Don't Close Our Schools
Aimee Eng, School Board President, Oakland Unified School District
Our strike in February won a temporary pause on school closures and creation of an ad hoc committee to review the criteria and process for school closures in response to the devastating closure of the Roots International Academy.
Unfortunately, OUSD still plans to close/consolidate neighborhood public schools WITHOUT any research to support their assumptions that closures save money or improve student achievement. So OEA members on the Superintendent's Ad Hoc Committee on School Closures produced our own dissenting report [http://bit.ly/OEAAdHocReport].
Please read the report & sign this petition in support of our recommendations to extend the pause on school closures.
Sponsored by
To:
Aimee Eng, School Board President, Oakland Unified School District
From:
[Your Name]
Our commitment to community, our political convictions and our extensive review of available data leads us to the clear conclusion that school closures will NOT save money or improve outcomes for students. Particularly our Black and Brown students targeted by the plan to close up to 24 schools.
If the goal is saving money, closing schools won't do that. If the goal is expanding access to quality schools, closing schools won't do that either.
We demand: 1. Extend the pause on school closure/consolidations for a minimum of one year, 2. Publicly identify the schools in [Closure] Cohort II and schools up for consideration for future cohorts, and 3. Meet with OEA representatives and community members to develop a research-based work plan for the OUSD Office of Innovation.