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Thursday, August 5, 2010

No one’s running for school board! The Education Report

The Education Report

No one’s running for school board!

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 4:07 pm in School board news

OK, they have until 5 p.m. Friday to make their candidacy official, so there’s probably no need to panic just yet. But as your trusty source for Oakland school news, I feel you should know that as of a few minutes ago, not a single person had filed in any of the three Oakland school board races (Districts 2, 4, or 6).
Not even the (would-be) incumbents.
The person I spoke with at the clerk’s office said candidates often wait until the last week to tell the world that they’re running for office, but that this was pretty unusual. Maybe no one wants to be an Oakland school board member right now — and who could blame them, really?
School board member David Kakishiba and Jose Rocha, a pre-admissions counselor for Cal State East Bay, pulled papers for District 2, but Rocha tells me that because of an “unforeseen reason,” he’s no longer planning to run.

Parcel tax for Oakland teachers, Take 2

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 11:06 am in budget, charter schools, teachers

Will two-thirds of Oakland’s voters approve a parcel tax that would generate about $20 million a year for teachers and other school employees — and cost property owners $195 per year?
Will the teachers union, itself, back the measure this time around?
Troy Flint, a spokesman for the Oakland school district, said proceeds from the levy would amount to raises of about 6 percent for school staff (”teachers, teachers’ aides, safety officers and other student support staff,” as the summary reads ). The text of the Nov. 2 measure doesn’t spell out how those raises would be distributed.