Open Letter: Labor Leaders Support the Lakeview Sit-In and People’s School
by Danny Weil
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are writing to declare our support for the parents, teachers, and community member sit-in and People’s School for Public Education at Lakeview Elementary in Oakland, and to urge full labor support and outreach for this fight to keep all Oakland neighborhood schools open, public, and fully funded, and to oppose the anti-union policies of the Oakland school district administration.
At the end of this school year, the Oakland Unified School District closed 5 public elementary schools, displacing over 1,000 students. The school district plans to convert some of these school buildings into district administration offices, and to turn the others over to privately controlled (and non-union) charter schools. This continues a downward spiral of cuts, downsizing, privatization, and union-busting that has decimated Oakland public education, and has been particularly devastating to schools and students in the black and brown communities.
In protest of the school closures and the privatization of OUSD, on June 15 parents, teachers, students and community members launched a sit-in at one of the closed schools, Lakeview Elementary, and re-opened the school’s doors for the “People’s School for Public Education”, a free social justice summer program for children in pre-K through 6th grade.
Specifically, here are their demands:
Don’t close the 5 schools. Keep all neighborhood schools open.
- Stop union busting: defend the OEA and all school worker unions
- Repudiate the state debt
- Fully fund quality public education for all
- Demand OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith reopen all closed schools or resign
What is the background to this struggle?
