We, a committed group of households within the Crocker Highlands neighborhood, feel strongly that Crocker Highlands Elementary (“Crocker”) helps create the community which makes Crocker Highlands such a wonderful place to live. The community that is created by children living near each other and being able to walk to school together is unparalleled and many of us moved to Oakland, and specifically to Crocker Highlands, because of the future prospect of sending our children to our neighborhood school. 

We all are deeply concerned by what happened this year during the 2012-13 kindergarten enrollment, specifically that 18 children from the original boundaries of Crocker were not initially admitted to the school and instead were sent to Cleveland Elementary.  We understand there were a few reasons for this, but chief among them was the redistricting that occurred as a result of the closure of several Oakland Unified School District (“OUSD”) schools last year. 

Crocker is a school that is traditionally at or near capacity within the original district boundary, and as a result of the redistricting it appears it may chronically be over-capacity. We understand that OUSD had no choice but to change the school districts as a result of the closures last year, and we want all families to have the opportunity to attend their neighborhood schools.  However it appears that the Crocker district was required to take on a heavier burden than other neighborhoods with the redistricting as 18 families from our district were turned away, yet there was space for all 18 at Cleveland and there appears to be room at other schools as well.

We would like to see revised redistricting of the school boundaries based on capacity. If some schools have lower capacity, they have the ability to welcome more students without shutting out families who live in the original district.   This would likely mean that the Crocker district would revert back to its original district prior to the recent redistricting.

Please sign this petition to support giving children from our neighborhood access to our community school. Thank you

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