FIA builds the capacity parents, youth, educators and school leaders in order to create a more just public education ecosystem in Oakland. Through building strong community, our signature institutes, 1:1 coaching, co-leading education campaigns, FIA has developed hundreds of powerful leaders who demand and win access, quality and equity in Oakland public education.

FIA Summer Institute 2021

FIA leadership institutes bring parents and youth together to network and develop their organizing skills. Institute graduates go on to co-lead FIA issue campaigns that make a real impact in improving education.

Participating schools: Achieve, AIMS, Alternative Action High School, Arise High School, Ascend, Aspire ERES Academy, Aspire Triumph Technology Academy, Bay Area Technology, Community School for Creative Education, Cox Academy, East Bay Innovation Academy, KIPP Bridge Academy, Latitude High School, Lazear Charter Academy, Lighthouse Community Charter, Lodestar, Oakland Charter High School, Oakland Military Institute, Oakland Unity High School, and Yu Ming

Teacher Political Fellowship

Our inaugural Teacher Political Leader Fellowship brought 30 charter and district teachers together to build community, to learn about power and politics in Oakland and to galvanize civic education and voter registration in their school communities.

FIA’s Teacher Political Leadership provides educators an opportunity to elevate their voice as Oakland teachers to take leadership for quality, equity, and access in public education. Teachers will:

• Reconnect with their journey to become a teacher
• Learn about key power levers in the Oakland educational landscape
• Use their voice as an Oakland charter teacher to advocate for quality, access, and equity
• Join a growing, powerful movement for educational equity in Oakland schools
• Learn how they can build electoral power as a teacher

Session 1: What’s at Stake?

Purpose:

Teachers will understand the origin stories in order to explore why they choose to work in a PCS and the values that guided their decision; understand what is happening in Oakland education policy, who benefits, and why; and agitate around who is shaping a vision for equitable access to quality public education in Oakland.

Session 2: Strengthening our Personal Power

Purpose:

Teachers will define power, understand the core principles of power, and to introduce the primary means of developing and exercising their public power; To explore the experience of the group with the four quadrants of exercising power and become aware of the advantages and limits of each; and To share practical power building practices including mapping power relationships and power 1:1’s.