OAKLAND, CA – FEBRUARY 8: Westlake Center College college students walkout to take part in a march and rally at Oakland Metropolis Corridor in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Two Westlake Center College academics are on a starvation strike for his or her eight consecutive day, demanding to satisfy with Gov. Gavin Newsom and different native officers to cease the Oakland Unified College District???s plan to shut or merge 16 colleges. (Ray Chavez/Bay Space Information Group)
OAKLAND — In a transfer it mentioned was overdue and meant to financially strengthen the district, Oakland Unified’s college board has licensed the closure of seven colleges, the merger of two others and the removing of middle-grade ranges from one other two.
The 4-2-1 vote, which culminated a nine-hour assembly that started Tuesday and lasted previous midnight, angered many mother and father and academics who blasted the district for disrupting the training of principally Black and Brown college students within the affected colleges to avoid wasting what they described as a pittance of the district’s price range.
And it drew a resistant response from the Oakland Schooling Affiliation, which declared later within the day it might file a authorized grievance with the Public Employment Relations Board and hinted at a attainable academics strike.
“As we speak, our union will take authorized motion in opposition to Oakland Unified to stop the rushed and pointless closure of faculties serving majority Black college students,” Oakland Schooling Affiliation President Keith Brown mentioned in a written assertion.
“And, if it involves it, I'm ready to ask Oakland educators to strike to guard our colleges,” he added. “OUSD has the mandatory reserves to maintain colleges operating, and that excuse must cease now.”
Though the listing of affected colleges was winnowed down from 16 to 11, that didn’t appease college students, mother and father, educators and different group members who've rallied, marched or walked out of courses in protest since studying of the district’s plan late final month.
District and state training officers, together with some college board members, have mentioned the transfer is critical to right-size the price range after years of shifting cash round and tapping one-time funds to cut back deficits.
“Our college students deserve higher,” board director Aimee Eng mentioned on the assembly. “We'd like to have the ability to present them extra educational and social-emotional assist. We all know that we have to improve our compensation to our educators, and we have to stay fiscally solvent and retain native management.”
Oakland Unified’s chief enterprise officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson, mentioned the district is making an attempt to financially navigate into the longer term because it faces potential decreases in funding on account of enrollment declines. “We can maintain this yr, however we’re not fairly certain concerning the subsequent few years,” she mentioned.
The district says it has misplaced about 15,000 college students over the previous 20 years and expects to have 19 elementary colleges with fewer than 304 college students, making them financially unsustainable.
The district initially thought-about closing Prescott Elementary, Carl B. Munck Elementary, Parker Ok-8 College, Brookfield Elementary, Grass Valley Elementary and Group Day College on the finish of this educational yr and merging RISE Elementary with New Highland Elementary, Westlake Center College with West Oakland Center College, and Ralph J. Bunche Excessive College with Dewey Excessive College. The plan additionally included turning La Escuelita into an elementary college removing grades 6-8.
For the next educational yr, it proposed closing Horace Mann Elementary and Korematsu Discovery Academy, merging Manzanita Group College with Fruitvale Elementary, and eradicating grades 6-8 from Hillcrest College.
These strikes would have saved anyplace from $4 million to $15 million from its roughly $700 million price range, in keeping with the district.
At Tuesday’s assembly, nonetheless, the board determined to take away West Oakland’s Prescott — the district’s oldest college, which opened in 1869 — from the listing and postponed the closures of Brookfield, Carl B. Munck and Grass Valley elementary colleges to the 2022-23 educational yr. And the one merger it authorized was RISE with New Highland.
Board director Sam Davis mentioned Prescott was yanked from the listing as a result of its closure would have left Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary as the one public college within the neighborhood. He added it wouldn’t make sense to merge Westlake with West Oakland Center College and Manzanita Group with Fruitvale Elementary as a result of that will drive households to journey to totally different neighborhoods.
Board administrators Eng, Davis, Gary Yee and Shanthi Gonzales voted in favor of the plan, whereas Clifford Thompson abstained and Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams remained adamantly opposed.
Hutchinson loudly criticized the board majority for “declaring struggle on the group” with their vote.
District officers have mentioned the faculties had been chosen due to their low enrollment, whether or not as a result of fewer households reside within the neighborhoods round them or these there have chosen to place their kids in different colleges reminiscent of charters.
In response to the backlash in opposition to closing colleges in Black and Brown communities and the district’s swift motion with out in depth group involvement, the Alameda County Board of Schooling on Tuesday really helpful that Oakland Unified and all colleges within the county conduct an equity-impact evaluation earlier than closing colleges. Oakland Unified hadn’t carried out one.
In accordance with the union, the district has closed 16 majority-Black colleges prior to now 15 years.
Gonzales identified throughout the assembly that the board started approving constitution colleges 20 years in the past with little regard for the way it might have an effect on the enrollment at district-run colleges and future funds. The district at present has 40 constitution colleges.
“To me it is a selection about whether or not individuals are comfy persisting with the established order,” Gonzales mentioned. “We might proceed with the established order, understanding college students aren't getting what they want and employees aren't getting what they want. Or we might do one thing. I consider it is a crucial step.”