Oakland Unified More than Ready to Start 2026-27 School Year with New Teachers and Principals

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela

A desire to change the world certainly motivates many educators in their classrooms. Oakland Unified is welcoming hundreds of new teachers to school this week to prepare for their first day of school on Monday, along with a handful of new principals. Here’s your chance to meet a few of these new staff members and hear how they’re feeling about the start of school.

“I’m blessed to be in this position, and thankful that I get to support everyone. It feels really good to be able to get into every aspect of the school,” said new Lockwood STEAM Academy principal, Roberto Lascon. He previously taught at the former Parker Elementary before joining Lockwood as a Teacher on Special Assignment, then moving up to assistant principal. “Realy want to highlight our teachers, and all staff, and the passion they have for our students. We’ve been talking about team for years, and last year I told them we need to win, and we’ve had some wins, but there is room to grow. But students and families chose Lockwood for a reason, and being the only school with two pathways with English immersion and dual language, that makes it special. Our students are special, our community is special.”

Shandle Shaw McCormick worked for years as a special education paraeducator at Montera Middle School. Recently, she went back to college and got her bachelor’s degree. Now, she’s a special education teacher at Skyline High School. “I have an interest in understanding how to help kids learn. I know how it works, and I’m going to use it to help these 9th graders. And I’ve been with middle school all this time, so 9th grade will be a new challenge for me. So, I’m taking a step up to try a different grade.” She adds that among her 9th graders, she’ll have numerous students she supported at Montera. “I’m extremely excited. I’m ready for a new challenge… I’m ready to show what I can do. I can’t wait to get to Skyline.”

“This year is 22 years in education… I have at least a ten year history with Peralta because both of my kids attended from kindergarten, and I got to be a long-term sub there,” said Peralta Elementary principal Gillian Bowley. She has worked in education around the Bay Area including in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Leandro, and here in Oakland at Hoover Elementary. “I’m really excited. I think that Peralta has a rich history of arts integration, teacher leadership, and just being a gem of the neighborhood. I am super honored to take that on.” She added that her family has a long history in Oakland schools, as her husband’s grandmother was valedictorian at Oakland Tech in the 1930s.

Jeffrey Mercado will be a 1st grade teacher at Bella Vista Elementary. A few years back, he taught physical education at Montclair Elementary, and last year, he taught in Hayward. “I like the district, it’s close to home. I like working with the demographic of the students that are in the district. And I’m just very comfortable teaching in this district.” He says he’s nervous about starting the school year, but he’s excited about what he’ll see in his classroom. “Just seeing the growth of the students, seeing the growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Seeing the amount of growth that they experience. How they’re wanting to do well and make adults proud… They’re going to be the future leaders, so we want to set them up.”

“This is my seventh year at Greenleaf. I started off as a 4th grade teacher, and then I was a Teacher on Special Assignment/Literacy Coach for many years, last year I was assistant principal, and this year I’m moving into the role of principal,” said Kate Mosely from Greenleaf K-8 School. “It’s really a dream come true to lead Greenleaf… Our focus for the year is everyone belongs, everyone reads, everyone thinks, and everyone leads. That’s really our framework for the year, and we’re really pushing that, the belonging, staff-wise, student to student, and community shaping. We’re also really pushing a reading campaign this year. Our students reading at home, reading at school. We want people excited about reading.”

Leah Stafford-James is a new elementary school teacher after leaving an entirely different industry. “About a year and a half ago, I was with a tech company, and I was bored with the work. And I realized that, I felt like it was a waste of time, even though the pay was pretty good, and I just was like, ‘this isn’t what I want to do. I want to go back into my community, I want to do something more meaningful.’” She added that she grew up in Oakland and attended district schools. ”I made it to the OUSD job fair, and I saw there was an open position at my old elementary school, and I applied.” The former graphic designer will be teaching visual arts at Manzanita Community Elementary. “I’m nervous, but I’m also excited.”

“It feels great, I got to see the culture of Brookfield last year, and it’s a strong community that really wants to do things for the neighborhood and our school,” said new principal of Brookfield Elementary Daniel Bissonnette. He joined the school last year when the charter school he ran, Urban Montessori, merged with Brookfield. “We’re still in that redesign process. We still have two tracks, we have the Montessori program, and a traditional program. All the teachers are really collaborative, wanting to learn from each other, and so this year, we’ll really figure out what is that model going to look like going forward, and how do we take the best of both worlds and create an innovative design.”

The most experienced of these new teachers is Andrea Bunn who previously worked at Madison Park Academy, before leaving for a charter school in Alameda where she taught for eight years. “This is my 11th year teaching, so I don’t feel overly nervous. I’m just here (at the New Teacher Institute) to get a refresher on some curriculum that I haven’t seen before or haven’t seen in a while.” Now, as a kindergarten teacher at Montclair Elementary, she has advice for new teachers. “The first two weeks are really about routines, building relationships, getting to know your kids, and then the other things will fall into place. Lean on veteran teachers… It just takes time to build your confidence, and know how to respond. You’re making a million decisions all day long.”

“It is really fun. We have a lot of big plans, so I’m really excited,” said Madison Park Academy Secondary School principal Bianca Lorenz, who started there 11 years ago as a 7th grade math teacher, and worked up through the ranks. “What’s really special about Madison is our 6-12 model, and it’s really a community school. I’ve had the opportunity to hire multiple alums, I hired an alum, I taught her, who is now going to be a special education teacher this year… So, we get to really see our kids grow up, become adults, and see what they’re going to do with their lives… I’m getting a lot of kids whose cousins or younger siblings are coming in as 6th graders. We just have a really tight community where kids want to come… And we have really amazing staff, we have great retention this year, and we have a lot of people doing great work, so it’s super cool.”

Ignacio Perez worked as a long term secondary substitute teacher including at United for Success Academy, Oakland High, and Elmhurst United Middle, and now gets his own classroom at Elmhurst United. He’ll be teaching English to newcomer students. “I was born and raised in Guatemala, I moved to the U.S. when I was 16, and then I studied philosophy in college. I started doing a philosophy PhD. but then decided I didn’t want to argue about meaningless details for the rest of my life. I wanted to serve. Then I came to the Bay. And I landed in substitute teaching and I really liked it. Now, with the newcomers, I can relate to them like 100%. I went through that process just a little bit later in life, when I was 16. Most newcomers are, the ones I am teaching, they’re 11 or 12. So, I just see myself in them, and I want to help them out.”

These principals and teachers, whether they have lots of experience in their new role, whether they are nervous about starting the job, are all excited to see their students and families on the first day of school, this Monday, August 10.