Pictures of Sit-In and Rally at Oakland Unified Headquarters

Micah Clatterbaugh, Chicano Moratorium Coalition; Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroot Movement; Anne Weills, Civil Rights Lawyer, Michael Siegal, Coalition Against School Closures; Linda Halpern, teacher at Community Day School; Pamela Drake, Canditate for City Council District 2 staged a sit-in to demand restoration of local
democratic control of the Oakland schools.

Oakland, CA. As of 3:45 p.m. today, Tuesday March 1st, six Oakland residents began a sit-in in the office of the state administrator of the Oakland schools when their demand for a meeting with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack
O'Connell was refused; about 75 students, parents, teachers and labor leaders rallied outside. The group demands a meeting with Superintendent O'Connell.

"We do not recognize the current district leadership as legitimate," says Kali Akuno, an Oakland-based educator who was part of the sit-in. "We call on Superintendent O'Connell to restore democratic
control to Oakland's public school system." As part of their action today, the coalition issued four demands for Superintendent O'Connell. They are:
1. The immediate restoration of local democratic control over the Oakland Unified School District;
2. No school closures and no charter conversions;
3. No layoffs; and
4. An immediate meeting with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell to discuss the implementation of these demands.

Michael Siegel of the coalition, also sitting-in, continues: "Recent actions by State Administrator Randolph Ward to close schools without community input, to open our campuses to private school and charter school corporations, and to threaten the complete shutdown of our adult education program only further our resolve to resist this hostile takeover until Oakland parents, educators, and community members can once again decide how best to educate our children, youth, and adults."

The community coalition includes parents of Oakland Unified School District students, educators, high school students, and representatives from Youth Together, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the Million Worker March, the American Federated County State and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME), Oakland Parents Together, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Education Not Incarceration.

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