A novel partnership between the Oakland Unified School District and Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention three years ago introduced teams at seven city high schools dedicated to interrupting and preventing violence. After the first year, OUSD saw a reduction in students being suspended for violence, and the district expanded the program, adding two additional teams at Oakland Tech and Skyline high schools. But city funding runs out at the end of this school year, putting pressure on district leaders to identify a new funding source.
Carla Ashford is a violence interrupter with the Oakland nonprofit Youth Alive, which is one of the organizations the Department of Violence Prevention contracts to implement the program. She now spends her days helping mediate conflicts between students at Skyline High, in the Oakland Hills.
Skyline has had a spate of violent incidents in the last few years, including a stabbing that injured a student in 2022, a shooting in 2023 with no apparent victims, and a shooting after graduation in 2024 that injured three people. Two weeks ago, the campus was locked down after what turned out to be a false report of a student with a weapon on campus…