It's been seventeen days of sit-in, Occupy-style protest at Oakland's Lakeview Elementary School, where teachers and parents have been camping since mid-June to call attention to the closure of Lakeview and four other elementary schools in the district. As many as forty people have been camped outside Lakeview during the past two and a half weeks, and there were approximately twenty on site this morning just before 4 a.m. when police arrived to clear the camp. Two protesters, who refused to leave voluntarily, were arrested at 6 a.m.

Protester Rebecca Rozo-Marsh says that three children who were part of the encampment were frightened by the police action, and she promises that, "This is part of a nationwide movement that has been going on before this and will continue to go on after this." The protesters hope either to get the district to reopen the closed schools, or to get Superintendent Tony Smith to resign.

The district says that because it now serves 17,000 fewer students than it did ten years ago, schools have to be closed so that resources are not spread so thin.

[CBS]

PREVIOUSLY: Disgruntled Oakland Parents Occupy Local Elementary School [Updated]