“I’m ready to fight for what our students deserve.”

Majority reporters Dina Asfaha and Ari Marcantonio sat down with Shelby Ziesing, a second-grade teacher at Joaquin Miller elementary school in Oakland. Shelby, who has taught in Oakland Public Schools for three years, spoke about the Oakland teachers’ contract demands in the escalating fight against the school board, the assault on public education, and why this fight matters to her. This interview has been condensed for clarity.

Majority: What are the teachers fighting for in this campaign?

Shelby Ziesing: We’ve been in contract negotiations now for over a year and a half, with almost no sign of compromise. We’re asking for a raise at 12% over the next three years, smaller class sizes, particularly in our high-needs schools, and for more support for students.

In Oakland our ratios of [students to] counselors and nurses and other student support staff are really high. It’s like thousands of students per individual. It isn’t fair to the working professionals because they can’t do their jobs, and it’s not fair for the students because they don’t get the support that they need.

I would say overall it’s really just about getting support for the students, making sure that quality teachers stay in Oakland and can afford to work in our district. But I think on a broader scale it is also about privatization of schools in Oakland and the movement to open more and more charter schools while closing our public schools. This results in instability in our communities and also means that our schools are less and less accountable to our communities, which is a big problem for us.

Can you explain what charter schools are and why we should be cautious of them?

There are a lot of individual charter schools that do really great work in our communities, but when we look at a broader scale, charter schools are essentially privately run yet receive public funds.

The way schools are funded in California is by individual student, so for every student that leaves a public school district and enters a charter school, we lose funding proportionally. Oakland loses about 50 million dollars in funding every year to charter schools because of the number of students who have left our school district.

Charter schools tend to increase racial segregation in the school district, and they serve disproportionately fewer students with special needs than public schools

Another issue is that charter schools are less accountable. Public schools are run by the school board, which is democratically elected. There are also more structural accountability measures that apply to public schools that don’t apply to charter schools. I was talking to a friend of mine who teaches at a charter school in Oakland about how if any school closes that’s a huge impact on the community. It disproportionately affect students of color, low-income families, English language learners, and our newcomer families. And that’s true regardless of if it’s a charter school closing or a public school.

Could you say a bit about who advocates for charter schools and why?

There are a few organizations locally that advocate for opening charter schools and have put a lot of pressure on our school board to authorize new charters. These organizations are funded almost entirely by private corporate money. Overall I think there’s a huge push from the corporate world to privatize our schools and to open more charter schools because they are more accountable to private interests than the public.

Could you tell us a story about your time as a teacher that has made this fight important to you?

Overall I think one of the most heartbreaking parts about working in Oakland has been seeing services denied to my special education students. I work in one of the wealthier schools in the district and we definitely have parents with more ability to advocate for their kids. But even so, my special education students don’t have the resources or the attention that they need. Our special education population, our English-language population, our newcomer [immigrant] population, those are the kids who really need the most out of school and for us to not be serving them I think is heartbreaking. We’re really doing a disservice to public schools in general because we are supposed to be democratic and equitable, but we’re failing at that because we don’t have what we need.

Are you prepared to go on strike?

I’m ready to strike. But I think it’s important to note that going on strike is a last resort. It’s really hard for everybody, and I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t know. A lot of people don’t even realize that teachers don’t get paid when we’re on strike. For people who are already making well below a living wage in Oakland, it’s a huge sacrifice to walk away from that salary for an undetermined amount of time. And so I’m ready to fight for what our students deserve, but I also know that it’s going to have difficult impacts on our students’ lives and also on our teachers who are going to struggle financially.

This is an opportunity for families and teachers to work together, and going on strike is how we can exercise our collective power.