The school opened its doors in 2006 as part of an earlier district reform effort to break large, underperforming campuses into smaller schools that could, in theory, better support at-risk students. Nearly all of its pupils are minorities who qualify for free or reduced lunch and a large percentage are English language learners.

Roots, though, has long struggled with declining enrollment and low academic performance. Just 309 students were enrolled during the 2017-18 school year, the majority of whom did not meet grade-level standards.

At Wednesday's school board meeting, OUSD Deputy Chief of Innovation Yvette Renteria noted that Roots' test scores are among the lowest in the district, calling it an “unsustainable small school with limited resources.”

In her presentation, Renteria said that closing Roots would save the district more than $345,000 next year, and expected that amount to increase over time.

Although the district hasn’t yet released the list of the other schools it's considering closing, it is preparing a “citywide plan” that compares factors like density, school enrollment and performance metrics. That likely means that most of the schools slated for closure will, like Roots Academy, be in underserved neighborhoods in the city’s flatlands, particularly in East Oakland.

Many parents in these communities see this as a disturbing pattern and have said that, despite the district's promises to include them in these discussions, they feel largely left out of the decision-making process. Many teachers and parents have also said they want to see the district invest more in struggling schools rather than shuttering them and busing their kids to other parts of the city.

To complicate matters further, the situation is unfolding against the backdrop of a looming teachers’ strike. Tensions between OUSD teachers and their employer have reached a boiling point. Oakland teachers are among the lowest paid in the Bay Area, and have been working without a contract since July 2017.

The union has also expressed its staunch opposition to closing schools, casting it as an equity issue. So the Roots Academy decision has become a kind of rallying cry for Oakland teachers and a focal point for their showdown with the district.

The Oakland Education Association, the teachers' union, plans to hold a strike authorization vote at the end of this month. In an early warning shot, hundreds of teachers and students walked off the job — and out of the classroom — in a one-day sickout on Jan. 18. A full-fledged strike could begin as soon as early February.

Why is the district thinking about closing so many schools?

The district currently operates 87 school sites, and is considering closing up to 24 of them. The idea is part of the school board’s long-term effort to chip away at its massive budget deficit and establish some degree of financial sustainability.

Teachers Join Parents to Fight Closure of Oakland's Roots Academy Parents and students opposed to the school district's plan to close Roots International Academy in East Oakland are vowing to fight to keep it open.

Much of that stems from intense pressure from the state.

Last year, California's Legislature approved a bailout for the financially ailing district of up to $34 million, as part of an education finance bill signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. But that money comes with some strict conditions, including a significant reduction of OUSD’s overhead costs. Failure to do so could result in another state takeover of the district, which last occurred in 2003.

The state bailout plan comes on the heels of an Alameda County civil grand jury report released in June 2018, which found the district had “lost control of spending” and was operating far more schools than its declining enrollment could justify. In the last 15 years, as the district lost a growing number of students to charter schools and other factors, enrollment fell from 54,000 to under 37,000, according to the report. Even so, the district continued to add schools.

More schools mean more administrators and other non-teaching staff, as well as additional overhead expenses. A major consolidation could therefore lead to significant cost savings.

The report noted that OUSD, compared to other similarly sized districts in the Bay Area, has an outsized proportion of schools for its student body. The average district school has 412 students, it found. In contrast, Fremont Unified, a similarly sized district that's more financially stable and has much higher overall academic performance metrics, has only 42 schools, or about 833 students per school.

The district is also looking at other cost-saving options to help whittle down its deficit, including trimming administrative staff, selling off surplus properties and increasing enrollment.

Closing schools, in and of itself, is certainly not a magic bullet. In 2011, OUSD shuttered five elementary schools in an effort to save about $2 million annually. Some critics of the move, though, say it led more students to leave the district, which ultimately offset most of the savings. School district funding from the state is, after all, based primarily on enrollment, and if enough displaced students decide to go to charter schools or even move to other districts, that could defeat the whole purpose of closing the schools to begin with.

What happens to Roots Academy students and teachers if it closes?

School district officials say that if the school closes, they intend to work with Roots Academy families to find the most appropriate placement for their children, with the opportunity to transfer to a better-performing school. School board members at Wednesday's contentious meeting also stressed that no employees at Roots would be at risk of losing their jobs.

The district wants to expand Coliseum College Prep Academy (CCPA), a higher-performing sixth- through 12th-grade school located on the same campus as Roots. Under the proposal, the school would double the number of sixth-grade seats it offers, taking on an additional 79 students.