On Sunday July 15th, the students, parents and teachers of the Lakeview sit-in and People’s School for Public Education let it be known to the entire Adams Point Community that we will not stop fighting for quality public schools and we will continue building a united movement to counter the worst Tony Smith(OUSD Superintendent) and Co. have to “offer”. With the Oakland School Police looking on from across Grand Ave. on the former grounds of the Peoples School, (no doubt wasting valuable taxpayer dollars to make sure that OUSD bureaucrats can move-in to the People’s School) the People’s School Concert & celebration got underway at Splash Pad Park.

We kicked off the festivities with a few political speeches from members of the Occupy Oakland Education Committee. Then Eni, a local soul musician backed up by Midnight in the Library kicked off the evening’s live music set. They were followed by Miko, a singer/songwriter accompanied by a keyboardist delivering a couple originals and ending with “the ring of fire” by Johnny Cash.

Dregs One and the Digital Martyrs, both Bay Area hip hop artists, energized the crowd with politically conscious vocals mixed with party vibes. The hip hop continued with a performance by Boots Riley (of the Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club). Boots was backed up by Gabby La la on the funky sitar. They first rocked the crowd with “ghetto blaster” by the Street Sweeper Social Club(Boot’s most recent project with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine). And then they finished out their short set with an update of a tune from the days of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  While we  are not entirely sure of the name of the song, we do know from the lyrics – the song provided 5 million ways the working class can rid ourselves of the CEO. Which is fitting if we consider the recent trend to label the head of public education in urban centers as  a “CEO”. The current Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration used to be the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and we may as well call Tony Smith the CEO of Oakland Public Schools with his love for charters and union-busting.

To bring the People’s School Concert to a close, Jabari Shaw rapped a variety of his politically charged movement jams. Of which “Chop from the Top” was seemingly directed straight at Tony Smith and all OUSD bureaucrats with their inflated salaries.  “I am Oscar Grant” was also apt for this occasion as officer Barhin Bhatts(OUSD Police & the murderer of Raheim Brown) looked and listened from across Grand Ave.  Chop from the top indeed!

All in all the People’s School and Lakeview sit-in concert was a success. Events like these are instrumental in bringing people together in order to celebrate what was a great achievement for working-class families and teachers. This Sit-in and People’s School set an example in the Bay Area and across the country of the potential the people have to take back what is rightfully theirs and use it(in this case Lakeview Elementary) for its intended purpose – quality public education.  By providing a quality mix of politics and culture our committee put its best foot forward to bring more people into this struggle – in Oakland, in New Orleans, in Philadelphia, in New York, and everywhere there are school closures amongst other bureaucratic attacks on public education.

Special thanks to  Arizmendi Pizza and the Occupy Oakland BBQ committee for providing food for the event, and big big thanks also goes out to the Grand Lake Theatre for its support of our efforts. Thank you!

Click the Image to Download a PDF of Our Flyer.  Spread the Word!

The eighteenth day of the Lakeview Elementary School Sit-in and Peopleʼs School for
Public Education experienced a police raid that successfully shut-down the direct action.
In the early morning, around 4:20am, police – led by Sargeant Barhin Bhatts, the officer
responsible for shooting and killing an unarmed Raheim Brown in January 2011- gave
an initial dispersal order and instructed all those looking to be arrested to sit in a
designated area. Two Lakeview community members chose to be arrested, one – a
parent of Lakeview and the other – an alumni and long time Lakeview supporter. All
other supporters were allowed to gather their belongings and leave the premises
without an arrest.

In response, the Education Committee of Occupy Oakland organized a rally just
outside the front gates at Lakeview and a march to an undisclosed location for 5pm that
evening.

The rally featured parents, teachers, and students who participated in the sit-in & Peopleʼs School. The program was a combination of calling out and shaming Tony Smith and the School Board for shutting down such a positive action, and also a call for people to get involved in the organizing against the austerity inspired policies of the Oakland Unified School District.

There was a militant energy in the air coupled with smoke from dried sage provided by
an indigenous elder supportive of the action. A long time Adult-Education teacher and
veteran education activist credited our action with swaying the School Board to vote
against a proposed 4 million dollar cut to Special Education. He made the point that this
marked the first time in three years that the board voted against Tony Smith and felt this
to be a contributing factor in shutting down our efforts. Three candidates for the
upcoming school board elections called on the crowd to support their campaigns to bring about a much needed change for Oaklandʼs Public Schools. Four students from the Peopleʼs School for Public Education called for an end to the police presence and for the people to continue using the building for its intended purpose – public education. More on this point later in the post. The student speeches were very inspiring and were met with loud cheering and applause. An education committee organizer wrapped up the rally with a call-out for everyone to continue actively supporting these types of actions.

After the last speaker, a recently fired OUSD teacher announced there would be a student-led march to Tony Smithʼs house to confront him face-to-face and let his entire neighborhood know just who their neighbor is and what heʼs all about. The march was filled with militant chants in favor of “education not incarceration” along with music provided by the Occupy Oakland sound team. Upon arriving to Tonyʼs house there were calls for him to “reopen or resign” and a continuation of the rally started back at Lakeview. One of the students from the Peopleʼs School called on Supt. Smith to show his face. Despite him either not being there or else hiding behind the walls of his bourgeois home, it was nonetheless positive to see many of his neighbors outside their homes and supportive of our presence in that neighborhood. All in all it was a vibrant first volley in response to the police raid on the Lakeview Sit-in.

Now back to the political nature of this action and the reason why the sit-in was an
extremely important step for the working class , i.e – the use of the building. The UseValue of a commodity is defined as the qualitative aspect of value as opposed to
exchange-value which denotes the quantitative aspect of value. The parents,
teachers, and students reopened the building, a commodity, for its use-value. The
Peopleʼs School for Public Education was holding social justice classes. Members of the
education committee were building a peopleʼs library and were to planning to call it La
Casita II (in honor of the parents who led a successful occupation to keep open a field house library on the grounds of Whittier Elementary on Chicagoʼs south side.) The
grounds around the school were being used for lessons in gardening, drumming, sports,
etc. etc. On Sunday July 1st the building was opened up to the wider Oakland
community. The education committee hosted a bbq/potluck followed by a movie
screening of The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman . All these were
arguably qualitative leaps when compared to the day-to-day operation of the former
Lakeview Elementary School. Once the state realized the building was being used not
only for a Peopleʼs School but also as a community space for political education and
culture – they quickly sent their armed thugs to smash the occupation and school.

The state, in this case Superintendent Tony Smith and the School Board, has no
interest in Lakeviewʼs (or any of the other four elementary schools) use-value. These
public schools are being closed because of the exchange value – the value of a
commodity measured in relation to the money form, of their buildings and grounds. Next
year Lakeview, located in an area with high property values, will host administrative offices. These offices will be housed there while a brand new administration building is
completed. Once the new building is ready, the district will no doubt look to rent out
Lakeview to a charter school or sell the property to a developer. Santa Fe Elementary,
the last public school in Oaklandʼs 94608 zip code, is being leased to Emeryville. Lazear
Elementary, whose parents and teachers were denied a charter by Oakland Unified
after the district recommended this course to avoid closure, will be a charter school after
all because the county granted them their charter and OUSD grudgingly allowed them
the use of the building and grounds. Why grudgingly? Because the district intended to
sell the property to Target, and the site was to become another corporate chain store.
Thurgood Marshall and Maxwell Park are both being leased to Charter School
organizations. These closures are not based on anything except Tony Smith and School
Board wanting to generate revenue to balance a public education budget decimated by
austerity. And it just so happens that this fits in with a nationwide trend to dismantle public education in favor of charter schools, which represent the transitional stages for
the ruling class to privatize education across the country.

Use-value over exchange-value is one of many reasons why the Lakeview Sit-in is an extremely important action that should be publicized far and wide. The goals of this action were clear from the beginning – the people taking back what is rightfully theirs and using it for its intended purpose while demanding that the state stop closing neighborhood schools to balance their austerity budgets, stop union-busting, and fully fund free public education. Every urban center in the country that is being bombarded with the same ruling class privatization strategy should hear about the Peopleʼs School for Public Education. The working class must continue and escalate these types of actions. Failure to do so will mean losing access to a major component of our own reproduction — Free Public
Education .

 

Early Tuesday morning, what would have been the 18^th day of the Sit-in and 12^th day of the People’s School, the OUSD police, along with other police forces from across Oakland raided the encampment and school. While participants were allowed to remove their items, the police arrested a parent as well as a former student of Lakeview, 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 began to arrive this morning to clear out classrooms highlights the question: should Oakland allow the 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, or that the group has given up on the fight for quality education. The People’s School will continue next week on Tuesday and Thursday.

In a recent article Oakland Tribune education reporter Katie Murphy, she writes that Tony Smith believes “that schools can—and must—help transform entire communities through love and a sense of collective responsibility for children.” While the People’s School, and the Lakeview Sit In directly attempted this through providing free essential services to children, Tony Smith’s actions directly contrast this statement. The closure of schools and displacement of thousands of children to already overcrowded schools does not cultivate a loving supportive environment for children. Instead it negatively impacts the ability for parents to transport their children to school, ruptures the relationships of students from their teachers and one another, and destabilizes essential support systems for entire communities.

Tony Smith is quoted saying that he hears the “discontent with the current outcomes” and that he realizes “the change isn’t happening fast enough for everybody.” Currently the trajectory of Smith’s policies point to change in the wrong direction. If the change he wants is the cutting of services and programs such as adult education and special education, attacking teacher’s and school workers, school closures, and privatizing education, there will be nothing left of the  public school system when Smith leaves.

The People’s School has been a success and provides a model which other’s can use for re-imagining a more enriching and empowering public education in stark contrast to the system Tony Smith is propagating. It has become a symbol of resistance and received positive support from the Oakland community, thus it will continue for two days next week.

Beyond the People’s School the Lakeview Sit-in continues to build a powerful community-labor alliance and picket sanctioned by the Alameda Labor Council to block the move-in of the administrative offices at Lakeview. In addition, in the continued effort to connect the fight against the criminalization of black and brown youth with the dismantling of the public education system members of the sit-in are joining the march for Raheim Brown, a youth murdered by OUSD Cops at a Skyline High Dance today Friday, July 6th at 11 am. His murderer was the sergeant who gave the dispersal order during the raid on the Lakeview Sit-in. 

There will also be a celebration and convergence focusing on Public Education next Sunday, July 15^th at 5pm at Splash Pad Park featuring performances by Boots Riley and other speakers. 

We have been evicted but not even close to defeated.  The eviction was not unexpected and now we move on to the next steps of the struggle.  Going forward we must stay organized and connected so that the next, inevitable round of attacks doesn’t catch us flat-footed.  Join us and build a militant resistance to fight for quality public education.  Here are our next steps to take back public education in Oakland:

1.     We continue the free People’s School throughout the week in Splash Pad Park.  Come by and show support for our children and teachers.

2.     We will prevent them from replacing Lakeview Elementary with administrative offices by picketing and blockading.  Already we have helped organize multiple labor unions to call on the Alameda Central Labor Council to declare Lakeview a sanctioned picket site.  We will be out here as soon as they try to move in.  Be ready for the alert.  Schools Are For Kids, Not Administrators!

3.    Join the “Justice 4 Raheim Brown March and Rally” on Friday.  Rally at OPD HQ at 7^th and Broadway @ 11A.  Then we march to OUSD HQ.  Education Not Incarceration and More Police!

4.    Join us this Sunday evening (July 8) at 6P for a concert and rally featuring Boots Riley. Organize the campaign to keep neighborhood schools open and fully fund quality public education.  We must build much, much more in the community.

5. Also, help oust current school board members and replace them with candidates completely opposed to the program of austerity and cuts, and who will fight to repudiate the state debt.  There are a few progressive candidates, including three who have helped organize this sit-in: Mike Hutchinson (District 5), Therese Pecot (District 1), and Vicente Peña (District 3).

6.    Organize to re-open the schools yourselves in your own neighborhoods.

Want to join the fight? Organize with us: saveoaklandschools.org &saveoaklandschools@gmail.com.