OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) -- Oakland leaders are trying to find a way to save Oakland schools.
On Saturday morning, they held a nearly two-hour virtual town hall to discuss the school board's vote this week to close or merge 11 schools across the district.
Councilmember Loren Taylor said that he wanted to be a part of the town hall to have a conversation about the grief and trauma that comes with this vote to close or merge 11 Oakland Unified schools.
"Anxious" and "disrespected" were some words used by residents to describe their reaction to the decision.
Taylor started the meeting by inviting people to participate in this word cloud to express how they are feeling about the school board's vote to eliminate nearly a dozen schools.
Words like "frustrated" and "racist" stick out.
A few members of the community weighed in about the decision -- many saying that the vote felt sudden.
However, former school board director Jumoke Hinton disagreed.
"I want to challenge that for all the people that said it came out of nowhere, that is not true. We've been dealing with a structural deficit for years," Hinton said
She says the school board has quote "kicked the can down the road," and that some of the principals knew this was coming.
Lisa Grant-Dawson is a member of the Oakland Unified School District budget team.
Grant-Dawson says these closures are partially because of the district's change in size.
"That we once were over 50,000 enrolled school district," she said.
Now, it's closer to 35,000, and the percentage of students actually attending is at about 94 percent.
She says their forecasting tells them that students will continue to leave the district, city, or state entirely.
Grant-Dawson says they're not just looking at the funding for the next two years -- but also beyond that.
"The less students that we have the less resources that we have that is one of the main correlations for school closures," Grant-Dawson said.
Taylor says he's calling for a long-term plan to fix the school district -- beyond these closures.
The councilmember plans to host future town halls.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/WzVTQOZ
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