Hayward Unified this week became the second Bay Area school district in the past month to make the wrenching decision to close two schools because of declining enrollment — a trend that reflects in part the departure of families who can’t afford the region’s high housing costs.
And even more school closures may be on the way in coming years, district officials warned at Wednesday’s school board meeting. But at least for now, four other schools that had been on the closure list have been spared.
Over the objections of many parents, teachers and staff members, however, the board unanimously voted to close Strobridge and Bowman elementary schools at the end of this academic year and to move two pre-kindergarten programs to an elementary school.
District administrators and school board members said they have no choice: Hayward Unified is facing a $14 million budget shortfall driven in large part by the declining enrollment and meanwhile must find more than $900 million to properly upgrade its aging campuses.
It has lost about 2,000 students in just the last couple of years and about 25% of its student population over the past two decades.
Asked if there are other options, Superintendent Matt Wayne said the bottom line is, “We have too many schools for too few students, and that’s not going to change in a year.”
Hayward Unified is hardly alone in losing students.
Cupertino Union School District last month announced it will close Regnart and Meyerholz elementary schools and consolidate Muir Elementary next fall. And Oakland Unified narrowly avoided a number of closures earlier this year after the school board opted to adjust the budget instead.
In the past five years, public schools across the state have seen a drop in enrollment of more than 230,000 students, a trend that’s likely to continue, according to data from the California Department of Finance.
In the nine-county Bay Area, all counties except Contra Costa are expected to lose students in the next decade, with state officials predicting Santa Clara County will have the fifth largest enrollment drop in the state.
Gentrification, rising home prices, lower birth rates and some parents choosing to put students in private or charter schools have contributed to the decline, according to state and local officials.
Many who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting asked the school board to hold off until more public input could be heard and other options explored, claiming there wasn’t enough outreach to parents.
Chantaine Fauntleroy, a teacher at Bret Harte Middle School, asked the board to “invite all the stakeholders to the table to look at the budget together so that we can make a more equitable decision about how and where to make cuts.”
“If you do end up closing Bowman, then I have no reason why I should stay here at Hayward Unified,” Andrea Rivera, a parent of two children at Bowman, told board members. Rivera said no other schools are within walking distance.
In an interview Thursday, Rivera said she feels “very disappointed” in the school board. “They’re not listening to us, they’re not putting the kids first. That position, that power that you have, you’re supposed to serve the kids.”
Rivera added that the board should have gathered more input before taking such drastic action. “You need to look at all the possibilities of not hurting the kids or affecting the kids before you have to go to extreme measures of closing down schools,” she said.
“We were not even present when you guys started this conversation. We were on our fall break,” Emily Worth, a teacher at Bowman, told the board.
Worth said the district didn’t do enough to involve parents from Bowman, including many who don’t speak English well.
“So many of them did not know our school was closing. It is ridiculous how little our parents were asked and involved in this process,” she said.
The district as recently as last month was considering closing eight schools altogether over the next several years but dropped the number to four — including Glassbrook Elementary School and Ochoa Middle School in 2023-24 and the relocation of four others, including Bret Harte Middle School, in 2024-25.
The board, however, decided to hold off on any of those schools for now after hearing all of the concerns and complaints.
“We have a duty to really elevate the voice that’s not being heard right now, and I really believe we’re not listening to the people,” board member Peter Bufete said before voting to close just Bowman and Strobridge.
District spokesperson Dionicia Ramos said she understands some parents and teachers may feel caught off guard, but a committee formed in 2020 to develop criteria for evaluating various schools included teachers and other labor groups, as well as community members.
“I think there are some real differing opinions about what the purpose of that group was, and people feel that they didn’t really know about school closures until they saw that list,” she said.
“What’s not changing is we’re going to have less money as we have less students,” she added. “We have more buildings than we have funds to manage.”
Staff writer Grace Hase contributed to this report.
Source: www.mercurynews.com