Comments on: School `right-sizing’ is upon us

By: Beverly

Beverly — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:24:12 +0000

Does anybody know anything about the closure status of Elmhurst Middle School?

By: School closure update, and rumors - The Education Report - Katy Murphy covers what’s going on in the Oakland schools

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:47:54 +0000

[...] to the original timeline, the list of potential closures was going be created Oct. 2 and 3, and released the following week. [...]

By: School size: Your chance to meet with the bigwigs - The Education Report - Katy Murphy covers what’s going on in the Oakland schools

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:08:09 +0000

[...] I outlined in a recent blog post, the information gathered at these meetings is supposed to influence the criteria that the board [...]

By: 2nd year teacher

2nd year teacher — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:27:19 +0000

Thanks for posting this information, Katy. How did the meeting go today?

As someone who works in a small school, it’s a little heart-breaking and very frustrating to hear of these impending closures. There is so much about small schools that cannot be captured by test scores (which is what we’re really talking about when we say “performance”). Being a first year teacher in Oakland is a hard job, but it was working in a small school with a great community and a strong professional environment that brought me back for the 2nd year.

It seems to me that most small schools in Oakland actually aren’t as small when they’re at intended capacity as the ones profiled in the presentation. And it makes sense to me as well for schools sharing campuses to share some costs, but I’ve actually heard that it is these schools that are at greater risk of consolidation or “right-sizing.”

I appreciate the information posted here! It will be crucial to keep information lines open for community members to voice their support of small schools when the community forums are held later this school year.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:34:32 +0000

They do have a point, though—there are some fixed costs associated with operating a school that make small schools less cost-effective, however strong they are (unless they’re sharing a larger site with another small school—which is certainly a solution to explore). It does look like the criteria include the school’s academic performance/strength, too, though, so I doubt we’ll see the small top-performing schools closing anytime soon…..

By: cranky teacher

cranky teacher — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:54:56 +0000

I think the size issue is cover. In the past it seems to have been a way to get rid of schools for other reasons. Those reasons may be good or not, but this doesn’t seem honest.

There are great schools in this country with less than 100 students.