No action to stop a teachers strike. No surprise to Black and brown parents.

Yesterday, the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) refused to block a possible strike by the Oakland teachers union. Our children still haven’t been put first. But in Oakland, that’s not new. The idea that we can’t make progress for our teachers without hurting our kids remains in effect. That’s not new. Should a strike happen, the harm will hit Black, brown, and low-income kids the most. That’s not new. The students who already are ahead will get exceptions made for them. None of this is new, and patterns don’t happen by accident. 

PERB has said that if it “later rules” that a strike was not permitted, it “will issue a remedy for the District.” But no one will issue a remedy for our children and the learning that they’ve missed out on. No one will issue a remedy for the kids and families who bear the damage as adults fight out their issues. 

In truth, the damage has already begun. When a teacher tells Oakland high school students and families that “strikers on the picket lines will not block any student from entering the school to take an [Advanced Placement] Test; in fact, we will applaud you,” they’re telling us whose education can be harmed, and whose must be protected. And they’re traumatizing them with a brutal history of being blocked from school that our families know all too well. Our families understand what it means to create a loophole so there’s no interruption for AP test takers, a group in which Black students are badly underrepresented, at only 8.8% nationally. 

Will students who aren’t in a prestigious advanced program also be applauded when they try to enter a school surrounded by picketers? Never mind. We’ve known that answer for a long time. 

In the face of all this, and whatever comes next, The Oakland REACH will continue to do what we have always done. We will tell the truth. We will keep our families informed and do our best to keep them whole. We will put children first and find ways to serve them, even when adults choose to do something else. 

That’s not new.