Oakland school board votes to close middle school as budget cuts loom

In an effort to stem a $30 million budget deficit, Oakland Unified School District officials are considering closing or consolidating a number of schools over the next five years, and the first went on the chopping block Monday night.

At a special meeting the school board voted to close Roots International Academy, a small middle school serving East Oakland. Only school board member Rosie Torres voted against closure.

The controversial vote was among a several challenges district officials face in the coming days.

The board plans to vote soon on possible budget cuts, which could include staff layoffs, and fewer resources for school programs and services. The board had scheduled the vote for Wednesday during its regular meeting, but postponed it until Friday or Monday to have more time to prepare, district spokesman John Sasaki said.

A teacher strike could also be imminent, as the Oakland Education Association votes this week on authorizing a strike.

Oakland Unified School District has 87 schools for about 37,000 students, and closing or consolidating schools is one way to cut spending. Next year, it could face a $60 million shortfall.

“We have too many schools for the number of students, and we have our resources pretty thinly spread,” Sasaki said.

Although school district officials have said closing Roots International came down to distributing resources in the most efficient way, parents and educators said they weren’t given a chance to weigh in.

Roots shares its Havenscourt campus with Coliseum College Prep Academy, a school serving grades 6 to 12. Coliseum will eventually expand into the space that Roots occupies. The district anticipates Coliseum will only have a handful of seats available for seventh and eighth graders next year, which means most Roots students will have to be placed elsewhere.

The school district plans for the 163 rising seventh- and eighth-graders to have priority placement at the other 19 schools serving those grades in Oakland, and will provide counselors to help families choose the right school.

Quinn Ranahan, in her second year as a Roots math teacher, said, “We need more time to be able to continue to grow. We provide a lot of opportunities for students to be empowered.”

This year, eighth-graders worked on a public speaking project about policing and criminalization, which helped students learn to advocate for themselves, she said.

Nonetheless, students’ test scores are far below standard, and got worse from 2017 to 2018, according to district data.

“We certainly understand that there are concerns in the community and that some are not happy in this plan,” Sasaki said. “This is about improving outcomes across the district and ensuring that we have a high quality school in every neighborhood. It’s simply hard to do that when you spread your resources so thinly.”

Silvia Ornelas’ 13-year-old daughter has attended Roots since sixth grade. Closing the school won’t directly impact the girl since she’s advancing to high school next year, but Ornelas still been outspoken about the closure.

“They helped my daughter when she needed help the most academically,” she said before the vote. “I’m fighting for the teachers and the kids that are still there that are basically left in limbo.”

For Addy Rios, a priority spot at another middle school isn’t an adequate solution for her 12-year-old son, a seventh-grader at Roots.

“I will choose to homeschool my kid if the school closes,” she said before the vote Monday. “I want him to be in his neighborhood school because that’s where he’s always been. And if that’s not going to happen, then he’s going to just stay home.”

Roots serves a predominantly low-income population, with nearly 93 percent of its 266 students qualifying for free lunch, according to data from the state department of education. The vast majority are students of color: 52 percent of students Latino and 35 percent black.

“It’s about the message that they’re sending the kids,” Rios said. “They’re saying, ‘We’re closing your schools because they’re not good.’ What message is that giving the kids? That they’re not good.”

Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker contributed to this report.

Ashley McBride is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.