Who Should Get Priority Enrollment in Oakland Schools? OUSD Weighs Details of Policy Shift
The Oakland Unified School District's radical plan to downsize by closing and merging schools includes a key component to making sure displaced students end up in better schools. It's a policy change that could result in diversifying some of the city's most in-demand schools. But details of the so-called opportunity ticket have yet to be hammered out.
The opportunity ticket is the brainchild of The Oakland REACH, a parent group committed to getting underserved communities into high-quality schools, and was approved by the OUSD Board of Education last March.
District enrollment currently gives priority to siblings entering a school and then to children of families that live in the school's neighborhood. The opportunity ticket would change that, allowing displaced students from schools that are geographically relocated to get priority enrollment.
An advisory group, including parents, met with OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell last week to recommend a fair way to implement the policy.
"The data’s very clear. Kids do better after a closure only if they go to a better school," said Katherine Lee, parent of a first-grader at Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Elementary School and a parent in the advisory group.
"We’ve heard the district say a lot, ‘We need to start doing things differently.’ Well closures and mergers aren’t different, but this opportunity ticket is different. It’s the one different thing that they are doing when it comes to how they are implementing these."
Historically, school closures have hit schools harder that have a majority of black and brown students. That's why The Oakland REACH came up with the opportunity ticket idea, along with Dirk Tillotson of the State of Black Education Oakland, said group co-founder and executive director Lakisha Young.
"The intent behind the policy has always been clear," Young said. "It’s to provide a new chance for folks who have been disadvantaged in the system."
The new enrollment policy has the potential to integrate some of the city's top schools by race CONTINUE READING: Who Should Get Priority Enrollment in Oakland Schools? OUSD Weighs Details of Policy Shift | KQED News
