Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Oakland schools Superintendent Tony Smith is proposing to close five elementary schools and consolidate several small schools at the city’s high school campuses in a cost-cutting move, the Chron and Trib report. Smith has been arguing for the past couple years that Oakland can no longer afford to have so many schools because of declining enrollment over the past decade. The district has lost about one-third of its students since 2000, but still has the same number of schools. Oakland, as a result, now has the fewest students per school of any large district in the state.
Smith is proposing to close Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell Park, and Santa Fe elementary schools at the end of the school year. The school board will make a final decision in late October.
