Jesse Phelps, Emerson Elementary parent and PTO leader, and Jody London, Board of Education Director for District 1, have led the charge to develop a new wiki website that will unite schools across the District. Their hope is that the wiki will allow parents to organize and leverage the experience and resources of those at other Oakland Unified schools.

Jody explained the roots of the wiki project and the path to bring it to life:
"Six years ago my older daughter started kindergarten in Oakland Unified, and for six years it seems I’ve been engaged in a running conversation with from parents at different Oakland schools about how things happen in each school... Does your school have a walk-a-thon, how is it organized, and how much money does it raise? What kind of music program is offered at your school?  How does your school bring more families in on Back to School Night? 

It has always seemed to me that what we are lacking is a central gathering place where parents can learn from one another how to support their local schools—a kind of District-wide parent-teacher organization or PTA. 

When I joined the School Board in 2009, I spoke with parent leaders at the schools in my area about how I could best support them. Interest in meeting engaged parents at neighboring schools is something I heard over and over again. In response, this February and April I began hosting forums on fostering Family Engagement in our neighborhood schools. The response has been tremendous! 

Parent volunteers have come together from across the City to work on projects they identified at our first meeting. 

These include a Parent Leadership Council (which will hold its inaugural meeting Saturday, May 22, 10am to 12pm at Sequoia Elementary), a citywide education foundation, a sister school program, and this online resource, which we are so excited to launch!" 

 As Jody mentioned, the wiki recently went live, and is now accessible to all members of our OUSD community. Any parent or teacher can use the website to search for information and resources, or to upload information that might be useful to those in other schools. Any and all relevant contributions will be welcomed.

Jesse writes to explain how parents can get involved, and how the wiki works:

"Now that the site is up, we need help building it out with information and making it a place for individual families, parent groups, teachers, and businesses to network and connect resources with needs (both information and physical resources). Sharing the resources we have is critical in this time of budgetary crisis."

Do you have information on how to start a parent group? We need it.

Do you have information on BEING a parent group, five or ten or twenty years in?

We need that information too, so that our younger or less organized folks can work toward goals.

Can you grant-write?

We need your know-how. Can you help post some information or resource links to help parent groups, teachers, etc. to apply for grants, or tutorials on how to do so?

Has your school created step-by-step guides to help create fundraisers and other opportunities for community building?

Do you have email chains you can condense and edit that would contain such instructions?

Can you post that information to help our schools who may not yet have that step-by-step information?

I can guarantee there are schools that need it!

Do you have a pressing need RIGHT NOW for a donation of paper, folders, pencils, binders? Post it, and let us know!

There may be someone in the community who can help!

Please spread the word of this wiki to any and all of your neighbors, friends, business networking connections, anyone who may want to help or who may need help in their local OUSD schools."

Many thanks to all the parent and community volunteers who are working so hard to bring us together. If you would like to get involved in any of these efforts, please contact Jody London at jody.london@ousd.k12.ca.us.

The OUSD Parent & Family wiki can be accessed at http://ousdparentresource.wikispot.org/. There are detailed instructions on how to the resource at the bottom of the landing page.

If you have questions, or would like more information, please contact Jesse Phelps at gurujulp@gmail.com

Oakland Local Bonus: Wondering What's a Wiki? Watch this great explanation