Some major changes are looming for the Oakland Unified School District.
Under a new proposal, several schools would merge in an effort to balance the district's ailing budget. It's a plan the district says would ultimately benefit students in the long run, but many families don't see it that way.
The proposed merger would turn 10 schools into five. All of the schools are already located on shared campuses.
The district says the goal is to maximize student benefit and cut costs.
"The days of industrial type mass production education is over," school board member Jorge Lerma said.
Lerma represents District 5, which is where the majority of the proposed school mergers are located. The area is also home to a large minority population, which some critics say isn't coincidental.
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Lerma believes school restructuring needs to happen but says student success must be a priority.
"The main thing is how do we save the quality of education," he said. "That's my concern, so that we're just not making cuts and turning these schools into low performing."
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Under the current proposal, students will continue classes at their current campus, but the administration on those campuses might look different with schools combining resources and staff. Lerma doesn’t anticipate layoffs but says administrators could be reassigned or sent to other locations.
"We have thrown a lot of money at problems without solving the problem," he said. "Now we're realizing that it sounds good to have two schools on the same location, but we're understanding that one school is under enrolled, the other one is over enrolled. We need to bring the resources together to create some equity."
In a message to parents, Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell claims the mergers will reduce administrative cost while creating stronger programming, saying, "While these changes stem from budget challenges, our focus is on creating schools that better serve our students."
Kimi Kean, CEO of family advocacy group Families in Action for Quality Education, wants to know how the district plan would prioritize students in underserved communities and in already underperforming areas.
She’s also concerned about how programs unique to certain schools could be impacted by the mergers.
"All I’ve heard is a proposal to merge schools," she said. "I think there is a real discussion needed about what is it going to take to actually get to quality schools, especially for our most underserved communities."
The school board is set to discuss the possible mergers on Wednesday. From there, they are expected to vote on a decision in December.
