Oakland Violence Prevention Program at Risk as Skyline High Shooting Renews Urgency

After a student was shot at an Oakland high school this week, school district leaders are calling for more violence-prevention resources on campuses.

But a key program aimed at reducing school-site violence could sunset this spring as city funding lapses and the Oakland Unified School District looks to cut $100 million from its budget amid a major fiscal crisis.

“Moments like this are when our school partners and our students expect us to show up,” said Joseph Griffin, the executive director of the nonprofit Youth ALIVE!, which has partnered with the Oakland Unified School District on its School Violence Intervention and Prevention program since 2022.

“The only way we can show up is if we know we have the resources and the funding to keep these programs going,” he told KQED on Friday.

When gunfire shook Skyline High School’s campus on Wednesday afternoon, a violence interruptor was there.

The school-based staffers identify and proactively mediate conflicts between students and intervene when tensions escalate. They’ve been embedded at OUSD high schools since 2023 through a pilot program with the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, launched to reduce high rates of violence on the sites.

During the 2021-2022 school year, more than 670 OUSD high school students were suspended for physical violence. In recent years, there have been at least six shootings at Oakland schools, including three on Skyline’s campus.

In 2023, three minors were arrested on assault and firearm charges in connection with another shooting at the school that resulted in no injuries. The following year, three people were injured in a shooting just after the school’s graduation ceremony. And on Wednesday, a student was shot in the bathroom of a building on campus, according to school board member Mike Hutchinson.

The victim was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and two minors were taken into custody, according to Oakland Police. Police said two firearms were recovered at the scene.

“The role that violence interrupters play is to focus on the time immediately before and after an incident of violence,” Griffin said. “We can understand when tensions are getting high and can get in front of that … and in the case when there is violence, we can be there in the immediate aftermath to try to bring down the tensions to make sure that retaliation doesn’t occur.”

The School Violence Intervention and Prevention program evolved out of a partnership between the district, the city and local nonprofits to bring intervention and gender-based violence workers and life coaches into schools.

Initially, violence interrupters rotated across multiple campuses, but in fall of 2023, they were assigned at seven high schools and continuing schools throughout the district, and have expanded to more sites, including Skyline.

During the program’s first year, OUSD saw a 10% reduction in suspensions for physical violence across its high schools. In 2024, interrupters mediated more than 260 conflicts, according to Griffin.

When violence occurs on campus, Griffin said, interrupters help ensure conflicts don’t lead to retaliation and identify whether it might spill off campus. He said in the hours after the shooting at Skyline on Wednesday, other Youth ALIVE! interruptors working throughout the city came to the school site to provide support.

“This is the moment where we could start to coordinate between our school-based programs and our community-based programs,” he said.

Hutchinson said this week’s shooting underscores a need to expand the program — not let it expire when funding dries up this spring.

The city allocated $5.4 million to the program in its 2023-2025 budget, and the district also received a nearly $1 million grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to fund three additional interrupters for three years.

Additional funding has been allocated for 2025-2026, but there are no plans to continue funding the positions after this school year.

Earlier this month, Superintendent Denise Saddler warned of a dire budget crisis, and next week, OUSD staff is expected to present scenarios that strip $100 million from the district’s budget next year to avoid insolvency.

“I’m worried that we can even continue them, let alone have the resources to expand those programs at Skyline, where there’s an obvious need for some sort of work to be done,” Hutchinson said.

Oakland teacher’s union president Kampala Taiz-Rancifer said the union has been advocating for the continuation of violence-prevention resources such as interrupters, along with on-site psychologists and other staff who help students feel safe and connected to campus.

“There is just a systemic disinvestment in resources in Oakland schools in general, but specifically at Skyline High School,” she said. “When staffing is cut, when mental health supports are inadequate, campuses are left without the resources that they need to help students do their best. This creates an environment where more violence can happen, not less.”

Griffin said Youth ALIVE! was in conversation with OUSD principals and other senior staff and was “looking for the pathway to keep this work going.”

For the teams to drive a lasting reduction in campus violence, he said, they need to have a sustained presence.

“You can’t parachute in and parachute out,” he told KQED. “Our young people need us to be consistent in order to really trust the type of support that we’re offering.”