This month, Oakland public schools welcomed students back for the 2019-20 school year. For me, it’s a conflicting time of both incredible optimism about what’s possible against the stark reality of the mountains ahead of us.

My daughter took her first steps onto an Oakland Unified School District campus this month as a kindergartener. She was excited and nervous, as you would expect — she had her backpack ready for over a week and also was anxious about meeting new kids.

At the start of her 13-year journey, she’s walking into a public school system that is struggling financially, not producing the academic outcomes for all students that they deserve and wrought with tension over an increasingly bitter and unproductive district-versus-public-charter-school battle.

In searching of the best elementary school for my daughter, I visited 15 Oakland public schools this fall, both district-run and charter. What I found was inspiring: There are some really high-quality programs across our city. But we also know that there are just not enough high-quality programs for every child in Oakland.

At the close of the 2018-19 school year, we were confronted by the unfortunate realities called out in the Alameda County Grand Jury Report. The report stated something we’ve known for years: OUSD is underspending on direct student needs and is not managing its finances adequately. To avoid bankruptcy and state receivership, we know more budget cuts are looming.

We cannot afford to continue on this path. There is promising work happening in partnership with the Alameda County Office of Education. Oakland students depend on these two organizations working together to right the course of this financial ship.

Finances are not the district’s only problem. Only 32% of children can read at grade level. We, as a community, must hold our district-run and charter public schools to a high standard. Families choosing any public school in Oakland should expect their child to be served well.

As it stands, the charter-versus-district frame has pitted people — who should be allied in the fight for public schools — against each other. The reality is that we need to hold all schools in our system accountable. Neither district or charter schools can claim to be serving children well enough today, attaining high standards or ensuring that all of our students are served equitably.

We must come together to fight for adequate funding of all public schools in California, updating our outdated school models that are not preparing students for today’s society, and other issues of teaching and learning that impact kids and families.

Amidst these critical issues, there are reasons to be hopeful. In the last few years, our school board has passed policies to implement smarter spending practices and a citywide plan to increase quality across all of our public schools, both district-run and charter. As with all policies, both of these will not get implemented well without community pressure.

I urge my fellow Oaklanders to continue to advocate for smart and swift implementation of these policies by attending charter school board meetings and OUSD board meetings, by writing your school board member and by joining with us and other community organizations who are putting personal differences aside and placing children at the center.

Our kids’ lives depend on it.

Jessica Eastman Stewart is executive director of GO Public Schools Oakland.