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I ran into Pam Drake on Lakeshore and she introduced me to Mike Gallo. The result was this conversation on how the 26,000-student Oakland Unified School District's Adult Education program has not given their teachers -- including Drake and Gallo -- a pay raise in eight years, or since 2001.   Drake claims that the organization has a stockpile that it has amased but has used the money for costs other than giving better pay to its teachers; its spent the money, she claims, on supervisors and administrators and added teachers on "specal assignment" who are supposed to support the program but don;t.   In addition, according to Gallo, they had their health care benefits cut a few years ago. Drake says that when everyone else has a holiday, they get a day wihout pay, then tell the teachers that if the holiday is too long as it is for Christmas, then the teacher has to pay for health care because the program didn't pay the teacher enough money to pay for health c...

According to Katy Murphy , Alice Spearman, the incumbent for the East Oakland - Elmhurst seat on the Oakland School Board, avoided a run-off in the contest against Doris Limbrick and Beverly Williams. She won 50.4 percent of the vote. Talk about winning by a hair!

Two Oakland schools escape closure District postpones decision to close Burckhalter, Sankofa for another year By Katy Murphy, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 12/20/2007 06:19:56 AM PST OAKLAND — Burckhalter Elementary School and Sankofa Academy will remain open through the 2008-09 school year. School district staff, who had originally recommended that they be closed, decided it would be best to postpone the decision for at least one year. After hearing some of the community input and the remarks from the board, they sat down and decided to re-evaluate, said Troy Flint, the school district's spokesman. Last week, during an emotional meeting at the district office, many speakers urged the district to keep the schools open. Many argued that the closures in recent years have disproportionately affected African-American families. Sixty-one percent of Burckhalter's students and 92 percent of Sankofa's students are African-American. A staff report on recent school closures supp...

SF Chronicle Columnist Chip Johnson and The ANG Newspaper Group is calling for Oakland School Board Member Chirs Dobbins to step down. Here's the story, but I'm not using Chip's column here as to read his account makes the matter sound as if they were having regular sex. There's no proof of that kind of relationship, but it doesn't look good, that's for sure. I have to admit that much of this seems like people wanting to engage in gossip. BUT, Chris should have had better judgement than to take up the kind of association that's being reported. But I only met him once, during a rally to save the Oakland A's. It's too bad all around because Chris seemed to be totally into his position on the school board. On second thought, maybe too much so. Here's another account... Oakland school board member Chris Dobbins went on several dates with a 17-year-old girl, sent her inappropriate text messages and e-mail, and had several late night rendezvous...