The fall semester is weeks away, but after a brief summer recess, tension came flooding back to the Oakland school board room this week.
I wasn’t at the Wednesday night board meeting when this went down, but it didn’t look pretty from my screen.
One minute Joel Velasquez — a Westlake and former Lakeview parent who has been perhaps the most outspoken and persistent critic of Oakland’s school closures — was at the podium, speaking about working closely with the superintendent and school board and becoming “allies.”
In the next, he was being escorted out of the school board meeting room by Oakland School Police after having threatened to stage protests at board members’ homes.