The GR Project: Oakland Education Innovation: Recent Episodes
The GR Project
The GR Project is Oakland's innovation education podcast. We seek to amplify the voices of a diverse range of educators and school changemakers. Their work is local, but their stories have national relevance.
Four previous GR Project guests come back to speak openly and directly about how they are thinking about moving forward after the latest Oakland teachers' strike. The group discusses timescales for change, alignment of action to those timescales and how to balance the need to survive with the desire to thrive.
Paula Mitchell has incorporated hands on learning from the beginning of her 25+ year career as an Oakland educator. Paula believes in fostering equity and providing access to high quality educational STEAM programs to historically underserved and underrepresented populations through a focus on culturally responsive making and authentic inclusion for students with disabilities. She is delighted that her job as a Teacher on Special Assignment for Maker-Centered Learning at Grass Valley Elementary School allows her to bring more hands-on, minds-on learning to the community she loves. As a part of this work, Paula developed her school's very first maker education/project-based learning program and its very first makerspace, the Wonder Workshop.
Paula has also participated in the Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship, first as a fellow and then as part of the Senior Leadership team. AbD focuses on the theory and practice of maker-centered learning. Paula is now excited to be continuing her journey with AbD Oakland as its Fellowship Director in the 2018-2019 school year.
In this episode, Paula reflected on her own early education and being good at school. She speaks to her experiences teaching in Oakland public schools, from the West to the East. Of particular interest right now, Paula reflects on her time as a teacher at Marshall before getting to Grass Valley, and her experience of the Marshall school closure.
For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com .
LaShawn Routé Chatmon is the founding Executive Director of the National Equity Project, leading the organization’s transition from the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES). Under her leadership, the National Equity Project has become one of the leading voices in a movement to change the conversation and approach used to achieve racial equity in education. LaShawn previously served as a coach and director of the high school redesign initiative, where her team pioneered new school design processes, principal network development and site coaching that transformed educational experiences and outcomes for teachers and students in Oakland, CA.
Amber Childress is a marketing techie, public speaker, and community advocate. She was raised in Oakland and has spent the majority of her life in the East Bay, attending Oakland public schools and Mills College. From her school-age years through adulthood, Amber has benefited from programs like Upward Bound, A Better Chance, and the Oakland Mayor’s Summer Jobs Program which fueled her desire to fight for quality education and opportunities for all students. The support she received in school and from her extended family taught her to embrace the idea that “It takes a village to raise a child”.
Childress is a longtime volunteer with Girls Inc. of Alameda County, serving as a mentor, committee member, and class volunteer. She was selected as the recipient of the 2016 Powerful Women of the Bay Innovator Award and in 2017 she received the Jefferson Award for Public Service. She is also a proud alumnae of EmergeCA. Amber currently serves on the Oakland Unified School District Measure G Citizens Oversight Committee and as a Trustee on the Alameda County Board of Education in 2016 for a 4 year term.
In this episode, Amber speaks about her role on the Alameda County Board of Education, how she decided to run for office and the supports she sought along the way to get there. Amber also discusses the County Board’s role as an appellate board and how she thinks about and actualizes her responsibility to serve her constituents. Check out www.thegrproject.com for more information.
Dr. Susie Wise is the founder of the K12 Lab Network at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a. the d.school at Stanford). She founded the K12 Lab in 2007 to investigate the role that design thinking could play in the education sector. This work helped catalyze a national movement to use design thinking as an approach to project-based learning and a toolkit for ed sector innovation. Since 2012 she has led the team to create innovative personal and professional development experiences for teachers, school leaders, and “edu innovators” that help them build their creative confidence and make experiments happen. Recent programs include School Retool, a fellowship for school leaders, now operating in 18 cities, and the Shadow A Student Challenge, launched in 2016 with more than 3500 school leaders participating. Here in Oakland, Susie is also a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School.
Susie covers Design Thinking, how she connected her own powerful projects while growing up and in school to her work as an adult supporting school teams to realize their own agency in designing the world around them, and supporting students to do so, as well. Susie also calls out some promising “weaving” work, as she put it, as she seeks to play a role here in Oakland starting this Fall connecting and aligning more organizations towards a powerful vision that doesn’t just tinker around the edges when it comes to education design and re-design. Susie also shares how her personal mother-daughter relationship plays out as she supports her child to design with intention. For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.
In this episode, we talk with Cliff Hong, who has been the Principal of Roosevelt Middle School in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) since the 2010-11 school year. Before that, he worked as an Assistant Principal at Edna Brewer Middle School in OUSD. Cliff taught middle and high school for six years in the South Bronx, Syracuse and in Oakland. In 2015, he was selected to be one of a handful of Executive Principals in OUSD. He is an ardent advocate for public education, which he sees as being absolutely necessary for a democracy to thrive.
Cliff discusses the skills and positive experience of working in different schools and systems across the country; how he and the Roosevelt team are thinking about growth and performance, and holding themselves accountable; about personalizing learning and supporting stronger relationships amongst students and adults; and about building a team over time working together.
We apologize in advance for the slight echo you’ll hear in this episode. We have our crack podcasting production staff working hard on resolving this problem. Thanks for understanding and we hope you enjoy listening to Cliff share his insights and expertise with you. For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.
Mirella Rangel is a Xicana mother living and working in Oakland, and a daughter of immigrants who organizes for a more connected world where people value themselves, others and the earth. She is currently Director of Community Organizing for GO Public Schools, and has worked for the past 20 years in and around Oakland schools as a teacher and administrator and in the non-profit sector. Mirella just launched GO's 1Oakland campaign this month, working with families and community to change policies and practices that are barriers to a more equitable school system. Mirella shares her wide range of experiences with community organizing and movement building here in the Bay Area, ranging from her days as a student U.C. Berkeley all the way up to the present day. Along the way, Mirella discusses the personal work and routines she uses to prepare herself to do her job each day, the connections she strives to make for her family and herself to her ancestors, the state of innovation in community organizing and some front lines stories of successes and challenges she faces in her work at GO.
Dr. César A. Cruz is a true Oakland education innovator. From marching 76-straight miles, to hunger striking for 26 days, César has dedicated his life to fighting for justice. He was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México and migrated to the U.S. at a young age with a single mother and grandmother. He grew up in South Central L.A. and moved to the Bay Area to study. César graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in History. He has been an educator for 23 years, in positions of leadership for the last 17 years. He co-founded the independent school, Making Changes, out of his home, and has sought to create autonomous education spaces. He is proud to have overseen the Homies Empowerment Program serving gang impacted/involved youth in Oakland, CA. and now they are in the process of developing a school. He is the author of two books, Revenge of the Illegal Alien, and Bang for Freedom. He received his doctorate in Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, becoming the first Mexican immigrant male to do so. In this episode, César connects his early and coming-of-age experiences to the groundbreaking work he is doing today that seeks to abolish the slavery that sometimes passes for the education of Oakland’s, and the nation’s children. For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.
Seth Hubbert is the Executive Director of Tech Exchange, a nonprofit that provides equitable technology access and support to the East Bay through refurbishing donated computers. Before joining Tech Exchange, Seth served as an educator for 10 years. Beginning in the classroom as a Teach for America Physics and Chemistry teacher in New York City, Seth developed a passion for how technology can support and enhance student learning. As a Director of Academic Technology at French American International School in San Francisco, he led the vision and implementation of blended learning, integrated coding, 1-to-1 student device access, and design technology programs. He’s served on the Technology, Innovation and Design committee for the European Council of International Schools and has instructed university courses on STEM curriculum for new teachers. Seth has a B.S. in Physics from Whitworth University and a M.S. in Education from Pace University.
In this episode, Seth shares the Tech Exchange's amazing history, how he leads and learns from his diverse team, the organization's role in Oakland and the greater East Bay as a partner to cities and schools and the joy he experiences from providing access to technology to so many families. Learn more at www.thegrproject.com.
Claire Shorall, Manager, Computer Science, works on implementing a district-wide vision to ensure Oakland Unified School District's students receive high quality CS education. She supports curricular and teacher professional development and partners with public, private, and nonprofit entities to expand work-based learning and extracurricular opportunities. Prior to leading CS for the district, Shorall taught Biology, Calculus, and Computer Science at Castlemont High School, where she still maintains one AP Computer Science Principles course. In 2015, she was one of 10 national recipients of the Teach For America Excellence in Teaching Award.
In this episode, Claire goes into great detail regarding how she's contributed to creating one of the most successful and widest reaching public school computer science programs serving children of color. Claire speaks to how, as a religious studies major, she came to computer science in the first place, the importance of continuing to teach while also working in the central office and how she leads and follows as a white woman in a position of power. Of course, she also answers our five questions, highlighting yet another incredibly inspiring story about one of the Oakland Unified School District's students. For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.
Kennan Scott is an urban father, husband, planner and PLTW engineering teacher at West Oakland Middle School. He is laser-focused on creating the next generation of tech leaders and critical thinkers. The Founder of @CODEdAcademy, in this episode, Kennan talks about his own education upbringing, his experience as a black engineer and thoughts about how to better support engineers of color, as well as two different schools he's involved in launching in Oakland. Along the way, Kennan also shares which Marvel comic was his favorite growing up (our guess is you've never heard of it) and his forays in both the professional rollerblading and child acting fields. We had a great time speaking with Kennan and expect you'll find more Oakland education gems in his words. For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.
Charles Cole III is an entrepreneur, doctoral candidate in Education Leadership, a former social worker and an experienced leader, having worked in a wide range of organizations including the Oakland Unified School District and Teach For America. In this episode, Charles speaks his truth powerfully. He tells numerous stories, all contributing to illustrating an unrelenting focus on improving the education and future opportunities for all children, but specifically for children of color. In our no-holds-barred conversation, Charles makes plain his intent to do away with the abhorrent illiteracy rate in California's African American student population, his intent to change lives in Oakland, Chicago and Kentucky and the work he's doing with GO Public Schools here in Oakland as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. You will not want to miss Charles' takes on our Five Questions, either. For more information on Charles' episode and The GR Project, check out www.thegrproject.com.
Dr. Brian Stanley is an Oakland resident, the Executive Director of the Oakland Public Education Fund and a member of the Oakland Unified School District's Executive Cabinet. In our very first podcast, we speak at length with Brian about a wide range of topics including how the research he did for his Ph.D. informs his current work, why a Truth and Reconciliation process in Oakland might not be enough to overcome the issues that divide us in education, why education isn't all about kids, how the Ed Fund works with its donors and what, exactly, the Executive Cabinet does. Brian also shares who he believes to be the among the most influential voices in Oakland education today, what he would do first if he were Superintendent and what he gets to experience in his job that he wishes everyone else could see.
For more information, check out www.thegrproject.com.