Superintendent & School Board Overrules Community Voice to Close Schools in Sacramento’s Poor Communities
SACRAMENTO, CA – Amidst hundreds of disenfranchised parents, four Board Members (Cueno, Woo, Hansen, Kennedy) and Superintendent Raymond arbitrarily and inconsistently applied standards to close seven schools in Sacramento Unified City School District (SCUSD). Moments before the School Board was prepared to vote on the “wrong-sizing” proposal, Superintendent Raymond removed four schools from the original list of eleven targeted for closure. Of the remaining seven schools, six schools are located in low-income communities of color in south Sacramento.
As a result of the Superintendent’s last second adjustment, the district’s projected savings is now $1.3 million—a fraction of the projected budget deficit. As HIP Organizer Mai Yang Vang articulated during her public testimony, “suppressing the community voice in the closure plan is not rightsizing---it is wrong-sizing. Saving less than 1% of the budget to destroy eleven schools and displacing thousands of students and families is not right-sizing, it is wrong-sizing. And putting your own interest over the needs our students is not right sizing, it is wrong-sizing.”
The sudden change in the Superintendent’s recommendation reflects the district’s unnecessary and destructive rush to close schools. By ignoring the California Department of Education’s recommended procedures for school closures, the district has made careless mistakes that reveal the flaws in its overall “right-sizing” proposal. To approve such a poorly developed plan is irresponsible and as Yang described, “[our coalition] will make sure that everybody knows what [the Board Members] did tonight…Sacramento and my community will hold you accountable for your actions.”
Moving forward, HIP is committed to holding the SCUSD accountable in addressing the needs of displaced students and families.
For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/HIPSacramento or contact HIP at hmonginnovatingpolitics@gmail.com or (626) 607-1897.
“Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) is a grassroots group composed of young professionals that want to strengthen the civic participation of the Hmong and other underprivileged communities.”
