Community members and two members of the Oakland school board asked for a one-year delay in the decision to close schools. The board turned down their request. The two board members who have valiantly opposed the closures are Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams.
Zack Haber wrote at Medium about one school on the closure list that is indispensable. It is Community Day School, which takes in students who have been expelled from other schools and provides the support they need to believe in themselves.
Community Day’s mission statement says they use a “therapeutic approach” by supporting students “academically, socially, and emotionally” both individually and in small groups through “instruction, counseling and career exploration.” Enrollment depends on expulsion rates, and has been low lately. Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the school had 39 students. But during last school year, when OUSD students were almost entirely in distance learning, the district issued no expulsions, and the school now enrolls around 15 students, which allows for more individualized attention.
“You get more help here compared to a regular school,” said Luis Martinez, a Community Day student. “It’s calmer. You get away from big crowds of people and everyone gets along.”
The name “Luis Martinez” is a pseudonym as this reporter is granting this student anonymity due to his status as a minor navigating a school discipline process.
“Coming to Community Day and experiencing this small class size is sometimes the first step in our students seeing they can be successful in school,” said English Teacher Vernon ‘Trey’ Keeve III. “We’re also a staff that is constantly experimenting with new ways to get our students to express themselves.”
When the school is needed again, it won’t be there. That’s why parents, students, and educators continue to protest the school closures.
I wish I could explain why the board majority is so determined to lose schools in the face of enormous opposition. I don’t understand.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Off topic, but the NYC department of education just announced that masks will no longer be required outside on school property.
That’s right, until now, NYC students have been required to wear masks outside.
It’s ironic that the people who profess to be so outraged about mask mandates in schools are people who don’t have kids in NYC public schools.
I’m on a few different school-wide parent groups, and while apparently there are adults who are outraged about this, most parents are not. In fact, I didn’t even know about this “outside but on school property” mandate – apparently it must be something that bothers the adults who have nothing to do with the school more than it does most of the students.
What does disgust the majority of parents I know is the folks who have politicized this issue and care more about getting some partisan advantage than in what is actually good policy.
There is a lot more outrage at large class sizes and the lack of funding and the terrible behavior of charters who say nasty things about how violent their non-white 5 year olds students are and use their political connections to try to kick out severely disabled kids from their school so they can take over their space (although they have plenty of money to lease prime real estate for their fancy offices and show places).
But hey, if the right wing is given the media bandwidth to push their propaganda — whether it’s anti-CRT or pushing policies to hurt trans and gay kids or whatever new manufactured issue they can use to strike fear in the hearts of those who have a lot more political power than public school parents — kids have to wear masks during a pandemic! — they will always make those issues much more important.
Why are the politicians who want to ban masks the same folks who want public school students crowded into classrooms with an unlicensed teacher and 40+ students?
I am sure there are some parents who would happily put their kids in classes of 50 with some unlicensed teacher in a school that is falling apart, as long as they were promised that their kid wouldn’t have to wear a mask, have any trans students in their classes, have all mention of gay parents banned from the classroom, and never be exposed to “CRT”.
I’m sure there are parents who would gladly have their music and sports programs cut as long as their kid wasn’t taught CRT or had to see a trans kid.
But those parents are not most parents. Maybe they are very common in flerp’s world, but I doubt it.
There is a lot more anti-testing feeling than anti-mask feeling. But you wouldn’t know it because the folks who control the narrative want to amplify the anti-mask agenda for political reasons.
You’ve heard of the outside mask rile before—I told you about it a couple months ago and you suggested I was making it up.
Keep on gaslighting, madam. And please keep responses to this comment under 2,000 words.
One of the things that a large, quality public system can do well and efficiently is serve special needs population. If some students in Oakland require a therapeutic schools that is serving student needs well, it is not a school that is easily replaceable. Public schools provide “economy of scale” that can offer services that are not easily replicable.
cx: If some students in Oakland require a therapeutic school that is serving…
It is clear that the schools that were targeted were chosen because of two characteristics: location and per pupil expenditure. CDS is located in an desirable(meaning $$$ value) location above 580, a major freeway that cuts between the wealthier hills population and the flatlands. Any school property above 580 is prime real estate. My theory is that OUSD needed to show Alameda County that they would consider selling property, so they chose the most valuable school property as a potential sale of “surplus” property. Our highest-needs children like those at CDS simply aren’t allowed to have nice things and are shuffled around and marginalized at the whim of some OUSD staffers that came up with the list.
Real estate value is often a motive behind school closures, not the needs of students. We have seen this in Chicago, Philly, Miami and other areas with high urban property values.
KEY phrasing: per pupil expenditure…
How much money did the Billionaire Boys and Girls Club spend on elections in Oakland? It’s the same old story. We have the numbers. They have the money. The same thing is happening here in on the West side of Los Angeles for the same reason. They’re closing Wright Middle School and building a new charter school in the same neighborhood. (Jackie Goldberg went off on Nick Melvoin for building a new school during an extended enrollment decline.) The school board is bought.
This is exactly the type of alternative settings that are needed to support diverse needs and learning styles.
The decision is short sighted.
Flerp I really loved her/his/ their’s intelligent response to your trolling. Your trolling is 39 words of trolling which is 39 words too much.
Hers/ his/their’s was informative.