Jeff Bryant writes here about the decision by the Oakland, California, school board to close a number of schools because of a budget shortfall. Some of these schools were popular Community schools, offering services that benefited children, families, and the community. Bryant shows that the closure of these schools would not solve the budget shortfall.
Many readers of this blog used a Zoom link provided by friends in Oakland to listen to the crucial meeting of the school board when the vote was taken. I listened for four hours, as hundreds of students and parents spoke out against the closure of their beloved school. Not a single student or parent during the four hours I listened supported the closings.
The board was unmoved. Two members—Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams— voted against the closings, but the majority voted yea.
One of those who voted for the closings just announced that she was resigning. Shanthi Gonzalez is not waiting for the next election. She claimed that she was interested only in raising academic quality when she supported closing schools.
Shanthi Gonzales, who represents District 6 on the Oakland Unified School District board, announced Monday that she is stepping down from her position immediately, seven months before her term is set to expire.
In a lengthy public statement published on her blog on Monday morning, Gonzales denounced the increasingly hostile discourse surrounding public education in Oakland, which has led to protests, strikes, and personal insults lobbed at school board members. She also called out the lack of progress the district has made in supporting students’ academic needs, and slammed the Oakland Education Association teachers union and its supporters for resisting moves to improve the quality of schools…
Along with board president Gary Yee, Gonzales introduced a resolution in December for the board to consider closing schools because of deep financial troublesbrought on in part by years of declining enrollment. That resolution led to the board’s February decision to close seven schools over the next two years, and merge or downsize several others. Three of the schools slated for closure, Community Day School, Parker K-8, and Carl B. Munck Elementary School, are in Gonzales’ district. null
Opposition to the district’s closure and consolidation plan has been fierce. In recent months, community members have held marches, two educators have staged a hunger strike, and protesters have rallied outside the homes of Gonzales and other school board members. The Oakland Education Association teachers union staged a one-day strike that effectively shut down classes this past Friday. School board meetings have also been contentious, with regular heckling and disruptions at in-person meetings.
All the members who voted for the closings should be voted out of office.
The two members who opposed the schools’ closings are Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams. They are true leaders.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
SICKENING, downright SICKENING.
This must be one of those grassroots community schools that they are closing. Maybe they will open another one, but the ESSA-type.
Read Jeff Bryant’s article. It is not one community school that the Oakland School Board plans to close. Several. Outrageous.
According to the Bryant article most the student loss of over 18,000 between 2000 and 2021 is attributable to charter drain since there are about 16,678 charter school students in Oakland. Communities need to understand that charter expansion results in imposing inefficiencies on public schools that have both enrollment and fiscal implications. Dwindling public enrollment will cost the district more per capita due to the fixed costs that remain when enrollments drop.
It shouldn’t always be the most vulnerable students that bear the burden of disruption, but it often turns out that way. Some parents may also find out that so-called choice is no miracle. Public schools may actually offer more programming choices than a one-size-fits-all charter school. Public schools provide specially trained certified teachers that can address a variety of student needs.
“the burden of disruption” — the sad truth being that so much research has ALWAYS argued that kids will do better when their school lives are stable and predictable
I met Shanthi at NPE Oakland and she was a firebrand fighting for public schools. So, I kept thinking she must have good reason for some of her positions over the last few years, but it appears I was wrong. This is a really sad outcome to me. However, this weekend I met VanCedric Williams and he gave me hope again for Oakland public schools. That is an impressive young man.
Yes, Shanthi fooled NPE too. We thought she would fight for public schools. She didn’t.
Jan Malvin thinks that she got into the finance committee and got fixated on that being the most important issue. She just lost her way.
We ALL know the hedge fund/charter school Oligarchs want to takeover this district and eek out every single cent of PROFIT imaginable. But it is also pretty OBVIOUS that This Community School has Got It Going On! It is a real Public School and it THREATENS the criminal profit motive driving closures of schools and DEMOCRACY.
SCOTUS-Putin-GOPee-Ukraine Genocide are all coming from the same mobster mentality. A functioning “Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood” puts them at risk, reveals them and returns them to the role of Responsible Citizen. Not their cup of tea!
Jeff Bryant Excerpt
Corrin Haskell has been teaching at Brookfield for so long — 25 years — that many of the students he currently instructs are children of parents he taught.
Brookfield serves a high percentage of students who are unhoused, students who don’t speak or read the English language very well, and students who have been labeled as having “discipline problems.” The school also has a “high population of students needing special education services. Also long list of students with special needs who are mainstreamed into the general education classrooms.
The neighborhood surrounding Brookfield has a “bad reputation,” but the school has become the anchor of the community. It is located near other nonprofit organizations the school partners with, including a library, a senior living center, and a recreation center. The school also partners with businesses near the school.
Brookfield has recently gone to great lengths to make improvements to its facilities, including planting an orchard and a bamboo forest, creating new soccer fields, and adding a new lab for teaching science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM), which was funded with a $100,000 grant from the NBA Cares program.
Brookfield has specialized staff and partnerships that make it possible to provide mental and physical health services to students and legal services to families.
Should also check out the continuing local reporting on this issue by Ken
Epstein in Oakland Post over the past months and years.
Thanks Diane!
Awww! An anti-education board member is quitting because no one likes her anti-education attacks. So sad. I hope the door doesn’t hit her on the way out.
Resigning early gives the board majority the chance to appoint someone THEY want on the board which then gives that board member a leg up in the next election as the incumbent. This frequently happens to districts that are infected with Broadies and Billionaires. Needless to say, Oakland needs to find a B & B vaccine.
Admittedly, I don’t attend a lot of in-person board meetings, but I was there at the contentious meeting where the board voted to close down Roots International, a high-needs middle school in District 6. The level of disrespect shown to these kids and teachers by the board was shocking: test scores waved around by board members to prove “low quality”. The displaced students were also denied entry at a “high performing” district school that shared space with Roots in the same building, so it was clear that these kids were simply going to be scattered around the district and left on their own. At one point, after parents asked about plans for transportation to other schools, Ms. Gonzales blithely suggested that people find a carpool. It was all downhill after that.
Shocking disregard for children and parents.
This is heartbreaking. And infuriating.
As I’d warned earlier: just wait for the increase in crime.
But maybe Arne Duncan can come save you, Oakland.