Oakland Assemblymember Mia Bonta has introduced new legislation that could help avoid school closures within the Oakland Unified School District.
Assembly Bill 1912 would give the Oakland Unified School District until 2024 to make considerations related to school closures and consolidations, making disbursement of more than $10 million in California Department of Education funding contingent upon committing to proving the district is in good financial standing.
"We take this on in the wake of the greatest surge of the pandemic and the most disruptive health crisis in the history of this nation and it is unthinkable that we would have to consider school closures in this moment as well," she said in a press conference on Wednesday.
Bonta's bill doesn't stop the closures that the Oakland Board of Education approved earlier this week, but it does give the district more time to prove its financial standing. Previously, the district would only receive the $10 million in state funding if it had proved it was in good standing by the end of the school year, rather than committing to do so by 2024.
The board of education voted earlier this week to close, merge or consolidate 11 schools within the district over the next two years. At the end of the 2021-22 school year, two schools will close, another two will merge and La Escuelita will become an elementary school after teaching sixth, seventh and eighth graders this year.
"Which would stand to impact 2,100 children, particularly in East Oakland and deep East Oakland," Bonta said of the affected schools.
Oakland teachers opposed to the board's plan said the schools proposed for closure were ones with a majority of African American students and that the district has a pattern of closing schools in African American and Hispanic communities.
"While still seeking to do right by our communities, particularly in our Black and brown communities, particularly in West Oakland and East Oakland and deep East Oakland, who stand to be hit the hardest by these closures and consolidations," Bonta said.
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