Early Tuesday morning, on what would have been the 18th day of the Sit-in and 12th day of the People’s School, OUSD police and other Oakland area police forces raided the encampment and school. While participants were allowed to remove their items, the police arrested a parent as well as a former Lakeview student, and subsequently constructed a fence to block entrance to the school.
Lakeview Elementary has been a fixture of this neighborhood for nearly 100 years and supported the development of thousands of Oakland children. The moving trucks that began to arrive this morning to clear out classrooms highlight the question: should Oakland allow this space, so central to the vitality of the community, to be dismantled and made into district offices. The Lakeview building was critical to the maintenance of the People’s School. Although we have been evicted from a school that belongs to the community this does not signify defeat, nor that the group has given up on the fight for quality education. The People’s School will