Parents protest as English-only students at dual-language Live Oak Elementary forced to switch schools

When Sarah Flores received the news last weekend that students entering third and fourth grade in the English-only classes at Live Oak Elementary School will be transferred to a different school starting the next academic year, she felt blindsided and shocked. 

Her daughter, who will be entering fourth grade next year, will have to start fresh and learn to make new friends at a new school, Flores said. The abrupt change also means Flores’ three children will all be at different schools – her youngest daughter starts transitional kindergarten at Live Oak, and her son starts at Shoreline Middle School next year. 

“It’s devastating to know that now my daughters are going to be separated, and I’m going to have three different drop-offs at three different schools,” said Flores. 

A letter from district Superintendent Pat Sánchez sent to parents on April 26 announced students in Live Oak Elementary’s English-only strand and their assigned teachers will be “transitioned” to Del Mar Elementary, a mile down the road, beginning in the 2025-26 school year. Live Oak will have only dual-language classes. 

The change will affect students entering third and fourth grades — a total of 34 kids and two teachers, according to Sánchez. The students will be able to remain with their assigned teacher at Del Mar Elementary, he said. Students entering fifth grade will be able to stay at Live Oak Elementary, according to the letter. 

The sudden change came as a surprise, said Flores. Parents were under the impression that students currently enrolled in the English-only strand would be able to finish their elementary school education at Live Oak.

“I have no idea how they came to this conclusion, and we just have to sit with it and deal with the repercussions of it,” said Flores. 

Live Oak Elementary has offered its dual-language immersion program — which promotes the development of bilingualism and biliteracy — for almost six years. It is the only school in the district to offer such a program. 

The program follows the 90/10 model — kindergarten students start their school day with class being 90% in Spanish and 10% in English, and as students move up grades, the percentage of English spoken in class increases until both languages are spoken equally. 

The dual-language program was established at Live Oak Elementary nearly six years ago after parents created a petition asking the district to include a bilingual curriculum. The program helps drive enrollment at the school, which has the largest student body of the three elementary schools in the district. 

A lot of parents enroll their children at Live Oak Elementary because of the dual-language program. Live Oak currently has 375 students, compared to 330 at Del Mar Elementary and 250 at Green Acres Elementary. 

There are 10 dual-language classrooms at Live Oak Elementary; two classrooms per grade, averaging 25 students per class. Half of students enrolled in the dual-language immersion program are English-only speakers, while 20% are bilingual and 30% are Spanish-only speakers. 

Prior to last month, the only mention of potentially moving the English-only students to a different school was brought up late last year by parents who had heard rumors, said parent Carrey Sullens. She said Live Oak Elementary principal Greg Stein had told her not to worry about that possibility when she had asked him about it then. 

“I was assured that they’re all going to be able to finish out fifth grade here, that it’s not even being talked about,” Sullens said.  “And so I was like, oh, OK, cool. And that was the last I worried about it, until this past month, when they just decided.” 

A lot of parents, including Sullens, sent emails to Sánchez and the district’s governing board and set up meetings with him in an attempt to get some sort of clarification about changes happening to the elementary school, she said. Sullens said it wasn’t until after parents began inquiring about the rumors that the district organized an informational meeting on April 21. 

Three representatives from the school district — board members Tammy Summers and Wendy Johnson and senior director of educational services Marilyn Rockey — attended the meeting, along with principals from the district’s three elementary schools. Sánchez did not attend the meeting. Parents also attended a district board meeting later that week and shared their concerns with Sánchez and the district’s governing board. 

Sullens said the district didn’t provide a proper explanation for the change, other than that “it all comes down to money.” The district had also assured parents that it would schedule another meeting before any decision was made, but that never happened, she said. 

Sánchez told Lookout the decision to move the English-only strand and its teachers to Del Mar Elementary is due to how staff are distributed across the district’s schools. The way the district determines how many people to employ at each school is based on a formula using the number of enrolled students, he said. 

Live Oak Elementary, in this case, had two teaching positions that were overstaffed beyond its standard allocation, Sánchez said, while other schools in the district were understaffed by the same amount. 

“It’s never an easy decision [to make],” he said. “It’s always something that impacts kids and families, which we never want to do, but we’re also worried about starting in a deficit next year, considering our financial struggles.” 

If the district decided to wait another year to make this change, it would hurt its financial stability, Sánchez said. It would have cost the district about $100,000 to appropriately support the schools that are understaffed and $200,000 to buy more time to figure out a possible solution to the staffing issues that had the least impact on students and teachers, he said. 

In February, the district’s governing board approved cuts that would help fix its $2 million budget deficit and restore its depleted reserves. 

“Without reserves, our hand kind of got forced,” Sánchez said. The district wanted to notify the teachers being moved as soon as possible, in order to fulfill its contractual obligation with the teachers union, he said.  

The decision-making process began several months ago when the district became aware of the overstaffing issue, said Sánchez. Since then, Sánchez had been working with Live Oak Elementary’s principal to figure out ways to solve the staffing issue, he said. 

Staffing decisions, such as which schools teachers will be assigned to, aren’t typically voted on by the district’s governing board or discussed with parents, said Sánchez. The responsibility lies with the superintendent, which is why the decision was made so suddenly. “It’s not something you would ever discuss in a public forum,” he said. 

The district’s board of trustees votes on staffing in a broader sense related to the budget, he said. But Sánchez said the board was aware of what was going on and why the district needed to make this change. 

Sánchez said the decision of phasing out the English-only strand at Live Oak Elementary was made before he became superintendent. If Live Oak Elementary needs to make any programming changes, such as needing an English-only strand teacher, Sánchez said the school has autonomy to make those changes as long as it’s within the staffing allocation.

The English-only strand and its teachers were a safety net for students in the dual-language program, said Sullens. If students needed extra help with English, they could depend on the strand’s more experienced teachers to help them, she said. Any parent who felt like the dual-language program wasn’t a right fit for their child could transfer them into the English-only strand without having to switch schools. 

Sullens enrolled her daughters in Live Oak School District last year, after moving to the community from Watsonville, she said. Her youngest daughter, who will be entering third grade next year, is devastated that she has to move schools again, Sullens said. 

She had heard great things about Live Oak Elementary and the tight-knit community among parents, Sullens said, and the school is just around the corner from her home. Sullens chose to enroll her daughter in the English-only program because she began her elementary education at a different school that didn’t offer dual language immersion, and it would be difficult for her to adjust to those classes due to its bilingual curriculum. 

Flores said this is the third school for her daughter. “She’s scared, she’s anxious. She’s talking about it everyday,” Flores said. “It directly affects our children.” 

Flores and Sullens said they have heard parents debating whether to keep their children enrolled in the school district following the change. Sullens said a fellow mom told her she will be enrolling her child to a different school district because she has no trust in Live Oak School District anymore. Sullens doesn’t plan on moving her daughter to a different district because she ideally wants to stay in the district and not have to move around again, she said.  

“A lot of people just feel like, if they’re doing this to us now, who’s to say that something’s not going to happen at Del Mar later, and they’re going to move us again?” said Sullens. “I feel like I’m kind of held hostage by this district, and I’m just kind of being tossed around, and they can do whatever they want with me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Sánchez said he’s working on creating fewer barriers between district officials and parents, possibly creating a few advisory committees, so they can work together in finding solutions to issues that may arise in the future. 

With only five weeks left in the school year, Sullens said she and other parents are focused on trying to make the best of the school year. “I’ve come to terms with it,” she said. “Let me just try to do the most that I can with my community while I can and make the best of it, and then deal with next year.” 

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