Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife joined hosts Mahek Kandru and Michael Wiafe on the latest PolicyWise Episode (S3, E11) to discuss leadership, equity and the recent decision by the Oakland Unified School Board to close several schools in the district.
Councilmember Fife, who is also the mother of a high school senior in Oakland, discussed the possible motives for closing schools, even as the school district is experiencing a budget surplus. “Unfortunately, in this country, it’s clear that when these types of decisions are made who will be impacted,” she said. “It’s all of the marginalized populations that are typically steamrolled by power and money.”
She also talked about her journey to becoming a councilmember and her motivation as a leader. “If I didn’t have young people around me,” she explained, “I would probably be in a deep depression because people around are so used to doing things the same way and I love that young people are challenging everything that they’ve been taught.”
The PolicyWise podcast is a partnership between Youth Leadership Institute and CA FWD and can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker Audio, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts and Overcast.
