To support our campaign, visit Save Futures Elementary School on IndieGoGo.

A Message from the Futures Community

Our school has been hit with some hard news. Due to very drastic budget cuts in the district, we are facing the prospect of losing 100% of our classroom teachers to layoffs. The layoffs are inequitably distributed. As the policy currently stands, many of the schools with the most vulnerable populations (low income communities of color in East and West Oakland) are being hit the hardest.

Because we are a new school (Futures was the result of reconstituting and redesigning Lockwood Elementary which had failed multiple generations of students) and because we are consequently staffed by teachers who have all joined the district within the last four years, none of us has enough seniority to make the cut off date for layoffs which goes back to 2005, two years before Futures had even opened.

Futures was designed to counteract the years of instability and neglect that had historically defined public education for the community in which it is located and has seen tremendous gains over the past four years, in both test scores and school culture. To replace 100% of our staff would effectively erase the relationships, progress and vision that have effectively turned the school around.

We see this as a violation of our students' constitutional right to equal access to public education.

We have been working with community groups and developing an advocacy and awareness campaign to try and correct this injustice to our students. While we are all experiencing it very personally, this is an issue truly of statewide and even national concern. There is a national crisis in educational funding at a time when we believe it is most important to prioritize the preparation of our children for the challenges we know that we will all face. Among the news coverage we have received was a recent visit by AP news reporters who are developing a national story on the impact of layoffs in education. We are continuing to try and get our message out as widely as we can to put pressure on those responsible for making these decision to fully consider their impact.

To support our campaign, visit Save Futures Elementary School on IndieGoGo.