FEATURED LEADERS
Our Featured Leaders are Early Childhood Community stakeholders who work to make Oakland smarter and stronger. They are parents/caregivers, providers, educators, and collaborators.
Alicia Simba, Prescott Elementary (Oakland Unified School District)
For Alicia Simba, being a Transitional Kindergarten (TK) teacher is serious business - but it’s also the most fun she’s ever had in a job. This teacher at Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Prescott Elementary recently organized a West Oakland Early Childhood Roundtable, with participants including a fellow OUSD teacher, OUSD parent, BANANAS staff, a Family Child Care provider, and OSSS Policy Analyst Trisha Barua.
We caught up with Alicia to talk about why she created the roundtable conversation and what she loves about her work.
What drew you to early education?
I always enjoyed working with kids. In college my sophomore year, I was taking political science classes while I worked at the campus day care. I was seeing myself make a difference in real time. I realized that I could teach the values I was talking about in my poli sci classes, like empathy and being kind. I also appreciated working with parents. Pretty much across the board they were struggling in one way or another, so it was really impactful to see myself be able to support them. It made me think that teaching is a way to leave a positive impact on the world in a way that is immediate and incredibly meaningful.
There’s a tendency to take the fun out of teaching when we talk about it. I’m like, I have a job where I don’t go an hour without laughing. Sometimes I don’t go 10 minutes without laughing! My students are painfully cute.
What made you decide to organize the Early Childhood Roundtable?
I’m a policy fellow through Teach Plus, a program to develop policy and advocacy skills in teachers so that we can push for equitable schools. As part of this fellowship, we’re encouraged to organize policy-related events. I wanted to talk about TK and early childhood education because there are a lot of moving parts and it’s an important topic both locally and nationally. I also wanted to highlight the conversations that are happening in West Oakland every day, around how we can best support all of our children.
What were your takeaways from the panel?
One of the things I’ve been grappling with overall is that while on the national level, TK is being promoted as “the” policy approach, our experience in California and in Oakland shows that it’s not the answer for every family. As part of the Teach Plus fellowship, we’re also encouraged to write opinion pieces from our perspectives as teachers. I wrote about this lack of consensus around TK in the Progressive.
I also wanted to uplift the amazing work that is happening every day in Oakland in early childhood education. You hear parents saying they love their child’s preschool teacher or family child care provider, and educators saying they love the families, and children saying they love everyone! BANANAS is doing great work every day. I use the OSSS data maps all the time. They help me have a more holistic view of what’s happening in the neighborhood I work and live in. I appreciate that the maps show where we have (or don’t have) community assets like grocery stores and religious institutions.
If you could ask our next featured leader one question, what would it be?
What keeps you rooted in Oakland?
We caught up with Alicia to talk about why she created the roundtable conversation and what she loves about her work.
What drew you to early education?
I always enjoyed working with kids. In college my sophomore year, I was taking political science classes while I worked at the campus day care. I was seeing myself make a difference in real time. I realized that I could teach the values I was talking about in my poli sci classes, like empathy and being kind. I also appreciated working with parents. Pretty much across the board they were struggling in one way or another, so it was really impactful to see myself be able to support them. It made me think that teaching is a way to leave a positive impact on the world in a way that is immediate and incredibly meaningful.
There’s a tendency to take the fun out of teaching when we talk about it. I’m like, I have a job where I don’t go an hour without laughing. Sometimes I don’t go 10 minutes without laughing! My students are painfully cute.
What made you decide to organize the Early Childhood Roundtable?
I’m a policy fellow through Teach Plus, a program to develop policy and advocacy skills in teachers so that we can push for equitable schools. As part of this fellowship, we’re encouraged to organize policy-related events. I wanted to talk about TK and early childhood education because there are a lot of moving parts and it’s an important topic both locally and nationally. I also wanted to highlight the conversations that are happening in West Oakland every day, around how we can best support all of our children.
What were your takeaways from the panel?
One of the things I’ve been grappling with overall is that while on the national level, TK is being promoted as “the” policy approach, our experience in California and in Oakland shows that it’s not the answer for every family. As part of the Teach Plus fellowship, we’re also encouraged to write opinion pieces from our perspectives as teachers. I wrote about this lack of consensus around TK in the Progressive.
I also wanted to uplift the amazing work that is happening every day in Oakland in early childhood education. You hear parents saying they love their child’s preschool teacher or family child care provider, and educators saying they love the families, and children saying they love everyone! BANANAS is doing great work every day. I use the OSSS data maps all the time. They help me have a more holistic view of what’s happening in the neighborhood I work and live in. I appreciate that the maps show where we have (or don’t have) community assets like grocery stores and religious institutions.
If you could ask our next featured leader one question, what would it be?
What keeps you rooted in Oakland?