The public schools of Oakland, California, are being slowly strangled by the growth of charter schools. The school board is discussing the potential closure of some 20 schools. Parents are outraged. Teachers are outraged; they have threatened a hunger strike.
Tina Andres, a teacher in California and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, wrote the following account of the most recent board meeting, conducted by Zoom.
Mike Hutchinson, Oakland School Board sounded the alarm among the community in regards to a hasty plan to close numerous schools at the end of this school year. The plan was devised in secret and according to Mike, even the board members didn’t know about it until the report was given to them. Mike has been leading the charge to inform and mobilize the community quickly. On Monday night, nearly 2,000 people at one point had joined the Special Session of the Board to discuss these closures.
Recent articles about the school closures:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/We-will-not-eat-Teachers-declare-hunger-16821032.php
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/oakland-unified-school-district-considers-closing-some-schools/
This comment from Rashida Chase sums up the sentiment I heard as I listened to the meeting for four hours. Community members, teachers and students spoke against these closures for hours and hours.
“I watched the superintendent gaslight the whole community about the reasoning for this, they brought in some bullshit consulting group from Southern California who gave a HORRIBLE presentation and whose math wasn’t matching, and then…then we realized HELLA (a hell of a lot of) students couldn’t even get on the meeting because the district has not updated zoom on their chrome books.
Y’all!!! These people are really trying to close or merge almost TWENTY schools in the middle of a damn pandemic as if we all haven’t suffered enough trauma!!! One of the school board directors who is behind these closures tried to discourage further commenting by saying she “doesn’t do her best work at night”. Then you’re in the wrong damn job girl! She is a disgrace to this community and so are the other directors who would even think to bring forward such a possibility in this time. I’m still waking up and pissed tf off so I haven’t gathered all my thoughts, but thank God, universe, Spirit, Ancestors, whoever you wanna thank for Mike Hutchinson for being a real one and making sure the community knew about the boards plans that they tried so hard to keep under wraps. We HAVE to support him and candidates like him in the fall to ensure that more of this doesn’t continue. All this on the eve of Black History Month. Aiight, more later but gaaaahhhhh damn Oakland, every day you give me more reason to want to leave.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Where do the students/teachers/staff go after all these schools are closed. The kids will be crammed into the remaining schools and one would assume that many teachers and staff will be laid off?
the same game being played in so many states
The district is suffering from declining enrollment. Families with young children can’t afford rents, and the housing prices are among the highest in the country. The dozens of charter schools in Oakland are no help, either. California schools are funded by how many students show up. It sounds as if this major change was sprung on the public at the last minute. Did no board member see it coming? Or the superintendent?
OUSD is not in financial crisis and we don’t need to close public schools, especially during the pandemic, with no engagement, in a 10 day process.
Thanks, Mike, you are a hero for standing against this travesty. Theft, really.
Yes – but that is what education deformers tell you, we have a financial crisis. NEVER trust a consultant. Why are you paying people 6 figures to hire consultants? The money they say they are going to save is a mirage. They will delete positions only to add back essentially the same job with a different title. You will be lucky if they eliminate 10% of what they tell you they will save. The buildings still have to be maintained; they just don’t abandon them. And they will fill them with charter schools and parents will go there because it is in their neighborhood.
The chronic disruption of school closures in mostly black urban neighborhoods is another form of racism, of course, Oakland disruptors may argue it’s “just progress.” Suburban young people rarely face this type of planned disruption. Massive school closures generally occur in urban areas with potential for developers to engineer profitable gentrification by displacing the black and brown community. Deform captured school boards often work hand in hand with developers to facilitate the process.
You are correct, retired teacher!
Thank you.
correct word: CHRONIC. This is a truly harmful disease
That is often true, but I have seen the list of possible closures, and it includes some schools in expensive neighborhoods. Oakland made a big mistake when it approved 45 charter schools. It emerged from a state takeover in worse shape than when it went in, too. Just a tragedy.
Thus the folly of state take overs…
Unfortunately, this is nothing new.
Oakland is California’s Destroy Public Education Petri Dish
APRIL 4, 2018 BY THOMAS ULTICAN
https://sandiegofreepress.org/2018/04/oakland-is-californias-destroy-public-education-petri-dish/#.Yf1jperMKuE
What will happen next is they will allow charter schools to rent or buy the schools they close. They will also increase the charter enrollment while decreasing Oaklands which will then lead to the need to close more public schools and on and on. It is the slow boiling of the frog.
YES
Closing schools to manage “declining enrollment” is a strategy perpetrated by privatizers to get their hands on juicy real estate, particularly in West Oakland. The population of students isn’t declining. The district converted 18 closed schools into 14 charter schools, and the kids just filled them back up again. The charter drain is practically a 1-1 relationship. It’s all working in tangent with groups like SFYIMBY, which advocates for market rate housing for tech workers as a trickle-down method to open up more housing for the rest of the great unwashed. Supported by public school hater Peter Thiel. Here is a list of YIMBY West Oakland projects. Think there’s going to be any room left for a few AA public schools? And once the land has been cleared, John Fisher’s (KIPP) luxury A’s stadium goes in. https://sfyimby.com/neighborhoods/west-oakland?fbclid=IwAR3lf2bf_HFvDwdsNkTdxAy-rzkf4HF13kLWj6cy54L-hi9wJ6WtJA9DbVM
Well, take a look at Chicago: 50 schools closed & well, I think that’s a reason for all the increased shootings (more gang activity: simple–no schools, no communities for kids, so more gangs joined).
Good luck with that, Oakland School Board: enjoy your increased crime rates in Oakland!
You/your child (8-yr-old girl just shot in the head, died: killer shooting into rival gang, left scene, went out to eat a sandwich)/your mother could be the next victim of your pathetic decisions.
This has been a strategy that has been going on for decades, well documented by Dianne and others. It was weaponized by Eli Broad through his superintendent training initiative. This not only blows individual communities apart, but results in significant student violence and unrest through forcing neighborhoods to co-exist in one school. I witnessed this as a teacher in the late 1980s when an inner city junior high school was closed sending their students to fend for themselves at three other schools, including mine. The neighborhood rivalries were explosive and the school where I taught never recovered. Shootings and deaths became a part of student reality. Across the country the public education establishment keeps making the same mistakes. Insanity indeed!
Paul, I call it DISRUPTION, not reform
Yes it is! I had a conversation with an Assistant Principal I respected, and still respect, at that school. He thought at the time that closing the school and starting over would be a good idea. I have discovered through experience that this is wrong. The district decided to “displace” our staff thinking they would have higher quality teachers lined up to do the work. I was one of a few they asked to come back after the full displacement, that wasn’t announced until the final workday before summer. The new teachers were mostly right out of college. The district was never willing to place thoughtful experienced leadership in the school, we had 4 principals the last five years I was there. Too many attempted short cuts.