March 16th Urgent Protest for the Schools

FORWARD WIDELY!
On March 16, Oakland must tell our elected leaders:
The State Will Not Close Our Schools!

City Council Hearing on School Closures
Tuesday, March 16 at Rally at 5PM, Hearing begins at 6:00 p.m., Oakland
City Hall, 14th and Broadway (at the 12th Street BART Station)



Flyer attached and at Education not Incarceration's website: http://www.may8.org

State Administrator Randy Ward is threatening to close FIVE Oakland
elementary schools in predominately low income African American and Latino
communities to potentially save 1.2 million dollars. Meanwhile, Alameda
County is spending 177 million dollars to build a new prison for children!

Join the parents, teachers, union members, church members, elected
officials and concerned citizens of the Coalition Against School Closures
as we rally and speak before the City Council during their debate of a
resolution against closing five Oakland schools educating 1001 of our most
precious youth. Thus far, the voice of outraged citizens has led some
Sacramento (and even Washington) politicians to take notice of the ongoing
injustice of school closures. Now, we must amplify our demands: elected
leaders must do everything in their power to prevent school closures and
protect the basic civil rights of public education, due process, and
representative democracy.
http://www.may8.org

Come Out! Bring Signs and Friends!!! For more information contact the
Coalition at 562-0579 (ask for Anne) or 638-7005 (ask for Tanya) or email
SaveOaklandFive [at] aol.com. We encourage organizations to contact us and
endorse the Coalition.

News Articles on the Closures:
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E1726%257E1934427,00.html?search=filter
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E28434%257E1917895,00.html?search=filter
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E28435%257E1920063,00.html?search=filter

EIGHT REASONS TO KEEP THE "OAKLAND 5" OPEN

(1) Schools targetted for closure are in low-income
predominately African-American communities, who are
already being under-served by California's schools.

(2) The closing of the five schools will put 1001
students on the street. For many, there is no close,
comparable school to attend. Without transportation,
students will have to cross some of Oakland's busiest
streets to get to their new schools.

(3) According to Ward's own figures, closing the five
schools will save just $1.28 million. This figure does
not include the costs of closing schools and keeping
them secure, nor does it take into account the losses
of revenue from students leaving the district or
lowered attendance. Many students will not attend
school as regularly if they have to walk a mile or
more to their new schools.

(4) The $600,000 grant for the Burbank school garden
project, which will be lost if Burbank is closed, is
equal to about one-half of the projected savings for
all five schools.

(5) The District's current budget has about $13.0
million in unspent reserves. Instead of closing the
schools, the District can utilize one tenth of the
reserves to keep them open.

(6) The five schools on the closure list are all
improving academically. Toler Heights and John Swett
have API scores of over 600. Foster and Longfellow
have boosted their API scores by over 100 points in
the past three years. Burbank's scores have gone up by
50.

(7) Contrary to what many people say, Oakland does not
have too many schools for its population. In reality,
we should have more schools! Under the District's
small schools policy, elementary schools should have
no more than 350 students. To fully implement that
policy, we would need 72 elementary schools. Today
there are 63.

(8) The bottom line is that closing schools is not
financially necessary and will harm our children,
especially in the flatlands, by forcing them to attend
overcrowded, often dilapidated schools, far from their
homes.