May 29: Support Transferred and Fired Oakland Teachers

Community Planning Meeting for May 29 rally: Tomorrow (Sunday) 2PM, Temescal Branch, Oakland Library (5205 Telegraph Ave)

Rally in Support of
the Transferred and the Fired
Wednesday, May 29, 2002, 5:30PM,
Oakland Unified School District Board Meeting, 1025
2nd Avenue

I spent my day yesterday at Castlemont HS helping with their career day as a substitute and interviewing teachers, students and staff. I have come to the conclusion that the transfers and layoffs at Castlemont represent a significant battle and a
defining point in this stage of our deeper battle for
racial and economic justice in education. At
Castlemont five teachers were laid off with March 15
letters and five were involuntarily transferred in
April. This represents about 1 in 10 teachers at
Castlemont and has created a feeling of distrust and
lack of security amongst Castlemont teachers and
teachers throughout the District. It represents a
fight for racial and economic justice because there
would be no possibility that these teachers would have
been attacked this way in another District where the
problems students and teachers are facing are not as
great. When Superintendent Dennis Chaconas referred
to these fired and transferred teachers, he sited that
only 1 in 4 students graduate from Castlemont. In
saying this he implied that this was a problem created
by bad teachers, rather than lack of adequate
resources at school and poverty at home, and that
firing or transferring these teachers was the solution
to the problem.

Here are some of the assessments of teachers and
students to whom I spoke:
-Students felt that the process was disruptive, and
felt slighted that they had not been involved in the
process. They felt that it was truly hurting their
education to transfer and fire people who were
supporting them and cared about them. Students were
almost entirely positive about the teachers who were
fired or transferred. Some described these teachers
as the “best teachers in the school”.
-One teacher who I talked to felt that it would have
been OK to fire him and others if they were doing a
bad job, but none of them had ever been critiqued, and
generally they had not been evaluated. This teacher
said that in 3 years at Castlemont he had been
evaluated for a total of about an hour and a quarter.
This teacher explained that the lesson of the
situation was that the Oakland schools were the
hardest job he had ever had. He explained that the
District was showing that one should not bet their
future of Oakland, that it sent a message that no
matter what ones commitment was that they could be
discarded at any point.
-One involuntarily transferred teacher has been
teaching at Castlemont HS for 32 years and almost
everyone I spoke with mentioned what a tremendous
teacher she has been. People said how her transfer
represented the indignity and unfairness of the
process.
-Another of the laid off teachers had been teaching
for 30 years, his last two years at Castlemont. The
first thing he said to me was that it was simply
unfair what had happened.
-Another teacher who was laid off was the head of the
math reform project, had been teaching in Castlemont
for four years, and was one of the founders of the
Algebra Project 20 years ago while doing his
post-doctoral degree. He is fully credentialed, has a
BS in Math, and an MA and PhD in applied math. He is
one of the committed teachers who spent last summer
working with students in summer school, and helped the
three other Geometry teachers who were not
credentialed.
-None of the teachers I spoke with had ever been
spoken to prior to their transfer or layoff about
problems the new principal had with them. None of
them had ever been given suggestions or support if
they were making mistakes.
Please Join Us at the School Board Meeting, Wednesday,
May 29, 2002, to Take a Stand!
For More Information Contact: Jonah Zern at
510.654.8613, jzern1 [at] yahoo.com or the Oakland
Education Association office at 510.763.4020