Oakland Kids Return to School After 8-Day Teacher Strike for ‘Reparations’ and Other Demands

Children in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) returned to classes Tuesday after the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement with the school board that includes “reparations” for slavery.

The union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), had demanded reparations and other policy changes, along with salary increases.

The district agreed to create a reparations task force, as Breitbart News reported Monday:

Now, a new agreement has been reached to create a “Reparations for Black Students Taskforce.” The task force will identify any school with more than 40% black student enrollment as a “Historically Black School,” which is to be transformed into a “Black Thriving Community School” by providing additional staff and funding.

It is not clear if the plan is constitutional, since California prohibits the government from discriminating by race.

The task force is to consist of 21 members, including four from the union, four from the district, and four students.

According to reporting by The Oaklandside, one of the sticking points in negotiations was whether the agreement for reparations was to be included in the union’s collective bargaining agreement, and therefore legally enforceable, or whether it was to remain a separate memorandum of understanding.

Overall, The Oaklandside noted, “Under the tentative agreement, all OEA members will receive a 10% raise, retroactive to Nov. 1, 2022, and all full-time OEA members will receive an additional one-time payment of $5,000.”

The State of California, as well as the City of San Francisco, are currently considering proposals for reparations, including cash payments and sweeping policy changes. California entered the Union as a free state in 1850.

90% of the children in the Oakland Unified School District are from minority groups. They suffered most directly from the eight-day strike, which stretched across three weeks. Test scores in the district are poor.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.