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OAKLAND, CA – NOVEMBER 13: Mother and father, lecturers, college students and neighborhood members put their backs to the Oakland Unified College District board members as they disrupt the assembly at La Escuelita Schooling Heart in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. Protesters are in opposition to the board’s resolution to shut Kaiser Elementary College and consolidate it with Sankofa. Additionally, protesters demand no police within the colleges. (Ray Chavez/Bay Space Information Group)
OAKLAND — Oakland Unified College District directors are proposing to completely shut as many as 19 colleges over the subsequent two years due to declining enrollment, in accordance with a preliminary draft launched by a college board member.
The draft lists 13 colleges – principally elementary degree – that might both shut or merge on the finish of this educational 12 months and 6 extra that might shut or merge after the next educational 12 months beginning in 2023.
District officers cautioned that the record, which faculty board member Mike Hutchinson publicly launched earlier this week, isn’t remaining. On Monday, the district will host a digital assembly with board members and the neighborhood to debate the proposed closures. The board is scheduled to vote on a remaining record at its Feb. 8 assembly.
In a memo despatched to households after the record was launched, the district’s chief enterprise officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson, outlined why the district administration is contemplating faculty closures and consolidation.
The district has extra lecturers per scholar than 94% of the most important 50 faculty districts in California, though they could be paid much less on common than their friends, Grant-Dawson’s memo states. But over the past 20 years, the district has misplaced about 15,000 college students, she added.
Oakland Unified runs 80 colleges for 33,000 college students, in comparison with Fremont Unified’s 42 colleges for 34,000 college students and San Jose Unified’s 41 colleges for 30,000, in accordance with Grant-Dawson’s figures.
Enrollment in Oakland’s elementary colleges varies extensively, from a low of 110 to greater than 700. Grant-Dawson initiatives that subsequent 12 months, the district could have 19 elementary colleges with fewer than 304 college students, making them financially unsustainable.
“Our giant funding in under-enrolled small colleges has additionally compelled us to repeatedly make cuts and different finances changes, together with $40 million that the Board of Schooling confirmed on Wednesday night time for subsequent faculty 12 months,” she wrote, noting that cuts have been made to employees positions and deferred upkeep equivalent to reroofing.
“All of that has harmed college students in different methods, together with challenges to maintain our colleges clear and in correct working order,” Grant-Dawson’s memo says. “The variety of custodians, gardeners, plumbers, and different employees we've merely can't sustain with the day by day wants in any respect the colleges we at present function.”
Hutchinson, who opposes the closures, rejected the district’s reasoning, noting the memo didn't specify how a lot cash could be saved by closing the colleges on the record.
“The district isn't in a monetary disaster,” Hutchinson stated in an interview Friday, including that the $40 million the varsity board minimize this week addressed the looming shortfall.
“There's a narrative that we're in perpetual disaster, that we are able to’t pay our payments,” he stated. “In 2003, we have been taken over by the state, which compelled a mortgage on us, and the state began closing public colleges. It opened constitution colleges of their place. If we've too many colleges, it’s as a result of there are over 40 constitution colleges in our system.”
The prospect of closing colleges has lengthy been a degree of controversy in Oakland. After the varsity board rejected an choice of closing colleges final fall, the state dominated in December that Alameda County may intervene in Oakland Unified’s finances course of.
Alameda County Superintendent of Faculties L.Okay. Monroe had warned Oakland faculty board members in November she was involved in regards to the district’s reliance on one-time revenues to remain afloat as an alternative of creating the deep funding cuts wanted.
The varsity district ought to minimize about $90 million, in accordance with Monroe. In a letter late final 12 months, she ordered the district at hand over its “Board-approved, budget-balancing options” by Jan. 31, 2022, and famous the county will assessment its monetary controls.
In response, the varsity board on Jan. 12 directed Oakland Unified directors to draft an inventory of faculties that probably could possibly be closed.
Hutchinson objects to the tight timeline and the dearth of neighborhood conferences. Previously, faculty closures have concerned a number of conferences at campuses with households, he stated. In distinction, a Feb. 8 deadline means the method could have taken solely about two weeks.
At its assembly this week, the varsity board additionally prolonged the deadline for all college students to be vaccinated in opposition to COVID 19 from Monday to Aug. 1. With 3,000 college students nonetheless unvaccinated, the district would have needed to power lots of them out of faculty.
To attend Monday’s board assembly about faculty closures, go to www.ousd.org.
The faculties listed for doable closure on the finish of this educational 12 months are Prescott Elementary, Brookfield Elementary, Carl B. Munck Elementary, Parker Elementary, Grass Valley Elementary, La Escuelita, Westlake Center College, Ralph J. Bunche Academy, Avenue Academy, Rudsdale Excessive College, Neighborhood Day College and Hillcrest College. New Highland Academy and RISE Neighborhood would merge.
Faculties on the record for doable closure after the next 12 months are Horace Mann Elementary, Fruitvale Elementary, Manzanita Neighborhood College and Korematsu Discovery Academy. As well as, Worldwide Neighborhood College and Suppose School Now would merge, as would Acorn Woodland Elementary and Embody Academy.