During its meeting on Tuesday, January 13, the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Education learned about creative strategies underway to build supportive communities at two AUSD school sites and announced the start of a process to name the new athletic field at Encinal Jr. & Sr. High School.
Building community at Earhart and Wood
With the second year of the three-year Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) well underway, Director of Elementary Education Tanya Harris provided an update on how leadership at Earhart Elementary School and Wood Middle School are implementing the tenets of LCAP’s Goal 2, which emphasizes building “relationships between students, families, and staff to ensure schools are supportive, inclusive, and safe.”
Harris explained that the district’s approach to Goal 2 includes creating environments that foster students’ feelings of safety and support, communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations, and open two-way communication pathways with families.
“When I was first asked to talk about supporting inclusive, safe environments at Earhart, I felt like ‘that is what we do every day, all day,’” said Earhart Principal Bryan Dunn-Ruiz, as he took the podium to describe examples of the work in progress at his school site.
Dunn-Ruiz walked through how he and his teaching team are leveraging elements of a socioemotional toolbox to help foster allyship—a key entry point to supporting students—and have codified student expectations into a SOAR matrix. SOAR is an acronym for “Safe, Own our Actions, Allies, Respectful.” He also credited the more than 270 generous and eager parents who have donated their time to support classroom programming, movie nights, book fairs, Halloween “Trunk-or-Treat,” and many other activities that have helped shape Earhart’s community in the last year.
At Wood, Principal Jessica Lucio and her team have managed to put a positive spin on a turbulent time in the school’s history. As modernization work continues on its main campus, Wood is temporarily situated among the portables at the former Lum Elementary School site. The move has been “scary for everyone,” admits Lucio, and the unease is compounded with the persistent stereotype that Wood is “the school that has a lot of fights.”
To dispel that narrative and help shape a new identity everyone could be proud of, school leadership made a commitment to ensure inclusion “across the board.” They created a “Beaver Blueprint,” based on AUSD’s Graduate Profile, which outlines what it means to be a Wood Beaver. At the same time, the school-day schedule has been revamped to make time for regular afternoon Advisory periods aimed at reserving dedicated time for student intervention and community-building activities that are designed to advance the Blueprint. In the last year, these have ranged from team building challenges to talent shows and documentary-style advice columns headed by students.
Lucio looks forward to solidifying the processes and procedures as the year continues. Commending the progress, Board Clerk Jennifer Williams said, “To hear the work that you guys are doing collectively, and to really incorporate this new opportunity with a new building and changing culture—what a great way to tie things together and to make it real for your students and staff.”
Naming process launched for EHS field
Community members have expressed interest in naming the new athletic stadium at Encinal Jr. & Sr. High School following the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, January 9. That prompted Susan Davis, AUSD Senior Manager of Community Affairs, to present the steps involved with naming any new AUSD school or facility, in accordance with Board Policy.
These steps include formally announcing a request for name submissions at a Board meeting and forming a committee of the school’s community members that will review name suggestions from the public and forward a list of finalists for a vote by the Board. The list of criteria for a new name offers some flexibility, but generally requires that it be an individual, entity, geographic area, or value that is worthy of recognition.
The Board voted unanimously to start the naming process. Community members can submit names using the online suggestion form through February 16.
Other notable items
During public comment at the top of the meeting, dozens of Alameda Education Association members—including AUSD teachers, counselors, and other staff members—showed solidarity with their bargaining team as they seek a fair contract with AUSD.
“I have two master’s degrees, I’m an NBCT, I taught the first LGBTQ studies course ever offered in a public high school in the United States, I have an admin credential, an ELA credential, a history credential,” said Lyndsey Schlax, who has taught at Lincoln Middle School for three years. “And last month someone in our community told me that if I wanted affordable health benefits for my family, I should have chosen a different career.”
“Please help make them wrong,” Schlax concluded, to thunderous cheers and applause.
The Board also approved resolutions to grant an easement to Alameda Municipal Power at Otis Elementary School, and to approve the accounting of development fees collected by AUSD during fiscal year 2024-25.
Ken Der is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact him via [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Ken-Der.
