The doors to Westlake Middle School in Oakland were closed Friday morning. Outside were about two dozen people waving signs and shouting as nearly every passing car honked in support of a one-day walkout by teachers in the Oakland Unified School District.

Teachers went on strike to protest the school closure and consolidation plan approved by the school board earlier this year. Teachers and others say the plan will disproportionately harm Black and Hispanic students. Eleven schools are set to close over a two-year period.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.