But now that it’s effectively one school again, what can we be doing to make Mac the 9-12 Educational Flagship of the West Oakland?

I don’t agree that any “flight” of Westside kids to Westside schools would necessarily decrease enrollment elsewhere. At Oakland High, for instance, enrollment had to be cut off this year (yet again, I think) due to limited space. If all the O-Hi students who lived in the West went back to their neighborhood high school, I question whether O-Hi would empty out for long.

That’s certainly not to suggest that kids from outside Funktown can’t be Wildcats too, but something’s out of kilter. For one thing, in terms of basic design, Oakland High is one of the uglier school buildings in town. This year there’s significant, much-needed construction going on, meaning portables on the basketball courts, forklifts and cranes everywhere, big ugly nets, big ugly trucks, noise, dust…and I love O-Hi, but even when this is all over, there will still be the little tiny crackerbox classrooms with nary a window nor vent to the outside world.

McClymonds, though, is an architectural gem! HUGE classrooms, gorgeous woodwork, windows for miles around, STAGES and built-in shelves and cubbyholes and lofts in the rooms…someone could write a book about the care that was taken building that school. Rivals any building at UC Berkeley. Beyond that, we all have the same educational standards, use the same textbooks, no question about the faculty’s dedication, etc. And yet Mac is standing half empty, while children who live in that neighborhood are traveling all over town to go to school elsewhere.

Why? Some kind of pragmatic shift is needed here, so parents, teachers, neighbors, students, Grandmoms, what’s the missing piece of this puzzle?

(Grandmoms rule!)

That, in turn, often means school closures, layoffs or increasingly stretched resources at shrinking schools.

Of course, as was noted on Monday, if every child who lived in West Oakland was to return to his or her neighborhood school (from another OUSD school), other schools outside of West Oakland would see an enrollment decline.

An important point made in the study is that Oakland, unlike San Francisco’s budget approach to weighted student budgeting at school sites, provides extra money for attendance. The study said that tying extra money per school site budget to student testing did not raise attendance and therefore that approach should be dropped. So far the cost of the study has been paid but nothing in the way of changing Oakland’s budgeting policy has taken place. The schools with poverty issues are continuing to be hurt by receiving less money while the Board continues ignoring this study.

Second point is that by reading about the “support” the District is providing West Oakland schools there are repeated mentioning of math coaches. However, this is support that does not cost anything. Good trick.

Jim Mordecai