Oakland school closures: Is a $2 million savings worth the cost?
The Oakland school district has no shortage of challenges to contend with, but its leaders lately have spent much of their time, energy and political capital on one contentious project: shrinking the school district down to a more manageable size.
On Wednesday, the board is expected to decide whether to close five elementary schools: Lakeview, near Lake Merritt; Lazear, in the Fruitvale neighborhood; Marshall, in the East Oakland hills; Maxwell Park, near Mills College; and Santa Fe, in North Oakland. Also part of the decision are school mergers, though most of them are well under way.
Oakland operates nearly 100 schools -- almost twice as many as San Jose Unified, which has 5,000 fewer students. Superintendent Tony Smith says the district can't afford to run so many, given current school funding levels in California. The savings generated from the closures, he argues, will make the district stronger.
"We have to figure out how to educate every kid," Smith told people in a packed auditorium last month. "This is about our entire organization and our entire city."
Oakland Unified educates roughly the same number of students as it did in
