Boost! West Oakland’s CEO Ty-Licia Hooker speaks on academic recovery after the pandemic lockdowns

by Minister of Information JR Valrey, Oakland Bureau Chief

Boost! West Oakland is one of the most visible nonprofits dedicated to education in The Town that is tussling with how to help students who fell behind academically during the pandemic lockdowns. During that calamitous time, school age youth had to depend on device-dependent learning. 

West Oakland Boost! CEO Ty-Licia Hooker has a master’s degree in education and has been triumphantly and courageously leading Boost! throughout the pandemic. I wanted to get her educated opinion on what can be done to help youth who fell through the academic cracks because they did not have the resources to participate fully in machine learning. Check her out in her own words.

JR Valrey: What does Boost! West Oakland do? 

Ty-Licia Hooker: BOOST! is an individualized one-on-one tutoring and mentoring program. We work collaboratively with families, students and teachers to strengthen students’ academic performance and cultivate student leadership within themselves and the community.

JR Valrey: What are some of the most significant issues students faced during the pandemic? 

Ty-Licia Hooker: Our students were stressed in various ways, from watching their families struggle with making difficult decisions like paying for basic needs like food and toiletries to burying family members, some who died because of COVID-19, and others who were murdered due to economic hardships that ravished our communities. Further, we had students displaced when families could not pay the rent, who were attempting to go to school as normally as possible online, all the while living in shelters with family members and even in new cities. Further, districts placed the weight on figuring out how to educate themselves online onto students. All of this, plus more, took an unfathomable toll on our students’ mental health.

We tutor from a space of positive intention and establish new ways of understanding our students and meeting them where they are.

JR Valrey: How did distance learning aka device dependent learning weigh out for students in the  Oakland Unified School District (OUSD)?

Ty-Licia Hooker: Some students in Oakland were just fine. However, the students considered the poorest in OUSD, the students who fall in the intersection of being both Black, Brown, and poor, were hit the hardest in distance learning. Our students were some of the last students to get Chromebooks. Once supplied, our students needed the internet or a better internet connection and needed a space in their homes for individual online learning, and those things weren’t a reality for many of our students. The social, racial, economic and academic disparities widened for our babies, and it is those students who were left behind during the pandemic.

JR Valrey: What do you think the OUSD needs to do to make up for academic ground lost by the students who were forced to go into device dependent learning? 

Ty-Licia Hooker: OUSD has to ask how they partner within the community to disrupt inequitable policies and practices for the students they serve. This will be difficult for the district as the majority of current policies are hurting Black and Brown students. Partnering with families and community leaders is a major part of restructuring the district to serve students’ needs truly. 

As a former teacher with the district, I believe OUSD should make a commitment to educate the whole child. As part of the community, we can do this by prioritizing student social-emotional learning and by making mental health services as integrated in the school as physical education. The conversations that the district needs to have with its stakeholders starts with students and families and stretches as wide as creating initiatives with churches, academic institutions, community organizations and other government offices to support our students and their families. 

JR Valrey: What can be done by OUSD to counter the student mental health crisis that our students are battling?

Ty-Licia Hooker: Depression, ADHD, anxiety and suicide are rising among our young people. They may not be able to articulate exactly what is going on for themselves, but they give adults the signs through their behavior and their reactions. Additionally, I want to see the district add more funding to train teachers on these signs. 

The district can provide services to students in need, including one-on-one counseling, case management and referrals to outside agencies. Further, there should be an increase in funding focused on the structural and cultural roots of racial inequity and how it affects inequitable policies in OUSD. 

As an organizational leader, I learned a valuable lesson from our After School site director, Ms. Johnson. She taught me to train my tutors to know the difference between defiant and those students who are doing the best they can. For example, a third-grade student may be asked to do fractions. The student may start the assignment and then say “I am tired.” Some educators may take this as the student is lying and thus being defiant, whereas the student may only know how to do the first part of the problem and is mentally exhausted. This approach has shifted our lens as a program. I challenge my tutors instead of assuming negative intent, we tutor from a space of positive intention and establish new ways of understanding our students and meeting them where they are.

In the long run, having adults inside and outside of the classroom who care for our students, advocate for our students, and support them and highlight the brilliance they naturally have will create a solid foundation for their mental health. 

JR Valrey: How can people assist Boost in their mission? How could people get more information?

Ty-Licia Hooker: People can assist in our mission in various ways:

• Consider donating to us. Every dollar is tax deductible, and every gift goes towards furthering our mission. 
• Volunteer to tutor with us: http://boostoakland.org/volunteer-with-boost.html. 
• Join our advisory board: http://boostoakland.org/volunteer-with-boost.html. 
• Help us get the word out about what we are doing in West Oakland on social media by sharing, tagging and liking our posts.
• Share photos on your social platform about what our organization means to you or any piece of this article that resonates with you. 

JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media, heads the SF Bay View’s Oakland Bureau and is founder of his latest project, the Ministry of Information Podcast. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com and on Instagram.

This story was made possible by a grant from the National Association of Black Journalists.

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