Theresa Harrington / EdSource
Theresa Harrington / EdSourceWhen the Oakland school board meets next Wednesday, it may again decide to ban the public from its meeting if protesters who have disrupted previous meetings return.
But an expert warns that meeting in a room separated from the public may be legal, but does not appear to adhere to the spirit of the state’s Brown Act open public meeting law.
The Oakland school board Wednesday closed its meeting to the public amid fears that opponents of the district’s plan to close schools would attend and disrupt it as occurred on Oct. 23. The board intends to hold an open meeting Wednesday, but may similarly move upstairs and not allow the public inside if protesters disrupt it, officials said Tuesday.
David Snyder, executive director of the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, said the Brown Act allows school boards to hold public meetings via teleconference as long as the public has an opportunity to see and hear the board and to participate in the public comment section as they would in an ordinary meeting. But Snyder, who is a Brown Act expert, said he had never heard of any elected body using the teleconference rule to meet separately from the public.
“I don’t think this is what the Legislature had in mind,” he said, adding that the provision is usually used to allow some board members to participate in meetings remotely when they can’t attend in person. “The board would be ill-advised to continue to do this regularly, because it removes the public from the action in a way that’s probably technically permissible under the Brown Act, but at a minimum, it doesn’t look very good,” he said.
The board’s action was in response to the Oct. 23 meeting, when police used batons to keep protesters behind barricades, as well as previous meeting disruptions. Police claimed they were trying to protect board members from the protesters. But protesters said police used unnecessary force, adding that at least one protester was injured during her arrest.
On Wednesday evening, the board took what some critics called an unprecedented step of holding its meeting in an upstairs conference room to conduct public hearings on charter school renewals. Only the charter petitioners and the media were allowed inside. Other members of the public watched the meeting in a downstairs room where they were able to use a microphone to comment.
Parents, teachers and other community members have been protesting the Sept. 11 vote by the school board to close Kaiser Elementary in the Oakland hills and merge it with Sankofa Academy in an area of Oakland known as the flatlands. Kaiser’s diverse student body comes from throughout the city. The closing is part of the district’s multi-year plan to close, merge or expand up to 24 of its approximately 80 schools.
Zach Norris, a Kaiser Elementary parent who was arrested last month, said his group never intended to disrupt the Wednesday meeting. He called the board’s decision to meet separately from the public “unfortunate and anti-Democratic.”
“I think it shows that this board that is more focused on closing schools than keeping them open doesn’t have the confidence of the public,” he said. “Them feeling like they have to meet in secret is indicative of that.”
Acting board president Jody London said the board decided to meet upstairs based on its belief that the meeting would be disrupted. She told EdSource that the board may consider meeting upstairs again next week, in part due to concerns about disruptions, as well as perceived threats to her safety.
“News reports, online media posts, other documentation and statements made in public make it clear that there is a clear intent to fully and completely disrupt tonight’s board meeting,” London said at the start of the Nov. 6 meeting. “To be clear, we would much prefer to hold this meeting in the great room downstairs, but doing so in the face of certain disruptions is not fair to the public as it would delay the meeting and the important business of the board.”
Although the downstairs meeting room was filled with charter school supporters and a handful of other members of the public last Wednesday, no protesters showed up from a group called “Oakland is not for sale,” who have disrupted previous meetings to voice opposition to school closures and charter schools.
Theresa Harrington / EdSource
Charter school supporters and other members of the public pack the Oakland Unified school board meeting room, while the board meets in an upstairs conference room on Nov. 6, 2019.
District spokesman John Sasaki said the board was justified in meeting upstairs because of past disruptions and because the public was still allowed to participate in the meeting, with the press allowed inside the board room.
He said the meeting met the purpose of the Brown Act to ensure that board actions are “taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”
“Members of the public were able to observe the deliberations of the board and were able to make public comment just as if the board members were physically present in the same room,” he said in a written statement to EdSource. “The only difference was that it wasn’t possible to disrupt the meeting (either by physically disrupting it — as occurred on September 25 and October 23 — or by making too much noise — as occurred on October 10). ”
Sasaki said the meeting was “properly noticed and clearly described in the agenda as required by Government Code 54954.2.” He noted that protesters “had previously stated their intent to attempt to prohibit the school board from conducting any business. While this didn’t happen at the special board meeting on November 6, we fully believe this will occur at the next regular Board meeting on November 13.”
He said the district is still working to set up a meeting with protesters and that it is seeking an outside investigator to look into the use of force by district police. Video of the incident is expected to be released soon, he added.
Mike Hutchinson, who leads an Oakland activist group called the Oakland Public Education Network, which opposes district school closures and charter schools, decried the district’s decision not to allow the public into its meeting.
Theresa Harrington / EdSource
Oakland anti-school closure activist Mike Hutchinson is denied access to the Oakland School board meeting in an upstairs conference room by security guards on Nov. 6, 2019.
“This is the first time ever that the Oakland school board has planned on denying the public access to a public meeting,” he said in a statement posted on the group’s Facebook page. “This is illegal, and even worse, the school board has betrayed the community that elected them. This is unacceptable and we can’t let this become the new normal.”
The “Oakland is not for sale” group is encouraging its supporters to wear black to the next meeting and to “stand up” and “fight back” against school closures. Norris said he does not know if protesters will disrupt the meeting, but he stressed that his group does not condone any kinds of threats or violence.
“The idea that we’re threatening is laughable to me,” he said, adding that his group is trying to educate the community about the negative impacts of school closures. “We’re going to take the opportunity to publicly demonstrate. If board members feel uncomfortable about what we’re saying, maybe they should reconsider closing schools.”
Editor’s Note: As a special project, EdSource is tracking developments in the Oakland Unified and West Contra Costa Unified School Districts as a way to illustrate some of the challenges facing other urban districts in California. West Contra Costa Unified includes Richmond, El Cerrito and several other East Bay communities.
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kevin larsen 3 years ago3 years ago
The general public is not to be barred from school board meetings. The meeting can be broadcast live. Also it can be videotaped and shown. The important thing is parent input and the ability for parents and stakeholders to have a public comment time and to speak before each agenda item.
So, democracy is being trampled upon. I am upset that the experts in law do not help.
Jim Mordecai 3 years ago3 years ago
Protest by the supporters of keeping Kaiser elementary open led Oakland School Board to insulate itself from the public during its meetings. Kaiser is an integrated school by every measure including economic class. Most of the students attending Kaiser do not live in the nearby houses with the fact that houses that list for $2.3 and $1.6, million. Kaiser is a magnet for the majority of its enrollment coming from … Read More
Protest by the supporters of keeping Kaiser elementary open led Oakland School Board to insulate itself from the public during its meetings.
Kaiser is an integrated school by every measure including economic class. Most of the students attending Kaiser do not live in the nearby houses with the fact that houses that list for $2.3 and $1.6, million. Kaiser is a magnet for the majority of its enrollment coming from other parts of Oakland with housing not as pricey. Kaiser has 24.8% free and reduced price lunch that shows economic class integration. And, Kaiser has enrollment integration with ethnic diversity in 2019 listed white 34.3%, African American 21.9%, Hispanic 17.2%. Closing of this accident of both economic class and ethnic diverse integrated urban school seems to me to be unwise decision of the Oakland School. In other school districts, integration is valued and Federal help is sought to create magnet schools that achieve the integrated enrollment of Kaiser.
But, in Oakland its school board responding to the accurate charge that the Oakland School Board has only closed over the years black and brown Oakland schools voted to close one of the few Oakland schools with white plurality. Oakland does not have a school with a white majority and Kaiser was one of the few Oakland schools with a white plurality in our economic and racially segregated city.
The Board’s decision to close Kaiser is not an underperforming academic issue but a political balancing act issue. Additionally Kaiser sits on expensive land and one of the Board’s public objectives is to sell or lease land to fund its operating budget.
The Oakland School Board has lots of reasons to not value its rare elementary school integrated by both economic class and ethnic/racial groups. To value its rare economic and ethnic/racial integrated school would have meant the Oakland School Board would not have voted to follow its Superintendent’s recommendation to close Kaiser.
Ali 3 years ago3 years ago
The board’s safety was never in jeopardy. The police beat parents and teachers to “protect” an empty stage. Ms. London has a history of fearing people who don’t look like her, as indicted by past comments and her efforts to close schools with predominantly black and brown students (Kaiser is 70% non white). She doesn’t like peaceful protestors either because she knows she is making poor decisions for her constituents. She has presided over a … Read More
The board’s safety was never in jeopardy. The police beat parents and teachers to “protect” an empty stage. Ms. London has a history of fearing people who don’t look like her, as indicted by past comments and her efforts to close schools with predominantly black and brown students (Kaiser is 70% non white). She doesn’t like peaceful protestors either because she knows she is making poor decisions for her constituents. She has presided over a failing district for 3 terms. She is part of the problem, blames others who actually support public schools and refuses to be part of the solution.