Op-ed: San Jose parents question truth behind pending school closures

The San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) is taking steps to close up to nine elementary schools as early as August. Thousands of parents have asked to stop the school closures, but Superintendent Nancy Albarrán has not shown willingness to take this input. This demonstrates the need for new district leadership.

Unlike many districts facing funding cuts due to lower enrollment that subsequently leads to schools closures, SJUSD is funded by local property taxes and is not financially obligated to close any schools.

If it’s difficult to understand why SJUSD would be so unresponsive to the community’s outcry, it’s crucial to know that Superintendent Albarrán and Chief Business Officer Seth Reddy are graduates of the Broad Academy and Broad Residency, respectively. These are billionaire-founded programs that seek to “fix” public education with corporate tactics that prioritize the bottom line, take power away from unions and families and most often result in charter schools expanding.

In November 2024, voters approved Measure R, which provides SJUSD with $1.15 billion in bonds to “complete identified repairs and improvements across all school sites.” SJUSD did not disclose that when it passed, they would instead seek to close schools. This is duplicitous.

Rather than spend the money as voters intended, SJUSD is taking drastic steps to make elementary schools into a supposed “ideal” size of three to four classes per grade level. To achieve this, smaller schools would be closed and their students redistributed. Superintendent Albarrán says this is needed to improve quality, but students and parents are saying their small schools are high quality.

The harm of school closures cannot be overstated. David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, says: “Closing schools is the last thing we should be doing. Schools are a safety net in so many communities. … Disrupting that is a setback that is hard to undo.”

In contrast, the president of SJUSD’s teachers union spoke supportively about closures. This may be because the San Jose Teachers Association presidents automatically serve as part of Superintendent Albarrán’s cabinet, which is a very unusual arrangement between unionized labor and district administration.

A civil grand jury described SJUSD “leadership culture (as) characterized by tolerance for verbally abusive behaviors, lack of a safe space to communicate, (and) low morale.” Only the SJUSD school board has the ability to address this by firing the superintendent.

If not addressed, thousands of young students will be displaced in August. Some children as young as 4 and 5 years old will have to walk up to 1.5 miles to reach their new classrooms. Special education students could be taken out of familiar routines.

SJUSD was ordered by a judge to racially desegregate in 1986, but has never fully done so. Rachel Carson Elementary in SJUSD, however, is racially integrated, yet it is slated for closure in every scenario put forward by SJUSD. There are under 240 Black elementary students in SJUSD, or 2.2%. But as many as 36% of Black elementary students could be displaced, compared to just 13% of white students. Where is SJUSD’s “commitment” to equity?

Even in a normal setting, school closures result in a sense of loss and negatively impact grades, behavior and graduation rates. Navigating the loss of school communities during these perilous times when children feel unsafe due to ICE raids seems especially detrimental. This is a cruel and unacceptable plan on behalf of SJUSD.

Make your voices heard — say no to school closures and join us in asking for fresh district leadership. SJUSD families deserve a new superintendent who makes decisions based on compassion, empathy, wisdom and a real love for our students, teachers and communities.

Jeffie Khalsa, Hilary Thorsen and Evelyn Cervantes are parents of elementary school students in the San Jose Unified School District.