Cash-strapped Oakland school district drops 10 athletic programs
Officials looking to limit gender disparity in cuts
The Oakland school district abruptly eliminated half of its high school sports programs, and far more girls than boys were affected by the cuts.
Students found out this week, just days after returning from summer break, that 10 high school sports programs have been shut down in a $500,000 cost-cutting move.
But the belt tightening did not affect all students equally. Nearly twice as many female athletes — 347 — lost their sport, compared with 183 male athletes. For girls, the cuts impacted a third of all players across sports teams. For boys, it was 15 percent.
The disparity raises questions about the school district’s adherence to Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs and school activities.
The canceled sports are bowling, girls golf, girls tennis, wrestling, boys tennis, swimming, boys golf, girls lacrosse, girls badminton and boys volleyball, said Oakland Unified School District spokesman John Sasaki said. In all, one in five high school athletes in the district are affected by the cuts.
Sasaki said school officials became aware of the gender imbalance Friday afternoon as they crunched the num-
bers.
“Staff here is very focused on that,” he said. “We obviously want to be in compliance with Title IX, but beyond that, it’s a matter of fairness. So when it comes to what we’re looking to restore first, it’ll probably be girls golf and girls tennis.”
Sports that will continue — “with admittedly some reductions,” according to a letter from Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell — are cross country, girls volleyball, cheer, football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball and track and field.
Both the cuts and the timing took students, parents and coaches by surprise.
Indigo Ayele, an Oakland Technical High School student, said she didn’t know how to swim well before her first year as a freshman on the swim team. Now a sophomore and having practiced over the summer at the YMCA, she was looking forward to seeing the progress she had made.
Teammates got a text from the swim coach Wednesday telling them that swimming had been cut.
“I was really mad and upset,” Indigo said. “Girls can’t do football, and basketball and soccer aren’t really for me.”
Many students said they were hoping their sports participation would help them get into college or attain athletic scholarships.
Freshman Alyssa Belisle played lacrosse in middle school and wanted to continue now that she was at Oakland Tech. Through the sport, she said, she made good friends and got good exercise. Her PE teacher told the class Thursday that the program was gone.
Mazi Wyatt, a junior at the school who plays soccer, which has yet to be impacted, said the cuts reflected “the different sports people value in America.”
“Only cutting men’s volleyball — not that they should be cutting women’s too — just shows how they view certain sports,” he said.
Edana Anderson’s daughter, Hannah, a senior at the school, signed up for golf at an event last week showcasing fall sports. It was going to be her fourth year on the team, which had steadily grown from just seven players her freshman year to two dozen, Anderson said.
Then Wednesday, Anderson said she got a call from the team’s coach, saying golf actually wasn’t going to happen this season.
“All the kids that need something to do after school, something meaningful ... to have these activities for our kids be ripped away is a hard pill to swallow,” she said.
Other parents at the school were similarly irritated by the lack of communication from school officials. They said that with earlier notice, they could have stepped in and raised funds to ensure that the sports programs continue.
Tamar Carson, whose two daughters attend Oakland Tech, said she felt sickened by the measure.
Students “are being asked to sit for an inordinate amount of time with no breaks and then they come home and they’re totally stressed out,” she said. “This is going to cause a lot of damage.”
The slashing of programs was the result of the school district cutting $500,000 from the budget of the Oakland Athletic League, which governs sports and competition among its member high schools in the district, including Castlemont, Fremont, McClymonds, Oakland, Oakland Tech and Skyline.
Bruce Goldberg, father of an Oakland Tech junior and graduate, said the move was a “complete and utter tragedy and incompetence on a massive scale” by the school board.
“It’s worse for the kids at schools with fewer resources,” he added. “I have no hope that this will stop with sports.”
Nina Senn, a school board director, said the reduction in the athletic league’s budget was decided by the board in June. Determining how to make “the least impactful” cuts took time, she said.
“There were some delays in the budget development process,” Senn said. “It was very unfortunate timing.”
Much of the league’s funds do not go directly toward coaches or equipment, Sasaki said. Last year, of its $1.6 million budget, about a quarter went to team transportation costs and 15 percent went to security expenses.
Jim Coplan, Oakland Tech’s athletic director, also lamented the late notice. He said students and families are scrambling to figure out what recourse they have to keep the programs alive.
“Sports contribute to the educational experience that students have in high school,” he said. “Attendance is better, grades are higher, they learn lessons of teamwork, they learn how to compete in fair and balanced ways ... these are all things they’re going to lose out on.”
Sasaki said he understood concerns about the last-minute notification.
“The process wasn’t finished as early or as effectively as we would have liked,” he said. “This is something that no one in the school district wants to do. Everyone understands the value of sports in the lives of our young people.”
School officials are seeing if businesses and tech companies in the community are willing to provide financial support to help reinstate the programs.
“We’re trying to find creative ways to save all these sports,” Sasaki said. “This is not over yet.”
The school district has been plagued by financial mismanagement in recent years, and in December made $9 million in midyear budget cuts. A report from a state agency over the summer found problematic accounting practices that in some cases amounted to the misuse of public funds.
Next year, the school district is expected to have a $20 million shortfall and an estimated $60 million deficit the year after that.
Last week, Coplan said, the co-captain of last year’s girls tennis team asked him whether she and her teammates could go pull the weeds growing wildly through cracks on the tennis court. He said of course.
On Friday, he walked around the empty court and didn’t see much irksome vegetation.
“I guess they must have done it,” he said.