Oakland parents celebrate OUSD reversal of planned school closures

OAKLAND — The Oakland Unified School District announced on Friday it is officially notifying parents and students that five schools previously slated for closure at the end of the year will now stay open.

“I literally was crying, the whole night,” parent Christina Veasey said of the school board’s decision this past Wednesday night.

Veasey said those were happy tears.  Her son, Jordan, attends transitional kindergarten at Carl B. Munck Elementary, which was set to close in June.

“Carl B. Munck feels like community. It feels like home. It feels like comfort. The fact that this is going to remain open and my child will have that next year…I’m elated,” said Veasey.

Veasey said she attended multiple school board meetings to fight the closure.

The previous school board voted last year to close or merge 11 schools over two years due to budget issues.

“These kids were out of school for a year and a half due to the pandemic. And they come back and now it’s like, ‘My school might not be here,’ that’s even more traumatic,” said Veasey.

The new board with a progressive majority voted on Wednesday in a special meeting to rescind the closures.

“Oakland voters were very clear in what they did in November and I want to make sure that those voices are being heard. And that to me means, again, rescinding school closures, reinvesting in our classrooms, and making sure that we’re supporting our educators and classified staff,” said newly elected OUSD School Board Director Valarie Bachelor.

The new board president Mike Hutchinson said the district has the money to keep the schools open.

“The last thing I will ever do is bankrupt the school district that I love.  And our financial health is sound.  And so, this is why we are able to move forward in these sorts of ways,” said Hutchinson.

Hutchinson blamed years of financial mismanagement for previous budget shortfalls. The district is still under receivership because the state took it over after Oakland Unified ran out of money 20 years ago.

While the district is projected to be financially stable for the next two school years, experts said that is partly due to one-time pandemic funds.

The district’s chief business officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson, said in December Oakland Unified has to be disciplined with its spending to stay healthy.

“We need to be taking a look at the budget as a whole and making sure that if cuts are needed, they’re as far away from the classrooms as possible,” said Bachelor.

“We have a number of schools that are smaller than 200 students. I call them micro-schools. They’re not even small schools, they’re micro-schools,” said OUSD School Board Director Sam Davis.

Davis voted to keep the school closures. He said short-term pain leads to long-term gain.

In this school year, Oakland Unified reported it has 77 schools serving 34,141 students. In comparison, Fremont Unified said it has 41 schools and 32,716 students. San Jose Unified also has 41 schools serving about 30,000 students. And Stockton reported it has 54 schools serving about 36,000 students.

“It’s apples and oranges. We do not have a problem with being able to fund our school district,” said Hutchinson.

“When you have 77 schools, you divide the pie into 77 slices. Each school is getting a much smaller slice,” said Davis.

Since Oakland Unified is still under state receivership, the state trustee can overturn the board’s vote to rescind school closures.  The school board is set to meet with the trustee next week.