OSA APT Newsletter: Art & Action – Vol: 19 No: 1 – November 2020

Vol: 19 No: 1 – November 2020

---

APT is committed to OSA as a diverse, equitable  and inclusive school community. A place where students thrive, and where parents, teachers, and students— together with the school leadership and board, partner to ensure the success of the school.

Please join us for the Monthly APT General Meetings on 3rd Wednesday of the month at 6pm!

Next Meeting: November 18, 2020 

Zoom LINK Password: OSArocks

If you know 6th grade families or those who are new to the school, please send this newsletter to them.

Sign-up for Konstella! “The only platform where OSA parents can have interactive discussions online”

Konstella Videos & Guides: See these useful Konstella Videos & Guides

---

From Surviving the Crisis to Living the Charter

Charter schools are not inherently better or worse than district-run schools, but they are prone to different challenges. Because charters were created, among other reasons, to avoid the democratic control that district-run schools are subject to; racial equity and disability advocates often critique charters’ lack of accountability and contribution to the alarming trend of resegregation. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) staff and Board members expressed ongoing concerns with OSA and stated that OSA’s charter renewal was in jeopardy because OSA had promised to better reflect the demographics of Oakland families enrolled in the District in the last charter term, but didn’t deliver. The OSA student body had increased its white student population, reduced its students of color population, with fewer English Language Learners, fewer students with disabilities, and fewer socio-economically disadvantaged students. At the same time, OSA teachers, parents and students were more vocally expressing frustration in a lack of transparency and accountability observed on the part of some of OSA’s board and leadership. OSA’s charter renewal brought two crises to a head: lack of inclusion and lack of democracy, with the very future of our school at stake. 

OSA survived this crisis and grew from our conflicts to become better and stronger. Former Executive Director Staci Smith and Board Chair Elise Darwish had placed removing auditions on the table. Parents and staff were divided on the issue. We had to educate ourselves to understand how the audition process produced racial exclusion. We began to explore how kids with little to no arts training could experience OSA as a welcoming and supportive environment to grow within. The school had some creative ideas and we all began to understand that a new path forward was possible.

Parent organizations—Parents of Color (POC), Parents of Students with Disabilities (PODS—featured in this issue) and the Alliance of Parents and Teachers (APT)—did research, facilitated dialogue and advocated for stronger, more inclusive equity measures in the charter, such as regular reporting on enrollment and student achievement by student groups. 

To make OSA more democratic and accountable, the APT advocated for a charter clause mandating three parent representatives and a student representative which was adopted by the OSA board of directors. OSA staff did a tremendous amount of work on the charter document however some OUSD Board members were not likely to be convinced by the document alone. In the end, it was the public comments of OSA parents and students (who stayed up until 11pm for multiple meetings), particularly the testimony of Black and brown families, and OSA staff of color, that made OUSD Board members sit up and take notice, and ultimately give OSA another chance.

(Sample of speakers at OUSD Board meeting)

Renewing the charter took all of us, but it was just the first challenge.  Now we’re faced with making good on our promise. Living the Charter will also take all of us. Here are some examples of what our community is doing:

• ED Lisa Sherman-Colt promoted several faculty and staff of color to leadership positions; 
• Principal Mike Oz and a team of experienced educators have continued regular assessments of student academic achievement. Results are analyzed from multiple perspectives including school-wide, by grade-level, by ethnicity, disability and socio-economic status and at the level of each individual student’s needs to ensure that student support efforts are effective; the school has begun sharing this analysis with parents & community;
• History teacher Uma Joshi took on the role of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Researcher and Developer, ; 
• Edutainment for Equity has been hired for a year long residency; 
• Anti-racist training has been added to faculty & OSA administration professional development; 
• The Equity sub-committee of the OSA Board is meeting regularly to oversee implementation of our equity goals and ensure that our equity work is front and center in our next strategic plan; 
• The Step-It-Up team has entered into a partnership with the People’s Conservatory and specific Title 1 schools to recruit more students with disabilities, students of color, and socio-economically disadvantaged students into OSA;  
• The OSA staff of color group took on researching resources to assist OSA in ongoing diversity and inclusion work; 
• A number of white-identified parents created a white allies group to better understand how white supremacy permeates society and impacts all schools; and
• After a Brown Act training, and at the request of parents, students and alumni, the OSA Board added a public comment session to each agenda item, creating more opportunities for meaningful exchanges with stakeholders. 

This is real progress we should all be proud of but we have much more to do:  

• The arts programs need to be redesigned so that students with less prior training can thrive; 
• The strategic plan should be driven by input from underrepresented students and families; 
• We need permanent staffing for DEI work and more culturally appropriate curricula; 
• As we welcome more students with disabilities, we need adequate staffing to serve them in compliance with the IEP and 504 plans; and 
• It’s critical that OSA board members fully participate in anti-racist training & development. 

With appreciation for the school leadership’s skills and intentions, we face the challenge to become much more inclusive and equitable.  We know that we have to put the voices of the BIPOC families and students who face racism everyday at the forefront of our shared governance. The best leaders in this case will be those who can effectively follow the leadership of the community they serve. 

It took all of us to save the school and it will take all of us to Live the Charter so that OSA truly embodies equity, inclusion, transparency and democracy through the arts. Our students and communities are counting on us to succeed.

1 The California law that guarantees the public right to attend and participate in the meetings of local legislative bodies.

2 While POC (People of Color) is widely used as an umbrella term, the emerging term BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), acknowledges the severe impacts on Black and Indigenous people under systemic racism and highlights the way whiteness emerged from the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African peoples and how this history shapes the experiences of all people of color under white supremacy.

---

 

• What Happened When My School Started to Dismantle White Supremacy Culture
• Nice White Parents Podcast
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, PhD
• EmbraceRace Website and Upcoming Webinars
• GoodNews Antiracism Resources Links

…more to come!

---

Your feedback on the OSA APT Newsletter is welcome!

---

News item submissions (by the 5th of each month) osanews@aptosa.org
Submission Guidelines

To View In Your Browser, Click Here: OSA News!