The Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California is cutting 10 out of 20 after-school sports at its high school districts to combat what it says are massive budget problems. The district claims that the cuts will save them half-a-million dollars, or about $1000 per student impacted.
List of sports impacted:
- boys and girls swimming
- boys and girls tennis
- girls lacrosse
- boys volleyball
- boys and girls golf
- wrestling
- bowling
- girls badminton
“These cuts we are instituting now come after years of budget cuts we have already implemented. Not to mention growth in pension liabilities, growth in transportation liabilities,” said John Sasaki, spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District.
He also said that the sports can be saved if the district receives the $500,000 in donations, saying that the district is looking toward tech companies to fill the gap. The district has partnered with major silicon valley firms like Google in the past, including implementing a program where computer science is a requirement for graduation beginning with last year’s freshman class.
The district serves over 37,000 students in the bay area across 19 high schools, including a largely low-income population that can’t necessarily afford to seek private instruction, including joining club programs, for athletics. 73% of Oakland USD students received free or reduced-price meals in 2016 (see more about what that means in terms of household income here).
In total, the district expects that it has to cut $30 million from its budget next year to remain fiscally solvent.
No teachers or staff are losing jobs with the cuts, the district says, meaning that the students are bearing the wait of growing pension loads. Programs like football, baseball, basketball, and soccer are expected to be impacted with budgets, but not eliminated.
Twice as many female students – 347 – will be impacted as male students – 183. Based on last year’s enrollment numbers, the move is expected to impact 161 swimmers – 44 boys and 117 girls. One sport impacted, boys’ volleyball, was only added by the district 3 years ago.
Update: the school district is reportedly reconsidering its cuts in light of backlash over gender equality. Click here to read more.
If I brought up the impact of illegal immigration and sanctuary city issues on budgets would that be a lightening rod?
The illegals and their kids have overwhelmed our schools and hospitals down here in southern California. Eliminating all the freebies we give them would free up way more $500,000. Riverside County recently paid $40 million to a private firm to “figure out” how to save money…and it is probably in a better financial position than Oakland
With crisis comes opportunity!
A number of years ago our urban school district superintendent, now retired of course, said she wanted to cut a number of sports, including swimming. The list of sports in Pittsburgh, PA, was similar to the one floating in Oakland. The cuts didn’t happen. We made a strategic push to say we wanted an Olympic Sports Division / separate Athletic Department. Then the football and basketball could go along as they have been, but X-Country, Swimming, Tennis, intramural programs would shift “ownership” to a new entity and see its funding cut by large percentages over the course of a 3-year period. However, we demanded access to the buildings and facilities and the right to raise… Read more »
Just sad
This happens due to mismanagement of resources on the state and local government level, along with already absurdly high taxes rates in the area. The unfunded pensions are a serious problem and unfortunately it’s impacting students and will continue to do so because there’s no solution in site minus a federal bailout. The bay area has one of the largest income inequality gaps in the nation despite decades of social programs and high taxes rates. What they’ve been doing for the past several decades isn’t working, something needs to change.
The cost of illegal immigration and sanctuary cities is rapidly catching up to the abilities of the state and cities to fund programs. Plain and simple.
Ridiculous comment, Steve. Tax payers shouldn’t be paying for any of these extra curriculars that only a few students partake in. Tax funding should go to things that benefit all education of all students. We all love swimming here but please think about this logically. If not everything can be funded then it is perfectly reasonable to cut sports.
I agree. What is half a Mil to Google?? less than a penny to us?? Also, we know they want it required so that they receive profits in the end… so yeah it is pretty sad that the billion dollar companies cant pony up a penny for the KIDS and the EDUCATION of those in the area of which they have become part of the community.
If I were Google or any other corporation, I could find a better use that impacts more for that 500 million.
$500 thousand, not million.
I’m certain we could easily eliminate enough $100k+ ‘administrator’ positions to offset the sports’ cost! Compared to Catholic schools, for instance, Oakland has far more highly paid non-classroom administrative positions running a bloated system.
Exactly.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Antwan Wilson, with an annual compensation package of just over $630,000, was the highest-paid K-12 public employee in the Bay Area.
According to Transparent California https://transparentcalifornia.com there are over 1200 employees collecting $100k or more each year in salary and benefits.
And they can’t find places to cut other than sports?
All the money is being sucked up by pensions, why can’t they cut bloated pensions instead of cutting sports?
I mean you cant’ just say “cut the pensions”. Every job has some sort of retirement savings/account. In this case, the teachers knew about the pension and plan on retirement based on that pension. People “Grandfathered” in are rightfully expecting that money and may not have much other savings except for that money. Now if you are saying alter the pension going forward for new hires, that could be a solution….but not one that will help in the present.
I am assuming then that you do not have a pension. Part of the acceptance of employment is the entire package including the pension.
They built pools years ago before prop 13 cut some of the funding. This is why Ca had a lot of school pools built from the 1950’s to 1970’s. The recently had bonds rebuilt some of the high school pools, You are right Ca now has more tax money for schools than Texas because of the millionaires tax passed a few years ago to override prop 13 which caps property tax rates lower than Texas.. There are private individuals that have helped schools get pools. The late Segerstrom helped a magnet,charter school in Santa Ana get a pool.