Category: Education

A not-so-common idea for a building that belongs to us

By Jeeni Criscenzo

For three years, 150,000 square feet of space in downtown, belonging to the citizens of San Diego, has stood vacant. Each night, for these past three years, impoverished human beings have spread their cardboard beds on the brass inlays of the terrazzo at the entrance of the old Central Library on E Street.

But any suggestion that this place could provide shelter for homeless people is dead on arrival, so I won’t be wasting words on that idea. But I do think we need to come up with a fair and just use of this building that retains the spirit of its original reason for being built. After all, it belongs to us, if we are willing to fight for it and put a little imagination into its transformation.

By Ernie McCray

(Written for the closing of the Social Justice Conference at City College)

“Black Lives Matter”
is heard
from a chorus of voices
in a protest in the street.
“All Lives Matter”
someone screams
from a car rolling by
on the street,
in denial
that Black Lives Matter
wouldn’t have come to be
if All Lives Matter
had ever been a reality
in this country
at any time
or any place.

By Korla Eaquinta

The new fence around Cabrillo Recreation Center is finished. The community has been concerned about access as the gates have been locked up most of the time.

The following is an email from Alvin Nguyen, Center Director detailing the new procedure for the field to be accessible. (Please note that no one is allowed to be on school grounds nor on the field at the Rec center during school hours.)

Starting March 1, 2016, we will be following the procedure according to the above Cabrillo Gates Map.

I have listed a breakdown of the procedure below for your convenience:

A one-hundred year old tree in the courtyard of OB Elementary School was a victim of the strong El Nino winds that hit Ocean Beach and San Diego on Sunday and Monday, Jan. 31st and Feb. 1st.

Fox5 covered the tragedy and this is part of their report:

“It’s so sad. The kids are just so sad to see it go….It’s part of our school, a part of our tradition,” said 2nd grade teacher Angela Wunder, who has been teaching at the school for decades.

(Photo: txindoki/Flickr/cc)

By Ernie McCray

As we opened our hearts, this past Veteran’s Day, to our nation’s warriors with hearty “Thank you for your service” like cliches, alongside heaping praise on them for being strong heroic and brave – I kept thinking of two young men I met a little over a decade ago.

They were among the first to die in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I met them at career fairs at their schools, while I was sitting at a table letting kids know that they …

By Freak Gormlie

This is Round 2 of my Halloween eve report of the town council meeting of last Wednesday, Oct. 28th. (Here’s my gonzo-type account of Round One.)

It is scary to think what OB would be like without a town council to – in a sense – keep it all together. And this current board is luckily still headed up by Gretchen Newsom as she moves into her third term. Probably the OBTC’s most liberal president in its history, Newsom, as most know by now, is also a candidate for the mayor’s seat in this here town of San Diego.

Where Have All the Students Gone?

The big monster item on the night’s agenda was framed by the question: “OB Elementary – Where have the Children Gone?” The issue had surfaced recently – in response to the transfer of 2 teachers – when parents and students staged a picket in front of the school back on October 5th.

Tonight, three from the school and school district were on hand to answer questions: Principal Marco Drapeau, a trustee from the school district Dr. Mike McQuery and Roy – with just a hint of a true Irish accent – one of the 2 people in the district demographics department.

By Jim Miller with Ian Duckles

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Thomas Piketty speak on economic inequality at UCSD.

In his talk, Piketty hit on the central themes of his seminal work, Capital in the Twenty-First Century: how our current level of economic inequality is now back to where it was before the “great compression” of the mid-twentieth century when union density, progressive taxation, and educational policies helped produce the high point of the American middle class.

Acknowledging the Playwright Project’s
“Deborah Salzer Excellence in Arts Education Award”

By Ernie McCray

Being recognized
for any contribution
I’ve made to the arts
is like being recognized
for breathing
a breath,
like being identified
for being myself –
as I was raised by a mother
and a grandfather
and a great-aunt
and cousins
and a church
and more than a handful of neighbors …

Here are the OBceans who attended the San Diego Unified School Board meeting yesterday, Tuesday, Oct. 6th.

They were there to protest the transfer of 2 teachers from OB Elementary.

Can you hear it? Or feel it?

The entire Peninsula is mobilizing today, Tuesday, October 6th. Both residents in Ocean Beach and residents in Point Loma are mobilizing – for different reasons.

OB residents upset about the transfer of 2 teachers from OB Elementary are planning on attending tonight’s school board meeting. And Point Loma residents upset with the flight path changes proposed by the FAA are planning on attending tonight’s Liberty Station meeting on the issue.

OB Residents to Attend School Board Meeting – 5pm

As OB Rag writer Matt Wood explained yesterday:

Kindergarten teachers Amie Frank and Katy Amberg will be reassigned to different schools in the San Diego Unified School District.

Wood also wrote:

A number of parents are planning to attend Tuesday’s School Board meeting …

By Matthew Wood

Dozens of teachers, students and parents braved the rain this morning – Monday, Oct. 5th – to protest the loss of two teachers at Ocean Beach Elementary School.

Kindergarten teachers Amie Frank and Katy Amberg will be reassigned to different schools in the San Diego Unified School District.

Teachers at OB Elementary are reported to be organizing a picket line at the school, Monday morning, October 5th, to…