Oakland school community hoping to keep the same staff member on campus

By Andrea Nakano

While the Oakland Unified School District has to make cuts to close the budget deficit, there’s been a tremendous amount of support for one employee to keep her job.

Fellow teachers, students and parents rallied around Donna Jackson to keep her at La Escuelita. For the last five years, Jackson has considered La Escuelita her home away from home.

“I’m noon supe, but it’s more than noon supervisor,” Jackson said.

If you ask some of the kids, she’s the best noon supervisor ever.

“I like that she cares for us and worries about us in our ups and downs,” Luisa said.

“She cares for us like we’re her own children,” Mowadeh added. “She’s like our family.”

“She cares a lot about us like we’re her own children and she does a lot for us,” Maggie said.

Ever since she heard that she might be losing her job at La Escuelita a few weeks ago, she’s been feeling the love from everyone at the school.

“Magical,” Jackson said. “It just reinforces the way I feel about them. I’m not just a name or an ID or a number.”

Jackson said the district didn’t cut her job completely but the options it gave her would have forced her to leave the school.

“I have two options either, stay here and have three hours a day and then of course lose my benefits and holidays,” she said. “Or I could be transferred to another school that I’m not familiar with and leave all these beautiful children behind. That is the hard part.”

While she has a very large extended family at school, her family has grown at home. She adopted her grandson and doesn’t have the option to take fewer hours.

“She’s the only person that fought for me to be adopted instead of sitting around,” Gianni said. “And what’s it like to be around her every day. It gives me a reason to wake up.”

Teachers also say she has been invaluable as the noon supervisor and has created special relationships with the kids. Adi Hoag said taking Miss Donna away from La Escuelita could impact how students perform in the classroom.

“The amount of money they’re saving by cutting you know three hours of her position it’s not gonna balance the budget,” Hoag said. “It doesn’t make any sense, and we’ve proven that they’re getting a bargain. They need to keep Miss Donna.”

Jackson hopes her job at La Escuelita will be saved so she can continue what she loves to do.

“It’s just finding what brings them happiness,” she said. “So, then they’re busy and they don’t if they’re busy, they’re happy. They don’t get in trouble. That’s the bottom line.”