The GR Project Podcast: Oakland Education Innovation
Four previous GR Project guests come back to speak openly and directly about how they are thinking about moving forward after the latest Oakland teachers' strike. The group discusses timescales for change, alignment of action to those timescales and how to balance the need to survive with the desire to thrive.
Productions and content by some of the guests in this episode:
Dr. Charles Cole’s Ph.D dissertation
Paula Mitchell has incorporated hands on learning from the beginning of her 25+ year career as an Oakland educator. Paula believes in fostering equity and providing access to high quality educational STEAM programs to historically underserved and underrepresented populations through a focus on culturally responsive making and authentic inclusion for students with disabilities. She is delighted that her job as a Teacher on Special Assignment for Maker-Centered Learning at Grass Valley Elementary School allows her to bring more hands-on, minds-on learning to the community she loves. As a part of this work, Paula developed her school's very first maker education/project-based learning program and its very first makerspace, the Wonder Workshop.
Paula has also participated in the Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship, first as a fellow and then as part of the Senior Leadership team. AbD focuses on the theory and practice of maker-centered learning. Paula is now excited to be continuing her journey with AbD Oakland as its Fellowship Director in the 2018-2019 school year.
In this episode, Paula reflected on her own early education and being good at school. She speaks to her experiences teaching in Oakland public schools, from the West to the East. Of particular interest right now, Paula reflects on her time as a teacher at Marshall before getting to Grass Valley, and her experience of the Marshall school closure.
Show Notes Coming Soon
LaShawn Routé Chatmon is the founding Executive Director of the National Equity Project, leading the organization’s transition from the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES). Under her leadership, the National Equity Project has become one of the leading voices in a movement to change the conversation and approach used to achieve racial equity in education. LaShawn previously served as a coach and director of the high school redesign initiative, where her team pioneered new school design processes, principal network development and site coaching that transformed educational experiences and outcomes for teachers and students in Oakland, CA.
LaShawn was a MetLife Teaching Fellow, and is currently a LeaderSpring ED Fellow. LaShawn earned a B.A. in political science from University of California, Berkeley; a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Brown University; and an Administrative Credential from California State University, Sacramento’s Urban Leadership Program. LaShawn is a California native and resides in Oakland, CA with her husband and their three sons.
Over the course of the conversation, LaShawn speaks to her love of learning and school, teachers who most influenced her life and why and how they did, the current state of the equity sector post-2016 and her continually evolving thoughts on the state of education reform here in Oakland. As you’ll hear, the main theme LaShawn repeatedly comes back to revolves around the question of who we, as a community, want to be.
Special Offer for GR Project Listeners!
The National Equity Project offers many open-registration professional learning opportunities here in Oakland. The next will be Leading for Equity in Complex Systems on September 13-14. Learn more and register at www.nationalequityproject.org/events and use code GRPROJECT for $50 off the registration fee.
For more information, check out www.nationalequityproject.org.
Show Notes Coming Soon
Amber Childress is a marketing techie, public speaker, and community advocate. She was raised in Oakland and has spent the majority of her life in the East Bay, attending Oakland public schools and Mills College. From her school-age years through adulthood, Amber has benefited from programs like Upward Bound, A Better Chance, and the Oakland Mayor’s Summer Jobs Program which fueled her desire to fight for quality education and opportunities for all students. The support she received in school and from her extended family taught her to embrace the idea that “It takes a village to raise a child”.
Childress is a longtime volunteer with Girls Inc. of Alameda County, serving as a mentor, committee member, and class volunteer. She was selected as the recipient of the 2016 Powerful Women of the Bay Innovator Award and in 2017 she received the Jefferson Award for Public Service. She is also a proud alumnae of EmergeCA. Amber currently serves on the Oakland Unified School District Measure G Citizens Oversight Committee and as a Trustee on the Alameda County Board of Education in 2016 for a 4 year term.
In this episode, Amber speaks about her role on the Alameda County Board of Education, how she decided to run for office and the supports she sought along the way to get there. Amber also discusses the County Board’s role as an appellate board and how she thinks about and actualizes her responsibility to serve her constituents.
Show Notes
05:00 — Trustee Childress comes to Oakland!
07:15 — A Better Chance
11:00 — A Vision Board for the BoE and Staff
15:45 — Cuts, cuts, cuts
18:15 — Connecting with Constituents
26:00 — ACOE at its Best
37:00 — Campaigning and Elections, and the Emerge Program
47:10 — #kidsnotpolitics during Board discussions
57:50 — ACOE in Support of Oakland & OUSD
1:18:45 — Looking back on a First term
1:31:45 — The Five-ish Questions
@lenseandco; acoe.org; https://www.eventbrite.com/o/acoe-core-learning-team-6478769131
Dr. Susie Wise is the founder of the K12 Lab Network at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a. the d.school at Stanford). She founded the K12 Lab in 2007 to investigate the role that design thinking could play in the education sector. This work helped catalyze a national movement to use design thinking as an approach to project-based learning and a toolkit for ed sector innovation. Since 2012 she has led the team to create innovative personal and professional development experiences for teachers, school leaders, and “edu innovators” that help them build their creative confidence and make experiments happen. Recent programs include School Retool, a fellowship for school leaders, now operating in 18 cities, and the Shadow A Student Challenge, launched in 2016 with more than 3500 school leaders participating. Here in Oakland, Susie is also a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School.
Susie covers Design Thinking, how she connected her own powerful projects while growing up and in school to her work as an adult supporting school teams to realize their own agency in designing the world around them, and supporting students to do so, as well. Susie also calls out some promising “weaving” work, as she put it, as she seeks to play a role here in Oakland starting this Fall connecting and aligning more organizations towards a powerful vision that doesn’t just tinker around the edges when it comes to education design and re-design. Susie also shares how her personal mother-daughter relationship plays out as she supports her child to design with intention.
Show Notes
04:00 — Dr. Wise comes to The Town!
10:00 — The Exploratorium Intrigues lays out a Life’s work
20:00 — High School
22:00 — Defining Innovation
28:00 — Class Design Thinking and Responding Further
35:00 — Shadowing a Student
37:30 — Tensions of Design and Risk Aversion
45:00 — Mindsets that support the Work
53:10 — Advice for getting more folks Involved in Deeper Learning
1:03:00 — Where are Oakland’s Big Wins in EDU Innovation?
1:24:00 — The City and Design across Oakland
1:27:30 — Susie’s Deepest Learning
1:31:45 — Dinner at the Wise-Bradshaw's
1:38:30 — Starting a School????
1:44:45 — The Five-ish Questions
@susiewise; @schoolretool schoolretool.org; shadowastudent.org
In this episode, we talk with Cliff Hong, who has been the Principal of Roosevelt Middle School in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) since the 2010-11 school year. Before that, he worked as an Assistant Principal at Edna Brewer Middle School in OUSD. Cliff taught middle and high school for six years in the South Bronx, Syracuse and in Oakland. In 2015, he was selected to be one of a handful of Executive Principals in OUSD. He is an ardent advocate for public education, which he sees as being absolutely necessary for a democracy to thrive.
Cliff discusses the skills and positive experience of working in different schools and systems across the country; how he and the Roosevelt team are thinking about growth and performance, and holding themselves accountable; about personalizing learning and supporting stronger relationships amongst students and adults; and about building a team over time working together.
We apologize in advance for the slight echo you’ll hear in this episode. We have our crack podcasting production staff working hard on resolving this problem. Thanks for understanding and we hope you enjoy listening to Cliff share his insights and expertise with you.
Show Notes
4:00 — Randy does his best Terry Gross
15:00 — Cliff as long in the tooth when it comes to the Principalship and dreaming of being a short order cook
17:30 — Becoming a Principal and the Skillz
31:30 — Listening while Principal
34:30 — An OUSD Executive Principal
42:00 — Bye Bye School Performance Framework and Hello CA Dashboard
54:30 — Roosevelt MS and a Community Ethic
1:02:00 — Personalization, Motivation, and Relationships
1:10:45 — Design Thinking at RMS
1:22:30 — Sustaining in the Principalship
1:27:30 — Cliff drops the mic
1:32:00 — Listener Question!
1:37:00 — The Five-ish Questions
Mirella Rangel is a Xicana mother living and working in Oakland, and a daughter of immigrants who organizes for a more connected world where people value themselves, others and the earth. She is currently Director of Community Organizing for GO Public Schools, and has worked for the past 20 years in and around Oakland schools as a teacher and administrator and in the non-profit sector. Mirella just launched GO's 1Oakland campaign this month, working with families and community to change policies and practices that are barriers to a more equitable school system. Mirella shares her wide range of experiences with community organizing and movement building here in the Bay Area, ranging from her days as a student U.C. Berkeley all the way up to the present day. Along the way, Mirella discusses the personal work and routines she uses to prepare herself to do her job each day, the connections she strives to make for her family and herself to her ancestors, the state of innovation in community organizing and some front lines stories of successes and challenges she faces in her work at GO.
Show Notes
2:45 - Mirella as Guest and as Listener!
10:00 - Being Chicana and Community
18:00 — Helping Others Listen
23:30 - Working in the Bay
29:00 — How are we organized and not organized. And what organizing means for Oakland’s kids.
34:00 — Innovation in Organizing
42:30 — Success in Oakland Education is…
47:30 - Working at GO Public Schools
59:00 — The #1Oakland Campaign
1:14:00 — The Five-ish Questions
Dr. César A. Cruz- From marching 76-straight miles, to hunger striking for 26 days, César has dedicated his life to fighting for justice. He was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México and migrated to the U.S. at a young age with a single mother and grandmother. He grew up in South Central L.A. and moved to the Bay Area to study. César graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in History. He has been an educator for 23 years, in positions of leadership for the last 17 years. He co-founded the independent school, Making Changes, out of his home, and has sought to create autonomous education spaces. He is proud to have overseen the Homies Empowerment Program serving gang impacted/involved youth in Oakland, CA. and now they are in the process of developing a school. He is the author of two books, Revenge of the Illegal Alien, and Bang for Freedom. He received his doctorate in Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, becoming the first Mexican immigrant male to do so. The recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, César served as a Bridge Fellow for the national organization TNTP, and is now transitioning to become a school developer with Educate 78, and an educational consultant supporting K-20 educational pipeline programs. Amidst all, he is proudest to be a husband, and father of three children: Olin, Amaru and Quetzali. He can be reached at Cesar_Cruz@mail.harvard.edu .
Show Notes
3:00 — César comes to the Bay
10:00 — “Subtractive Schooling”
15:00 — lunch in Biloxi, MS
21:00 — a critically conscious public
27:00 — Diversity and Segregation in Oakland
30:30 — Violence as Big Business
33:00 — the Non-Profit, Social Service, Foundation Industrial Complex, and so-called Progressives
43:00 — sugar-coated language in education
54:00 — Girl Scouts and Sharp Shooters
57:00 — Homies Empowerment gets “allowed” because of a Ph.D.
59:00 — Warriors, Scholars, Healers
1:11:00 — Who are the most marginalized?
1:19:00 — Speaking Funder
1:22:30 — The Public School Accountability Regime and Homies
ROCA, Brotherhood Sister Soul, Barrios Unidos, Homeboy Industries
1:40:30 — Marching and Striking
1:56:00 — The Five-is Questions
Seth Hubbert is the Executive Director of Tech Exchange, a nonprofit that provides equitable technology access and support to the East Bay through refurbishing donated computers. Before joining Tech Exchange, Seth served as an educator for 10 years. Beginning in the classroom as a Teach for America Physics and Chemistry teacher in New York City, Seth developed a passion for how technology can support and enhance student learning. As a Director of Academic Technology at French American International School in San Francisco, he led the vision and implementation of blended learning, integrated coding, 1-to-1 student device access, and design technology programs. He’s served on the Technology, Innovation and Design committee for the European Council of International Schools and has instructed university courses on STEM curriculum for new teachers. Seth has a B.S. in Physics from Whitworth University and a M.S. in Education from Pace University.
In this episode, Seth shares the Tech Exchange's amazing history, how he leads and learns from his diverse team, the organization's role in Oakland and the greater East Bay as a partner to cities and schools and the joy he experiences from providing access to technology to so many families.
Show Notes
3:30 Seth comes to Tech Exchange
6:00 High school remixing gets Seth into tech – demand his tracks!
7:45 The mission of Tech Exchange
20:00 Accessibility dynamics and issues in tech
32:00 Working with hardware donors and partners
39:30 The role of refurbished technology in closing the digital divide – and not exacerbate it
49:00 Working with Oakland students
52:00 Bruce Buckelew, Founder, hands over the reins, and working with Domingo Vasquez and the rest of the team.
1:08:00 Branding Tech Exchange
1:15:00 The Five-ish Questions
Connect with Seth & Tech Exchange! 👇👇👇
@TechXOrg on Twitter and Facebook, and @SethHubbert, techexchange.org for volunteering, donating hardware, and donating money.
Claire Shorall, Manager, Computer Science, works on implementing a district-wide vision to ensure Oakland Unified School District's students receive high quality CS education. She supports curricular and teacher professional development and partners with public, private, and nonprofit entities to expand work-based learning and extracurricular opportunities. Prior to leading CS for the district, Shorall taught Biology, Calculus, and Computer Science at Castlemont High School, where she still maintains one AP Computer Science Principles course. In 2015, she was one of 10 national recipients of the Teach For America Excellence in Teaching Award.
In this episode, Claire goes into great detail regarding how she's contributed to creating one of the most successful and widest reaching public school computer science programs serving children of color. Claire speaks to how, as a religious studies major, she came to computer science in the first place, the importance of continuing to teach while also working in the central office and how she leads and follows as a white woman in a position of power. Of course, she also answers our five questions, highlighting yet another incredibly inspiring story about one of the Oakland Unified School District's students.
Show Notes
2:40 Claire's origin story and the East Oakland School of the Arts
5:35 Claire's waning relationship with track, and how she would destroy your GR Project Hosts in a race
7:45 Getting started with Computer Science (CS) at Castlemont HS
10:45 Getting started at Rice University and not speaking the language
12:00 Started AP Computer Science A course with TEALS
14:00 Taking on leadership as a new teacher and working with a team to get CS started
16:00 OUSD's pre-2014 history with CS stretching back 20+ years
17:00 Props to Eugene Lemon, now at The Hidden Genius Project
20:30 AP CS participation, The Level the Playing Field Institute, & their Path Not Found report
24:40 Claire gets profiled by Popular Mechanics magazine
30:00 CS becomes a district priority and how Claire keeps teaching as a way to support her team
45:00 >80% of OUSD 9th graders in CS, and CS vs. Coding
52:00 "CS is for people like me" and Claire's CS Dream
1:10:00 Power and Identity
1:21:00 The Science of Innovation and integration across disciplines
1:26:00 Diversity & Inclusion (or not) in Tech
1:42:00 Elon & Ray
1:51:30 Start of the Five Questions
Other References
Kennan Scott is an urban father, husband, planner and PLTW engineering teacher at West Oakland Middle School. He is laser-focused on creating the next generation of tech leaders and critical thinkers. The Founder of @CODEdAcademy, in this episode, Kennan talks about his own education upbringing, his experience as a black engineer and thoughts about how to better support engineers of color, as well as two different schools he's involved in launching in Oakland. Along the way, Kennan also shares which Marvel comic was his favorite growing up (our guess is you've never heard of it) and his forays in both the professional rollerblading and child acting fields. We had a great time speaking with Kennan and expect you'll find more Oakland education gems in his words. Show notes shortly!
Strap in and get ready for a non-stop tour of Charles Cole III's life and life's work.
Charles focuses on the advancement of all youth of color, but, more specifically black males. This passion comes from his own experiences growing up without proper support. His life's goal is to better the communities he grew up in through his work. He has has served as a social worker, a Director for Teach for America, the Vice Chair of the California Young Democrats, Black Caucus and at the Director level with various youth-focused non-profits. Charles is a national speaker, a writer and can be found in Oakland and around the country working with youth on how to equip themselves appropriately to lay the ground work for a bright future. Charles is currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at GO Public Schools focusing on building student navigation skills and voice in education.
Show Notes
2:25 Charles talks about how his double-digit elementary school moves was a blessing
6:00 The personal importance of Oakland, Kentucky and Chicago
9:20 Meet Mr. Brown, one of the most influential people in Charles’ life
11:50 Reflections on being a student during Oakland’s last major teacher’s strike while a student at Westlake Middle School
14:00 Overview of Charles’ current work as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at GO Public Schools
16:00 Charles’ 100-student campaign and the three things he’s hearing high school students say they need from school
18:15 The importance of Black and Brown children learning how to hack their education
27:30 The three values that inform Charles’ own work and that he teaches his students to adopt
37:00 Explaining “Be an Energy Convertor/Do Work”
41:00 Running down the food that powers Charles’ day
46:00 Discussing involvement with www.edloc.org and www.blackenterprise.com
1:00:00 Referencing the Office of African American Male Achievement’s work (AAMA)
1:13:00 Asks for creators to get in touch (bloggers, videographers, podcasters)
1:16:30 Brief observations about his work supporting Black teachers in OUSD and his involvement in teacher contract negotiations with OUSD and Teach For America
1:23 Sharing his definition of success
1:30 Start of the Five Questions
Other References
*Claire Shorall, Computer Science Educator (and upcoming GR Project guest)
*National Equity Project web site and LaShawn Routé Chatmon's bio
*Regina Jackson, East Oakland Youth Development Center President
*Leroy Gaines, Principal, Acorn Woodland Elementary School
*Ashley Martin, Principal, Hoover Elementary School
Dr. Brian Stanley is an Oakland resident, the Executive Director of the Oakland Public Education Fund and a member of the Oakland Unified School District's Executive Cabinet. In our very first podcast, we speak at length with Brian about a wide range of topics including how the research he did for his Ph.D. informs his current work, why a Truth and Reconciliation process in Oakland might not be enough to overcome the issues that divide us in education, why education isn't all about kids, how the Ed Fund works with its donors and what, exactly, the Executive Cabinet does. Brian also shares who he believes to be the among the most influential voices in Oakland education today, what he would do first if he were Superintendent and what he gets to experience in his job that he wishes everyone else could see.
The following are key resources and links that Brian mentions during our conversation:
