By providing mentors for Oakland Promise, Blue Shield is making differences in students’ lives.

Teachers Barbara Bick and Dan Burr created Neptune Nature School, which adheres to a forest school philosophy, after an Alameda preschool closed its doors mid-season.

On a typical day at Outside School, everyone meets in the parking lot at Alvarado Park then the class members hike and play observing the abundant wildlife until snack/storybook time. Adventuring continues until lunch at noon, with more stories, and, for the older kids, journaling.

Twenty-first century parents embrace the 19th-century idea of the forest school.

The Oakland Public Library’s Wash and Read program puts books into the hands of kids and adults doing their laundry at Family Laundry.

AUSD’s new superintendent assumed his new position just in time to preside over the district’s labor negotiations.

The district is getting $8.7 million this year for Oakland middle schools.

The AUSD board contemplates a new parcel tax to raise teachers’ salaries.

The entrepreneur has expanded her Spanish immersion preschool, La Plazita, to include after-school programs and camps, creating leaders and managers along the way.

The Alameda High School senior plans to major in computer science at UC Berkeley and is doing her part to bring more women into technology.

A more activist school board with interest in managing the district’s business says so long to Superintendent Sean McPhetridge.