22-0243 Adoption by the Board of Education of Resolution No. 2122-0030 - School Consolidations for Fiscal Years 2022-23 and 2023-24.
· Presentation by the Superintendent of Schools of recommendations for School Consolidations for Fiscal Years 2022-23 and 2023-24
· Public Comments on proposed School Consolidations
· Discussion of the Board by and between Members and/or the Superintendent of Schools and/or designee(s)
· Action by Board on Resolution No. 2122-0030
My name is Andy Marshall-Buselt I am a district 6 resident and for the last 8 years I have been a special education teacher with charter school Leadership Public Schools Oakland, as well as an elected bargaining team member of the East Bay Educators United - the union representing LPS certificated staff. I have spoken up over the last several years against school closures as well in favor of a moratorium on new charter schools in Oakland. I am speaking up again tonight in support of the Reparations for Black Students Resolution and against the closure of majority Black schools. Closing these schools is not a solution to the budget challenges, and it will only further burden and disrupt students from the most marginalized communities during what is already such a difficult time for students and school communities. Listen to the overwhelming input from the community and use your power to do the right thing.
Over the past 26 years, I have served in this district as a Kindergarten, First and Second grade teacher, a site literacy coach, a central office literacy coach and now an administrator at one of the proposed schools to close at the end of the 2023 school year. I am concerned about the financial status of our school district, but I do not believe closing community schools is the answer. When I think about our families who walk around the corner, down the street, across the street to get to their local community school, it breaks my heart to think of them having to walk over a mile across busy streets with small children in order to go to school. Our families have been through enough trauma and our students have been through enough disruption over the past two years! Let's support the communities that serve our most marginalized and not tear them apart!
I am opposed to any school closures or consolidations. They are unnecessary financially- the amount of debt owed to the State by OUSD amounts to less than one fifteenth of one percent of the state's operating surplus for 2022-2023. That is pocket change. Moreover the closures are morally reprehensible and amount to racial and economic discrimination as they almost exclusively target low ncome and majority Black and Brown schools using numbers skewed by the vast enrollment in Sojourner Truth distance learning to "prove" lowered enrollment in the schools on the cutting block. .
I am a high school student who is joining the overwhelming majority of people to say no school closures in Oakland! Keep your commitment to social justice and support students like me!
Please reconsider closing any schools. Our Oakland community is requesting and deserves the chance to absorb the reasons why these drastic decisions are being made. We also NEED time to organize and help you solve the low enrollment & budget balancing issues🙏🏾🥰
Our children and youth's access to education should not be sacrificed. We need more pathways for our children's future and end the pipeline to prison. Closing schools that serve Black and Brown youth is a racist disinvestment and systematic set up. Oakland, do better for our youth.
Don't close our schools! The board voted to extend the lease at 1000 Broadway for another year -- $2.5 million -- despite it being underutilized. Find other ways to balance the budget.
This is a clear example of the school to prison pipeline that this country has created for our black youth. Be better. Don’t close these schools. Choose accessibility. Choose antiracism. Choose equality.
Stop the racist closures of public schools! I am one of many supporters of the Reparations for Black Students Resolution and am opposed to OUSD’s attempt to balance the budget on the backs of our Black students. This board has failed to engage the community tonight's decision will impact nor has the board conducted a necessary equity impact analysis. There are other ways to handle a budget crisis and OUSD’s own history of school closures is a clear indicator that closing schools will not produce the desired district savings. Hands off our schools!
It used to be so easy to think that closing schools would save money. I have great respect for the people of Oakland that they have not fallen for this line. We have seen this movie before and the ending is always the same. Letś look at the situation differently: yes, families are smaller than in the past, so our student population is more spread out. Yet without school buses, our young students still need schools that are close enough for them to reliably and regularly attend. Maybe we just need to accept once and for all that our schools will be smaller (something this district used to value!), more intimate, calmer, better able to support all of their students because everyone knows everyone else, just like a family. Doesn´t that sound nice? And based on my experience (seeing my school shrink from over 600 to less than 200 over 20 years), this is what happens when a school is small enough that every teacher knows every child. Itś beautiful and should be celebrated, not eliminated.
I am horrified to learn of your proposal to close schools to save money. Your job is to provide quality education to ALL the students of Oakland. Cut costs elsewhere. Don't deprive students, especially Brown and Black students, of their school homes! Shame on you for even considering this non-solution!
Don't close majority-Black schools! We *know* the devastating effects this has on communities (and public school enrollment). Honor the Reparations for Black Students resolution passed last year. Black Lives Matter!
Despite overwhelming opposition, you're still ready to close majority Black schools. Despite the time you actually have to do community engagement, you're still ready to close majority Black schools. Despite requests from the electorate that put you in office demanding "No school Closures," you're still ready to close majority Black schools. The history is clear and the evidence is before us.....you vote to close schools, gentrifying black and brown communities, giving into the charter industry, and ignoring all that asked you not to do what you know to be wrong. Where are your morals?? Superintendent Johnson-Trammell, President Yee, Vice President Davis, Director Gonzalez, Director Thompson, and Director Eng - DON'T DO IT!
No school closures. Closing schools is traumatic for the children in these schools. It also opens up closed schools for takeover by charter schools, undermining our public education system. Actually, the number of students in OUSD has not fallen -- add in the charter school attendance, and it shows the school population has actually increased. Why are all the schools up for closures attended by Black and Latino students?
As a teacher in OUSD, it is appalling that you think this is a solution to the district’s financial problems. You should take a hard look at admin salaries and the millions of dollars spent on curriculums that change every 3 years before closing schools. Or the “outdoor tents” and air filters that aren’t properly cared for by district personnel so they just end up in the trash. It is atrocious that you use “teacher salary” as a reason to close schools when we all know you will not raise salaries and will actually be laying off many teachers.
Our Keep Horace Mann Open! petition was delivered to each school board member by email today with 421 signatures gathered in 2 days. Keep all Oakland public schools open: they are vital to their communities!
K-12 education in CA has been very underfunded, especially since Prop. 13 in 1978, so CA schools rank 30th to 40th in the nation in pupil performance in spite of being in the richest state! Closing schools only hurts the most vulnerable so we all must solve the funding problem instead of closing schools like Prescott, where I demonstrated on Saturday & which is a good, well-loved school. We need to pass a Prop. 15 type measure for more school funding & not let Alice Huffman, Willie Brown & other "leaders" sabotage school funding by saying "it will hurt black businesses". Raising taxes on the wealthy will help black & brown children, not hurt them! /s/ Grandparent of OUSD student
OUSD’s plan to close or merge up to 18 almost exclusively low-income Black and Brown schools with no community engagement violates OUSD’s own Equity, Community Engagement and Reparations for Black Students policies and is an ill conceived plan which disproportionately harms Black and Brown communities. DON'T CLOSE - CREATE BETTER!
My name is Andy Marshall-Buselt I am a district 6 resident and for the last 8 years I have been a special education teacher with charter school Leadership Public Schools Oakland, as well as an elected bargaining team member of the East Bay Educators United - the union representing LPS certificated staff. I have spoken up over the last several years against school closures as well in favor of a moratorium on new charter schools in Oakland. I am speaking up again tonight in support of the Reparations for Black Students Resolution and against the closure of majority Black schools. Closing these schools is not a solution to the budget challenges, and it will only further burden and disrupt students from the most marginalized communities during what is already such a difficult time for students and school communities. Listen to the overwhelming input from the community and use your power to do the right thing.
The last thing we need is more school closures
Over the past 26 years, I have served in this district as a Kindergarten, First and Second grade teacher, a site literacy coach, a central office literacy coach and now an administrator at one of the proposed schools to close at the end of the 2023 school year. I am concerned about the financial status of our school district, but I do not believe closing community schools is the answer. When I think about our families who walk around the corner, down the street, across the street to get to their local community school, it breaks my heart to think of them having to walk over a mile across busy streets with small children in order to go to school. Our families have been through enough trauma and our students have been through enough disruption over the past two years! Let's support the communities that serve our most marginalized and not tear them apart!
I am opposed to any school closures or consolidations. They are unnecessary financially- the amount of debt owed to the State by OUSD amounts to less than one fifteenth of one percent of the state's operating surplus for 2022-2023. That is pocket change. Moreover the closures are morally reprehensible and amount to racial and economic discrimination as they almost exclusively target low ncome and majority Black and Brown schools using numbers skewed by the vast enrollment in Sojourner Truth distance learning to "prove" lowered enrollment in the schools on the cutting block. .
I am a high school student who is joining the overwhelming majority of people to say no school closures in Oakland! Keep your commitment to social justice and support students like me!
Please reconsider closing any schools. Our Oakland community is requesting and deserves the chance to absorb the reasons why these drastic decisions are being made. We also NEED time to organize and help you solve the low enrollment & budget balancing issues🙏🏾🥰
Oakland youth deserve better than this. Keep our schools open.
Our children and youth's access to education should not be sacrificed. We need more pathways for our children's future and end the pipeline to prison. Closing schools that serve Black and Brown youth is a racist disinvestment and systematic set up. Oakland, do better for our youth.
Don't close our schools! The board voted to extend the lease at 1000 Broadway for another year -- $2.5 million -- despite it being underutilized. Find other ways to balance the budget.
This is a clear example of the school to prison pipeline that this country has created for our black youth. Be better. Don’t close these schools. Choose accessibility. Choose antiracism. Choose equality.
Stop the racist closures of public schools! I am one of many supporters of the Reparations for Black Students Resolution and am opposed to OUSD’s attempt to balance the budget on the backs of our Black students. This board has failed to engage the community tonight's decision will impact nor has the board conducted a necessary equity impact analysis. There are other ways to handle a budget crisis and OUSD’s own history of school closures is a clear indicator that closing schools will not produce the desired district savings. Hands off our schools!
It used to be so easy to think that closing schools would save money. I have great respect for the people of Oakland that they have not fallen for this line. We have seen this movie before and the ending is always the same. Letś look at the situation differently: yes, families are smaller than in the past, so our student population is more spread out. Yet without school buses, our young students still need schools that are close enough for them to reliably and regularly attend. Maybe we just need to accept once and for all that our schools will be smaller (something this district used to value!), more intimate, calmer, better able to support all of their students because everyone knows everyone else, just like a family. Doesn´t that sound nice? And based on my experience (seeing my school shrink from over 600 to less than 200 over 20 years), this is what happens when a school is small enough that every teacher knows every child. Itś beautiful and should be celebrated, not eliminated.
I am horrified to learn of your proposal to close schools to save money. Your job is to provide quality education to ALL the students of Oakland. Cut costs elsewhere. Don't deprive students, especially Brown and Black students, of their school homes! Shame on you for even considering this non-solution!
Don't close majority-Black schools! We *know* the devastating effects this has on communities (and public school enrollment). Honor the Reparations for Black Students resolution passed last year. Black Lives Matter!
Despite overwhelming opposition, you're still ready to close majority Black schools. Despite the time you actually have to do community engagement, you're still ready to close majority Black schools. Despite requests from the electorate that put you in office demanding "No school Closures," you're still ready to close majority Black schools. The history is clear and the evidence is before us.....you vote to close schools, gentrifying black and brown communities, giving into the charter industry, and ignoring all that asked you not to do what you know to be wrong. Where are your morals?? Superintendent Johnson-Trammell, President Yee, Vice President Davis, Director Gonzalez, Director Thompson, and Director Eng - DON'T DO IT!
No school closures. Closing schools is traumatic for the children in these schools. It also opens up closed schools for takeover by charter schools, undermining our public education system. Actually, the number of students in OUSD has not fallen -- add in the charter school attendance, and it shows the school population has actually increased. Why are all the schools up for closures attended by Black and Latino students?
As a teacher in OUSD, it is appalling that you think this is a solution to the district’s financial problems. You should take a hard look at admin salaries and the millions of dollars spent on curriculums that change every 3 years before closing schools. Or the “outdoor tents” and air filters that aren’t properly cared for by district personnel so they just end up in the trash. It is atrocious that you use “teacher salary” as a reason to close schools when we all know you will not raise salaries and will actually be laying off many teachers.
Our Keep Horace Mann Open! petition was delivered to each school board member by email today with 421 signatures gathered in 2 days. Keep all Oakland public schools open: they are vital to their communities!
K-12 education in CA has been very underfunded, especially since Prop. 13 in 1978, so CA schools rank 30th to 40th in the nation in pupil performance in spite of being in the richest state! Closing schools only hurts the most vulnerable so we all must solve the funding problem instead of closing schools like Prescott, where I demonstrated on Saturday & which is a good, well-loved school. We need to pass a Prop. 15 type measure for more school funding & not let Alice Huffman, Willie Brown & other "leaders" sabotage school funding by saying "it will hurt black businesses". Raising taxes on the wealthy will help black & brown children, not hurt them! /s/ Grandparent of OUSD student
OUSD’s plan to close or merge up to 18 almost exclusively low-income Black and Brown schools with no community engagement violates OUSD’s own Equity, Community Engagement and Reparations for Black Students policies and is an ill conceived plan which disproportionately harms Black and Brown communities. DON'T CLOSE - CREATE BETTER!