even more starkly the inequities in our society and in our schools. The biggest issue is lack of funding for education, since California is 41st out of 50 states in per-pupil funding. Secondly, our enrollment system creates tremendous concentrations of need at some schools, and concentration of privilege at others. This includes charter schools, since many do not serve students with special needs, newcomer students, and other groups at the same rate as district schools.

Structural racism and income inequality are the root causes of inequity that our schools do much to overcome. Yet they could do more. Some of the solutions are: disrupting the current patterns of enrollment inequality; recruiting more teachers and staff of color in our schools and creating more pathways for classified staff to move into teaching roles; and using an equity formula for allocating school budgets.

Another enormous issue in our schools is teacher and staff retention. This is partly due to the district’s lower pay scale, but schools have different turnover rates based on their school culture and climate. We need to incentivize teachers to stay at flatlands schools, so that we don’t see concentrations of experienced teachers at schools in the hills.

If there was more trust in the district, and specifically better relationships between the board and labor, we could resolve our problems more quickly. When questionable financial practices are a thing of the past, and there is real transparency and community engagement in our budgeting and decision-making, then there will be more unity of purpose and an ability to move forward together to address the big issues we confront.

Every penny of district funds should be spent wisely to help our students succeed. Yet for years OUSD has gone from crisis to crisis, amid many allegations of improprieties and poor decisions. It is clear Superintendent Johnson-Trammell has made big strides towards improving financial management after the misdeeds of the previous superintendent and CBO. And I am hopeful that the new CBO, Lisa Grant-Dawson, and COO, Preston Thomas, will continue to move this work in the right direction. But it is not enough to hope; we need a board that will set high standards and hold the superintendent to them. Haven’t your best managers had high expectations of you?

And many bad practices persist: contracts coming to the board for approval after work has already commenced; consultants being hired because of relationships within the district; and paying rent at 1000 Broadway for office space when we have so much vacant space in district-owned buildings. Many question why the district spends so much on consultants and contracts, so I would insist on transparent information on this issue.

Resources should also get pushed out to schools as much as possible to serve students. Schools use ‘zero-based budgeting,’ where their budgets are built from scratch every year based on their needs, yet central office positions and departments are assumed to persist from year to year unless there are cuts. Too often, philanthropy has created positions at the central level that continue even after the funding that created them has expired.

Again, we should have a transparent process where the community and our labor partners can see and weigh in on how we are allocating our funds. This kind of open process will help the board to create a stable, long-term budget and to restore trust in the district’s finances.

As a 3rd grade teacher, I walked into school every day feeling the weight of the responsibility I had for the students in my class. I knew their families sent them to my classroom each morning trusting I would do everything I could to ensure their intellectual, social, and emotional growth. My students’ success was my #1 priority.

I’m running for school board because I believe we need leaders who understand that responsibility, who know that the most important factor in a child’s education is the quality of their teacher, and who put students first with each and every decision they make.

My time as a classroom teacher was the beginning of a life and career devoted to improving public education - from early childhood through college. As the first person in my family to graduate from college, I know how quality, affordable public education can change a person’s life. I believe that opportunity should be a reality for every student.

After teaching, I founded an after-school literacy program that worked with both students and their families. Together, we deepened family literacy through the lens of social and economic justice - exploring writing that inspired us to take action to address inequality in our local communities. At the same time, I coached football at my neighborhood high school and organized community groups for a nationwide campaign dedicated to improving economic opportunity and social mobility.

I spent years working on education policy; advocating at the national, state, and local local levels for equitable, high-quality public education - from ensuring students with special needs were fully supported to expanding programs for English language learners to enabling districts to adopt personalized learning for every child. I have evaluated budgets for large school districts, managed large-scale contract processes, and worked with community stakeholders to ensure the success of new initiatives.

As a business owner, I know how to manage organizations, budgets, and operations towards success. I founded Friday, a company focused on improving education, economic opportunity, and community development. We have worked alongside clients to launch innovative early childhood literacy programs, dismantle inequities in higher education, improve student success, advocate for environmental and economic justice, expand access to fair banking, and connect unemployed young adults to careers.

I know that many of our education systems have not served everyone equally and volunteer my time working to address those inequities. I currently serve on the advisory board of an alternative college program that provides pathways to a college degree for working adults. I’m also an English professor with the Prison University Project at San Quentin where I serve incarcerated learners looking to deepen their education.

As a school board member, I will bring experienced, creative leadership for educational equity. I will draw on all of my experience for the benefit of students, teachers, school leaders, and families.