“We can go on strike with them.” An interview with Oakland student activist Kimberly Wong

Kimberly Wong is a senior at Oakland High School, and the founder of Oakland Students Rising (@oakstudentsrising), an Instagram account engaging Oakland students in their teachers’ contract campaign and the struggle to defend public education.

In December, Kimberly walked out of Oakland High School alongside of hundreds of students and teachers as part of an unauthorized workplace action (a “sick out”)  by the teachers. Together, they marched to Oakland City Hall, where Kimberly gave a rousing speech in support of her teachers’ demands for a livable wage, smaller class sizes, and more support staff. 

Majority’s Dina Asfaha and Jeremy Gong interviewed Kimberly about her activism and the fight for public education. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Majority: Why did you start the Instagram account, Oakland Students Rising?

Kimberly Wong: I started it because I felt really inspired after the sick out and I felt like I wanted to do more, do something to support the teachers. I thought it would be a good way to get information out there and to inform other students on how to get involved.

I wanted to tell the world, “we support the teachers!” We know we are in this with them. We’re not mad at them for doing strikes. We want them to know they have our support.

My favorite people at school are my teachers. They are my best friends. I have trouble talking to some other students. But with teachers it’s really easy for me to talk to them. They’re always making me laugh, they’re always telling jokes. But I’m also really inspired by them. They’re some of my biggest inspirations. I see the little things they do for us, and that touches me.

Can you tell us about your teachers? What’s an example of what they do for you?

There’s so many.

Like Mr. Johnston, my English teacher. He’ll come to school really early, maybe like 6 a.m. He bikes all the way here. I’ll see him working so hard the whole day. But at the same time he’s so patient with us. Every time I have a question he puts so much of genuine effort into answering it, even though he’s probably tired from working so much. He doesn’t try to rush me. He makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world at that moment. That’s how it is with all my teachers.

My teachers’ extra effort is really inspiring to me. How much passion they put into their work and how excited they are to teach. They never seem tired. They’re so passionate about their jobs and that really inspires me. I want to find something I’m passionate about like they are.

Do you think teachers are underappreciated in our society?

Yes I do. Teachers in Oakland have really low wages, and they’ve been struggling with it for a while. There have been a lot of budget cuts. Teachers need to get paid more. They’re are not getting what they need to survive in Oakland where housing is so expensive. And we don’t even have enough chairs or school supplies that we need. Sometimes I have to sit on the ground or on someone else’s desk. We’ll put three people on one desk sometimes.

And once teachers build relationships with their students, it’s so significant for our learning too. Because once you get a new teacher it’s not the same. It’s like we were just creating that relationship that’s really important to our learning. It’s really hard to learn from someone if you just met them. And the teaching style might be completely different than you’re used to. So it’s better if we have a teacher who stays with us.

Are a lot of teachers leaving or being replaced?

Yeah definitely. Freshman year I had this really awesome teacher and then the next year he had to leave because he wasn’t getting paid enough. He was offered a better job, and he took it and I can’t blame him for that. One year we got subs for the whole year for English, which is a really important subject. So we were basically doing free-writes the whole year.

Why is it so hard to pay our teachers? It doesn’t seem that hard. If they just paid them more, everything would be solved. They’ll be able to take care of their families pay their bills, and stay in our schools with us.

We have huge budget cuts, so our afterschool program that used to give free meals to kids — that got cut this year. So all the kids that relied on that now have nothing to eat.

And then all of our sports got cut at the beginning of the year. But thankfully an anonymous donor gave us money so we can have the sports back this year. But without that anonymous donor our sports wouldn’t have happened this year. And we shouldn’t have to rely on an anonymous donor, it’s too important.

What would be the impact on students to not have sports?

We would all be so depressed. We need sports. That’s how we express, that’s how we interact, that’s how we branch out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves. And it’s also a way we can release our minds and our stress after school. It’s fun and motivates us.

For me, cross country, I would wake up just excited to go to cross country. I wouldn’t even think about school. Sometimes cross country is the only thing pushing me to classes. A lot of students rely on sports to keep them motivated to do well in school. If they cut the sports a lot of students would drop out or at least not be motivated to do school. You’re taking our away our freedom, our fun, our friendships.

What can students do to support this struggle?

We can go on strike with them. We can be their voice, because other adults will listen to the student voices.