Driving America Forward with Jennifer Blake & David Cammarata
“Access to data on where each individual bus is has been a huge part of what’s set Zum apart. Obviously parents want to know where a bus is, and if their student got on and off, but teachers and administrators want to know that too.”
Jennifer Blake
Executive Director of Special Education and Health Services
Oakland Unified School District
“I want us always to embody the philosophy “all means all.” We’re not just designing lessons and systems and plans for general education students, but for those with physical and learning disabilities as well.”
David Cammarata
Special Education Related Service Supports
Oakland Unified School District
Jennifer Blake joined Oakland Unified School District in 2009 as a Special Education Teacher. After seven years as an instructor, she joined OUSD’s administration, and has served as the district’s Executive Director of Special Education and Health Services for six years.
David Cammarata has worked in special education for over twenty years—fourteen as a teacher, and the last seven in OUSD’s administration. Together, they are a part of the leadership team supporting OUSD’s special education and health services.
How is OUSD driving innovation forward?
JB: The biggest way OUSD is innovating is through its approach to teaching. We’re using the latest methodologies and technology—including the science of reading, and AI tools—to maximize staff efficiency and ensure that each student gets a personalized education plan. That’s foundational to our innovation at OUSD.
At OUSD, we’ve been a steadfast adopter of the science of reading: an evidence-based approach to instruction that focuses on sounds, symbols, and how readers combine those sounds and symbols into words. It’s empirical, backed by research, and it’s showing promising results among our students. Further, for those with learning disabilities, we have robust literacy intervention programs to make sure all students advance.
For the staff, we’re further innovating by embracing the latest technology to increase our efficiency and ensure that our teaching plans are bespoke to each class and student. Our staff is getting trained on AI models like Claude and Gemini to minimize rote tasks, and increase the amount of time we spend developing lesson plans and actually teaching.
The combination of these factors is helping us develop hyper-personalized plans for each student—and that’s core to our innovation at OUSD.
DC: I’ll second all of that, and add that this personalized approach extends beyond the classroom. I oversee our support services for special education students, which includes programs to help them navigate the real world and, for those graduating, the workforce. These programs are tailored to each student and designed to help them make decisions, advocate for themselves, and thrive outside of school.
To us, personalization is innovation.
From your perspective, how is Zum driving America innovation forward?
DC: I’ll start here. Many years ago, I was lucky enough to be part of the conversation when our school district chose our new student transportation partner. We saw bids from many different partners, but there was a clear winner.
In posting the RFP, we knew that we wanted to be able to track our students as they got on and off the bus, that we wanted an app that parents could use to identify where their children were, and that we eventually wanted to electrify our fleet of buses. Of the bids we saw, only one anticipated all of those needs, and laid out a clear plan to address them all. Other vendors only laid out partial plans, requiring us to ask questions or fill in the gaps—but in Zum’s proposal, they had a plan for everything.
That doesn’t mean executing on that plan has been easy, or that there haven’t been changes. It hasn’t been easy, and there have been challengeschanges. But Zum was ahead of the curve in terms of their foresight and ability to map out the future with us—and that’s a hallmark of innovation.
JB: I’ll add that access to data on where each individual bus is has been a huge part of what’s set Zum apart. Obviously parents want to know where a bus is, and if their student got on and off, but teachers and administrators, we want to know that, too. If we know where the buses are, we can spend less time worrying about the students and more time planning lessons and actually teaching them. That’s a huge win for us.
When you think of the future, what role do children/the next generation play, and how can we set them up for success?
DC: I want us always to embody the philosophy “all means all.” We’re not just designing lessons and systems and plans for general education students, but for those with physical and learning disabilities as well. The more inclusive we are, the better our learning outcomes will be—and the more inclusive the next generation will be as well, when it comes time for them to step into our shoes.
JB: I’d also love to see us be innovative in terms of creating new learning experiences and pathways for entering the workforce. Zum has done a great thing by putting a bus depot in Oakland, and students are getting exposed to EVs simply by riding one to and from school every day. But those bus depots are also hubs of incredible technological advancement and learning, and it would be wonderful to use them for field trips or projects for our students, so that anyone interested in EVs or the automotive industry can get a front row seat, and anyone interested in those fields professionally can get a leg up as they enter the workforce.
That’s a low hanging fruit. I’d like to see us pick those in service of our students.