In May, we learned that Oakland Unified’s financial team was recommending the closure or merger of 10-17 schools because of declining enrollment. Well, those tough discussions are about to happen. Starting tomorrow.

During a special meeting, which starts at 5 p.m. tomorrow night (That will probably be 5 p.m. sharp — the interim supe, Roberta Mayor, seems to run a pretty tight ship), the board discusses the district’s long-term plan and the question of school size.

Here’s a quote I pulled from the presentation. Feel free to respond to these questions:

What is a right-sized school? There are programmatic considerations: Can a school be
too small to offer the programs all students should be able to access? Can a school be too
small to allow for professional learning communities to flourish? Can a school be too small
to allow flexibility in placement of students?

The time-line of this “right-sizing” business (oh, that term again!) should play out like this, if the plan isn’t derailed somehow, like last year:

• Sept. 3 - School board discusses closure/merger criteria.
• Sept. 8-18 - Five district-wide community forums on school size (I have requested the schedule and will post it when I get it).
• Oct. 1 - School board votes on closure criteria
• Oct. 2-3 - Staff creates the list of schools Read the rest of this entry »

I hope no one came to this morning’s Special Committee on School Admissions, Attendance and Boundaries meeting expecting solutions to chronic overcrowding at the city’s hills schools.

What the committee did seem to conclude, however, was this:

• Moving from full-day to half-day kindergarten isn’t the best or most effective way to increase a school’s capacity.
• To make sure all neighborhood families have a home school, the district will have to add classrooms to various schools (Montclair was mentioned), move attendance boundary lines, or both.
• The district needs to balance out the number of special education students at various schools (Some schools, if I heard correctly, have none; in others, special needs students make up to 30 percent of the student population).
• District staff needs to address “split-street” Read the rest of this entry »

Tribune photo of Hillcrest Elementary School in 2007

Eight of Oakland’s elementary schools could really use some elbow room, according to the Oakland school district’s space formula.

But what to do about the increasingly popular Chabot, Hillcrest, Kaiser, Lincoln, Montclair, Redwood Heights, Thornhill and Peralta? Most of those schools have already added portables in recent years to expand their capacity, and they still don’t guarantee neighborhood families a slot.

At 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, Read the rest of this entry »

photo by Alison D. Yin/STAFF

Much ‘ink’ in this forum has been devoted to the question of space: which Oakland children get to attend which public schools.

In June, on the last week of school, district staff told a small group of special education families that the program for blind children with developmental disabilities would be moved out of Montclair Elementary School.

I wrote a story about the controversial relocation, which ran in today’s Tribune. You can read it here.

What do you think about the district’s decision to move the program?

If the musical Sears commercials haven’t propelled you to the mall yet, you might want to hold off on shopping for back-to-school supplies until Sunday — which, of course, is the last day of summer vacation.

The Oakland Natives Give Back Fund organized a Back to School Expo at City Hall from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The event is co-sponsored by the City of Oakland and the Oakland school district.

Organizers will give out backpacks with school supplies to the first 600 families who show up. While you’re there, you might also catch a youth fashion show, a talent search for the city’s best young poets, and … yet unnamed celebrities.

Laura Moran, the school district’s chief services officer, says it’s an effort to encourage families to send their kids to school on Day 1 — and for the whole community to take responsibility for lowering the truancy rate. About 16 percent of middle and high school students Read the rest of this entry »

Our governor knows just what parents need: More school stats!

Schwarzenegger’s office has announced the launch of a new Web site, California School Finder, that will allow school shoppers to scope out the educational institutions in a particular area. It lets you compare course offerings, student demographics and other information — complete with aerial views of the campuses.

If you want to know if the Oakland School for the Arts teaches advanced French, for example, or what Advanced Placement courses your local high school offers, you’re in luck. (The one-year dropout data on the site, however, did not appear to be updated with last week’s release.)

This is not to be confused with Read the rest of this entry »

No, I don’t have the answer.

But, as someone without kids of her own yet, I’ve been reading with interest your ongoing discussion about the things parents must do to keep their children challenged and stimulated.

If it’s that hard during the school year, how do your kids stay sharp during the summer months?

Do they go to camps, or summer school, or spend their days at the local pool with their friends? Are there enough reasonably priced options, or do you watch your checking account plummet at this time of year?

If you’ve come across any especially good summer programs, by all means tell us about them (unless you don’t want word to get out). Read the rest of this entry »

Starting in 2009, the brothers and sisters of children enrolled at a school will have top admissions priority, regardless of where they live.

The board just approved the new admissions priorities, 4-1 (Kerry Hamill, David Kakishiba, Alice Spearman and Chris Dobbins voted for it; Noel Gallo voted against it; Gary Yee and Greg Hodge weren’t at the meeting).

“Nobody, next year, is going to be pushed out of a neighborhood school because of a sibling,” said Kerry Hamill, who served on the special committee that recommended the policy change, which goes into effect in 2009.

Children with older siblings enrolled at their local school already had an admissions advantage over other neighborhood children, under the board’s previous policy. The main difference now is that the same advantage will apply to all younger siblings of existing students (if the older brother or sister has already moved onto middle school, it doesn’t count). Read the rest of this entry »

A voter-approved tax levy is allowing Chabot Elementary School to scrap its World War II-era portable classrooms. Needless to say, parents, teachers and students at the Rockridge area school couldn’t be happier about the prospect of a trailer-free education.

Polly Winograd Ikonen, co-chair of the Chabot: Way to Grow! campaign, wrote me a note detailing Saturday’s celebration to mark the start of the $17.5 million construction project.

It’s too soon to put any holes in the ground — there are still four more days of school — so Chabot dad Michael Bettendorf marked the occasion by destroying an old wooden bench with a sledgehammer. (Apparently, he did it in one swing. Doesn’t that sound oddly therapeutic?)

I hear Chabot alumni from the 1930s and 1940s even came. Dozens of photos are posted here.

Are other schools are celebrating the prospect of portable-free futures? Do you feel the funds are being distributed fairly? If you want to see how the $435 million in bond measure money Read the rest of this entry »

I did some poking around on the OUSD Web site, and I found a document with an overview of the School Options results. It might have been there for awhile, and maybe some of you have already seen this, but I thought it was worth posting.

Apparently 87 percent of Oakland’s prospective kindergarten families — 1,966 — received one of their top three choices of schools, an improvement from last year. The district reported a 96 percent success rate at the middle school level and 97 percent for future high schoolers.

Not bad, at least on paper. I guess before we can give a final grade to the much-maligned School Options program, we should see the success rate for families who did not put one of their home schools on the list. Read the rest of this entry »