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Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 23

Publication:
Oakland Tribunei
Location:
Oakland, California
Issue Date:
Page:
23
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

fl rrs a (7 rrv fl Raeia mbateinc iv an- Plans Spslb Advisory Group Proposes For New School School Boundary Changes BERKELEY Oakland's school population and the distribution of i i students and teachers' throughout the school district. High school boundary changes are recommended under the section of the report devoted to "physical characteristics of schools, student bodies and neighborhoods." In that same section, the committee points out that racial imbalance at the elementary and junior high school levels is a problem that does not lend itself to solution by boundary changes. An exception to this, however, is in schools with predominantly white and predominantly Negro student bodies which have adjoining boundaries. NOT SPELLED OUT Such schools are found mainly in the areas around Foothill and MacArthur Boulevards, but the report recommends no specific School officials, however, should carry on a periodic review of boundaries to see how they may be revised to improve Cry ALAMEDA Xf 3 hammered out by a special 25 member subcommittee on school building needs, headed by John W. McFarland.

The committee concluded building material standards for schools should be raised to re duce maintenance costs. They also decided that because land is at a premium in Oakland some multi-story schools should be built to provide more play ground space, even though they are costlier than one story i structures. In 1956 Oakland voters ap- 1 proved a $40 million bond issue to meet school building needs through 1960. The last of that money was spent this year. Now, the committee a new bond, issue is required for school facuties needed immediately and in the years ahead.

New elementary schools rec ommended by the committee in-elude five brand new schools I and replacements for four ex-; isting facilities. 1 The new schools would include a $1,748,800 facility to relieve overcrowding at Bella Vista and Franklin schools, a $1,485,700 "relief" school for Manzamta and Garfield schools, and a 399,400 "relief" school in the area now served by Webster and Cox elementary schools. A $483,090 school should be built, the committee said, on the Glen Arms site now. being acquired by the Oakland board in the hill area with 1956 bond funds, and an $846,500 school will be built on a site already acquired near Oakland -Naval Hospital. Schools that would be replaced include: Dag Hammarskjold School at 9655 Empire Road, a temporary school established in 1961 as a "bonus" project from the 1956 bond issue.

It would be replaced by a $645,800 permanent facility. i Tompkins School, to be closed this year to make way for the Acorn Redevelopment project, would be replaced by a 250 school in the nearby Oak Here are Oakland's high school boundaries Immediate boundary changes to relieve racial imbalance in Oakland's six high schools have been recommended by the Citi zens Advisory Committee on uauana Jscnooi Needs. approved by the Oakland Board of Education, the boundary changes would affect more than 1,100 entering high school lenin graaers next September. The plan would "give back' portions of the Skyline High School attendance area to Oakland Technical and Castlemont mgn scnoois. A substantial portion of th Technical High School attendance area below MacArthur Boulevard and west of Lake Mer-ritt would be shifted to McCly.

n.i i i niuuua mgu ocnooi west Oakland. RECOMMENDATIONS Bdundaries for Oakland and Fremont High School also would be changed. The boundary changes are one of more than 50 recommendations included in a bulky report presented to the Oakland Board of Education yesterday. Prepared by the committee's subcommittee on Equal Educational Opportunities (EEO), the report seeks to deal with school problems created by the concentration of racial and ethnic minorities in some areas of the city. Besides boundary changes, the report recommends massive pro-; grams of compensatory and vo cational education and the apJ poimmeni 01 a top level administrator to run them, greater integration of teaching, counsel- ing and guidance personnel at all schools, and an over-all increase in the number of minority group counselors, administrators and guidance workers.

SPECIAL REPORT Included in the report, but not a part of the official recommendation is a special re- "port on school boundaries calling for the elimination of Mc-Clwnond's High School and development of a specialized vocational and business program at Fremont High School. The special report received 15 vnfpsLa mainriiv ntihamacL ing where the vote was taken. But 17 votes were required under committee rules to approve a formal recommendation. The report also urges the Oakland Board Of Education to appont a permanent citizens group to advise it on the problems nf V.ma WHiJpaHnn flnrwr. tunities, integration and compensatory education.

The two-inch thick EEO Committee report includes an exhaustive, detailed analysis of sociological studies and educational plans gathered from all parts of the country, RACIAL COMPOSITION It also includes an analysis of the racial composition' of programs are designed for those students who need to overcome cultural and educational handi caps. EXTRA PROGRAMS These programs would include such things as a language development program to provide a richer background of experiences and pre-reading training in the regular kindergarten curriculum; a teacher consultant in remedial reading techniques for each school with a high number of low achievers, an increased effort to acquaint par ents of low achievers with the role of the schools and enlist their aid, a full-time teacher librarian at each low achiever school, a class size of 25 pupils to one teacher, and special after- school study centers. Many of the compensatory education programs recom- Center Redevelopment project. Terrace Park School at 4655 Steele" Street, a school for severely mentally retarded children should be replaced, the committee recommends, by a $914,500 school which would take up a portion of the neighboring John Swett School playground. Woodland School aU205 81st Ave.

a temporary school buijt in 1959 with bond funds, should be replaced by a $1,120,700 per The Oakland Board of Educa tion' has been advised to embark upon a $68.4 million school building program during the next 10 years. Such a massive effort could require by far the largest school construction bond issue in the city's history. It would number among the largest such issues submitted to voters by a local school district anywhere in the nation. Detailed plans for new schools, additions to some existing ones and modernization of others were spelled out yesterday in recommendations to the board from its Citizens Advisory Committee on School Needs. The committee forecast an en rollment increase of nearly 000 students by 1973.

Oakland needs 620 new class rooms and modernization of 723 existing ones, the committee Major recommendations were: A new high school costing $8.2 million, including a site. Nine new elementary schools Additions to all six existing high schools, to 10 junior highs and to 19 elementary schools, Purchase of six new elementary sites and one for the new high school, all stilLtoJbe se lected. "Additional land for 23 existing schools and for the administra tion building and central shops Modernization of 43 schools. new wing for the administra tion building, a new central shop addition and modernization oi the central warehouse. Details for the program were $68 Million Asked for Schools Continued from Page 1 five years to provide operating funds.

Additional funds, hopefully from federal or state sources would be required to finance wide range of special programs for disadvantaged and cultur ally deprived children, the com mittee said. NEW APPROACH The committee recommended that Oakland school officials study various means of keeping school costs down, including a new approach to the problem of teachers salaries, and the pos sibility of double sessions and year round use of the schools. AH of this and much more was included In the bulky report submitted to the Oakland Board of Education yesterday by Charles P. Howard, general chairman of the citizens committee. oard president Alan A.

Lindsay thanked the committee for the "energy, thought, sweat and blood that you've given to this work." "'We trust that your reports will serve, as; the basis for this board to discuss, in an orderly fashion, the problems which give rise to the creation of your committee," Lindsay said. NAMED IN 1963 -s The board appointed the citi zens committee on February 26, 1963, when the controversy over racial imbalance in the Oakland schools was at a fever pitch. Civil rights groups and vari ous civic organizations recom mended formation of a citizens committee as a way out of the controversy. The board decided, however, that anything done to relieve racial imbalance would neces sarily involve school building and finance, so they assigned all three areas of responsibility to the citizens' group. Howard, who served as chair man of the equal opportunities subcommittee as well as hold ing down the general chairmanship, reported to the board that the subcommittee met 31 tunes, WORK EXPLAINED He explained how the committee approached its work, but did not recount any of the details of the prated report or G.

F. Powers, chairman of the finance subcommittee gave a similar report and introduced his vice chairman, Sol Gilberg. John W. McFarland, chair man of the building needs sub committee, said: "The report is your hands. There is little I can add to it The report speaks for itself.

The price tag on the building program we recommend is $68.4 million. "Our committee has not delved into the details of financing such a program," he added, "because that was not our job. "We on the committee feel, however, that this program financed stages over the next ten is certainly within the bonding capacity of the City of Oakland. 75-Cent Boost in proposed changes suggested that Oakland Techni cal students be encouraged to take up competitive gymnastics. If new athletic are offered in one high school, the committee recommends they be offered in all high schools.

PARENTAL ACTIVITIES In the area of parents' activi ties and gifts to the schools, the committee recommended that the board establish a district-wide policy for how such things are handled. Critics of the schools have charged that schools in the hill area and otner nigner socio economic areas have an advantage because parent groups can provide them with materials and equipment other schools cannot afford. This problem could be clari fied by a district policy-statement, the committee believes. by Trlbun Artitt Fnnk Kittltwtll of proposed boundary changes as being to improve and maintain racial balance in Oakland high schools, to fill up to 400 vacancies at McClymonds High School and to "bring high school boundaries more closely into harmony with midpoint cri terion. "This means that for the majority of students living in the change zone, the distance to the new school will be less than it Would be to the previous one." Enrollment figures in June, 1963, indicate that 212 students formerly slated for Oakland Technical will go into McCly monds for a net gam of 212 students.

Oakland Technical would lose 212 to McClymonds, but would pick up 240 from Skyline for a gain of 28 students. Oakland High School would pick up 168 students from Fremont, but would lose 132 to Skyline, for a gain of 36 students. Fremont would lose 217 students to Skyline and Oakland, but would pick up 204 from Castlemont, for a loss of 13 students. Castlemont would pick up 159 students from Skyline but would lose 204 to Fremont, for a loss of 45 students. Skyline would lose 399 students to Oakland Technical and Castlemont and would pick up 181 from Fremont and Oakland for a net loss of 218 students.

racial balance, the committee recommends. The report recommends that Negro teachers be assigned to all Oakland's elementary schools by September of 1966. More Negro and other minority "group personnel should be selected for administrative and supervisory positions as vacancies occur and the administra tion should attempt to assign teachers so that the percentage of probationary teachersis similar in all schools. EXTRA OFFICIAL The committee also 'recom mends that an extra adminis trator be assigned to any ele mentary school as soon as its enrollment reaches 700 students. In the area of curriculum, the committee recommends that remedial instruction in reading and arithmetic should be avail able at all school levels, with particular emphasis in the elementary schools.

Other curriculum recommen dations include the establishment of standardized system-wide-examinations for all students taking basic academic courses, a planned an comprehensive program for those stu dents for whom high school ap pears to be a terminal educa tion, and a program to permit all students to schedule more elective courses in high school. GUIDANCE FIELD Recommendations in the field of counseling and guidance include a proposal to increase the counseling staff to achieve a ratio of one counselor per 300 students. Guidance personnel should also be increased to "approach the state recommended goal of one consultant per 2,500 students. Urged "Local taxes will have to be incrsed continually to meet rising school costs unless other sources of funds can be made available to the public schools." The committee also suggests that Oakland school authorities should continue to study the pos sibility of double sessions and. using the school buildings 12 months a year.

It stresses the need for maintaining teachers' salaries at a competitive level, but- also recommends that the Oakland board take a different approach to the problem of salaries than has been taken in the past. For one thing, the report rec ommends that Oakland give up its efforts to keep teachers salaries here in the upper 25 per cent of the IS largest school districts in California. committee believes that it is more realistic for the Board of Education to establish a scale for teacher salaries in the upper 50 per cent of the 18 largest districts. "Oakland should consider teacher salary plan which in cludes other factors than the level of preparation and years of experience," the report- re commends. "The Board of Education should investigate methods of compensating teachers which recognizes the differences in teaching duties, abilities and accomplishments." The school district should also establish a research and development program to develop more efficient methods of teach ing to cut costs.

'V Even with all of these changes. however, the committee warns that "it may be necessary to increase the salary schedule for teachers by approximately three per cent a year" to maintain a competitive position. School Tax as they would look under mended in the report are al ready. being used on a limited, experimental basis in the schools. The committee also recom mended that the boarf explore the use of volunteer -aides to work with teachers, in libraries and at study centers.

PILOT COURSE A pilot course for teachers and administrators, to be given in the 1964 summer workshop, is recommended to acquaint Oakland personnel with the role of minority groups and individuals In the social, political, economic and cultural develop ment of the United States The committee recommended that school officials investigate ways of involving students at McClymonds High School in competitive swimming, gymnastics, golf and tennis. It also 30th to East 12th to 29th to the Estuary: (now in FREMONT, 4610 Foothill Blvd. Eliminate present area above MacArthur Blvd. to go to Sky-j eliminate area proposed to be added to Oakland High School and add the area from Bancroft Ave. to the city limits and from 73rd Ave.

to the existing school boundary (now in Castlemont). CASTLEMONT, 8601 MacArthur Blvd. Eliminate area given to Fremont, and add area above Mountain Blvd. from Seminary Ave. projected above Mountain Blvd.

(including the streets feeding into Mountain to east of Oakland Naval Hospital, to the city limits (now in Skyline). SKYLINE, 12250 Skyline Blvd. i Eliminate areas given to Technical and Castlemont and add areas transferred from Fremont and Oakland High. In the text explaining its recommendations, the committee proposed that students who are presently attending a high school be allowed to continue in that school until graduation. They also propose that a family living in a "change zone" with a child who is continuing in the "old" high school may send his younger brother or sister there if they enter the 10th grade before the older student graduates.

The report lists the objectives Mips Additional counseling and gui dance staff should be provided for schools with high concentra tions of disadvantaged minority group pupils. Counseling and guidance per sonnel should represent varied racial and ethnic backgrounds. The committee also recom mended that a full-time social worker or guidance consultant be appointed to schools where children are achieving below the 33rd percentile on standardized achievement tests. In the area of vocational edu cation, the committee recom mended that the schools establish a high school vocational and technical program, establish a labor management advisory committee for the program and develop a specialized placement service for graduates of such a program. The committee recommends that the board give "first prior-ityTTo compensatory education programs in those schools achieving below the 33rd percentile.

Compensatory education Leaders on School Aid Committee Oakland industrialist Charles P. Howard served as chairman of the Citizens Advisory Com mittee on Oakland School needs. Chairman and vice chairman of the three working subcom mittees were attorney Lawrence S. Simon; bank executive G. F.

Powers; real estate man Sol Gilberg; John W. McFarland, utility district general manager; attorney Joseph E. Smith, and the Rev. Dr. Boyce Van Osdel.

Other committee members in cluded: Richard J. Archer, Paul Baumgart," Homer J. Bemiss, Lionel B. Benas, Mrs. Alta Sims Bunker, Fred Castro, Clifford L.

Dochterman, the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Pearse Donovan, Mrs. Ralph T.

Fisher, Mrs. Andrew Hart, Albert P. Heiner, the Rev. Robert D. Hill, Charles Hoge, Mrs.

E. E. Huddleson Douglas Jones, Mrs. Phillip Jue, bdward O. Lee, Robert P.

Lee, Carl C. Mack, Mrs. Dons Mc- Andrew, the Rev. James McCullum, Lester S. McElwain.

Dr. Rudolph Miller, Helen Pulich, Dr. C. Easton Rothwell. John B.

Thune, Fred A. Tillman John P. Vukasin Clin ton m. White, Mrs. Elizabeth A.

Wilson, and the Rev. Eugene fl. woite. Mrs. Olive Mrs Hugh David Burcham, Curtis R.

Bybee, Robert W. Campini, James Cowart, Russel R. Crow. ell, Calvin E. Davis, William C.

Dixon, W. Elwyn Dunstan, Wil liam C. Hamilton, Thomas Her bert, Mrs. Roger Huntress, Al bert L. McKee, Leon L.

Miller, Mrs. Anita Charles Favliger. Mrs: Harold W. Phillips, Edwin E. Jtiapnei, Mrs.

Erwin C. Rohr, Seymour Rose Clem W. Vail, David S. Way, Mrs. A.

Williams and Ralph S. Williams, Dr. Clarence S. Avery, El-wood D. Bona, Allen E.

Brous-sard, Dr. Mary C. Burch," Har old F. Carr, S. Lennart Ceder-borg, the Rev.

Richard A. G. Foster, Charles W. Goady, Rihc- ard K. Groulx, Mrs.

Olar Guess, Hieb, John Holland Robert L. Hughes, Elmer A. Jackson, Mrs. Mary E. Kelly, A.

C. Latno Wil liam F. Levins, Elmo R. Smith, Kenneth L. Thompson, Dr James A.

Watson, Warren W. Wildman, and Sam Flint, who died yesterday. Current attendance boundaries for Oakland's six high schools Here Are Changes in High School Boundary Proposals manent school, the committee recommended. School Race Issue Led to Gommittee The Citizens Advisory Com mittee on Oakland School Needs was born as a result of the controversy surrounding racial Imbalance in the Oakland Schools. The board appointed the citizens committee on February 26, 1963.

Each board member named his own candidates to fill the posts on the three subcommittees. Additional members were provided by various civil rights and civic organizations which originally recommended that the board create the committee as a means of resolving its differences with the NAACP, CORE and other civil rights groups over alleged de facto segregation in the Oakland Subcommittees on finance, school building needs and equal educational opportunities began their deliberations in March and April of 1963. They finished the job yesterday when they submitted their reports to the Oakland Board. Board to Let Public Air Views The Oakland Board of Education hopes to give members of the community" an opportunity to speak on the comprehensive report on Oakland school needs, as soon as there are enough copies to go around. The board received the report of its Citizens Advisory Committee on School Needs yesterday.

Board president Alan A. Lbd-say immediately asked chairman Charles P. Kcxiri to work out some mcins cl' publishing the rtr-rt t'i 1-Ing it to tha put. rt without Cr t. The Citizens Advisory Committee on Oakland School Needs has recommended a 75-cent increase in school taxes here over the next five years.

In its report to the Oakland of Education yesterday, the committee said such an increase would be required by 1967-68 to provide operating for "educational programs and services equivalent to those presently being offered." Any change In the tax rate would require a majority vote of the people. The Oakland school tax rate for operating purposes is now fixed at a ceiling of $3.12 per $100 of assessed valuation, and the full amount is being levied. i The 75-cent increase would more than double the amount suggested by Oakland school officials in 1962 as necessary to maintan a "status quo" school program through 1967-68. It would be considerably less, however, than the $1:37 school officials said would be needed to make "desirable and reasonable improvements in the Oakland school program" over the next five years. The committee does warn, however that additional finan- ancing will be required to pro- vide special programs lor culturally deprived children.

The committee suggests that state and federal support should be made available to provide such specialized programs, how- ever, "smce mucn oi uaxana added school costs can be attributed to the continued migration of culturally" deprived children from other states. Citizens and school board members. should continue to 7 devote their efforts to Winning increased state support for the schools, the committee suggests High school boundary changes proposed in the Equal Educa tional Opportunities report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Oakland School Needs would affect an estimated 1,164 entering tenth grade students in September. That's the" estimated student population in the various "change zones" which.would be shifted throughout the city. The details of boundary changes for each of the city's six high schools are as follows: MCCLYMONDS, 2607 Myrtle St.

The existing boundary on West MacArthur Boulevard, instead of turning at Grove would continue on West Mac-Arthur, to MacArthur to Vernon St, where it would meet the present Oakland High School Boundary. OAKLAND TECHNICAL, 4351 Broadway Eliminate the present attendance area south of MacArthur (to go tc Mc: Clymonds) and add the area north of Moiaga Ave. and the boundary line separating the present Thornhill and Montclair Elementary School areas (now in Skyline). OAKLAND, Park the present attendance area east of Dimond Canyon (Sausal Creek) and north of MacArthur (to go to Skyline), and add the area from East 27th St. and Sausal Creek, extended along Sausal Creek to.

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About Oakland Tribune Archive

Pages Available:
2,392,182
Years Available:
1874-2016