Inside the Rapid Decline of Berkley Maynard Academy in North Oakland

Nearly 60% of Berkley Maynard students are Black, the largest percentage of any Bay Area Aspire school.

In just two years, Aspire leadership made a series of staffing decisions that fractured that entrenched school community, leading to high teacher turnover and unsafe conditions on campus, according to interviews with nearly two dozen former school staff members, current employees and family members of students.

Teachers said they feared retaliation for raising concerns about insufficient student services. Many quit, and substitutes filled classrooms, former staff said.

And then families started leaving.

“They’re wondering why, because they’re not listening to the community,” said C’erah King-Polk, a Berkley Maynard alum whose siblings attend the school. She’s never gone a year without a sibling at the school. “They’re literally playing with a child’s future. Now you displaced so many kids.”

Only an estimated 225 students, or about half of those who enrolled this school year, planned to return, said Jenna Ogier-Marangella, acting Aspire Bay Area executive director, during a recent board of directors meeting.

Ogier-Marangella spent the past few months at Berkley Maynard’s campus, and said that staff and families told her they were “incredibly displeased with the quality of programming that we have been delivering the past two years.”

After announcing the closure in early May, school officials hosted an enrollment fair, but few participated, Ogier-Marangella said, suggesting those families had already found other schools and the number planning to return was even lower.

There was no “fiscally responsible” way forward, Ogier-Marangella said. She did not respond to requests for comment.

An Aspire spokesperson said in a written statement that, like schools across California, its enrollment and financial challenges are driven by changing student demographics and broader shifts in K-12 education.

Why staff and families left the school

Oakland charter schools are seeing enrollment drops, but families, teachers and staff who spoke with KQED blame Berkley Maynard’s exodus on choices by school leadership.

“How can a school that was thriving all of a sudden get to where it is now in two years?” said Melinee Stewart, a former teacher at Berkley Maynard. “That’s not a school issue, that’s not a parent issue, that’s an administrative issue.”

Stewart and others interviewed by KQED said 2024 marked the start of Berkley Maynard’s unraveling. That fall, Javier Cabra Walteros, then-executive director of Aspire’s nine Bay Area schools, served as the school’s interim principal.

Months into the school year, Assistant Principal Iris Velasco was abruptly fired. Teachers wore black the next day in protest. Velasco later filed a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging she was retaliated against for raising the alarm that the school was failing to provide legally mandated services for students with disabilities. A teacher, Maryann Doudna, filed a similar complaint, alleging she had no choice but to leave when administrators ignored her pleas for help.

In a previous statement, an Aspire spokesperson said the organization “vehemently denies the egregious allegations made by these former employees.” Aspire hired a permanent principal. By the fall of 2025, Aspire had brought on yet another principal, who previously worked at an Aspire school that is closing as part of a merger with another campus.

“We were like, ‘What?’ We didn’t even interview this person. Where did this person come from?’” said Deana Lundy, a parent of a fifth grader. Lundy said that experience reflected a pattern of school officials not communicating with families or making decisions based on what they needed.

“The community is just as important as teachers, as test scores. If you don’t have families, you don’t have a school,” Lundy said. “There were teachers who were well-qualified to be principals, who were down to support the community. But they let those teachers go.”

Lundy said this school year was a “whole entire mess” where some classes lacked permanent teachers, and students faced no repercussions for fighting or bullying. Students stopped learning, she said.

Before the closure was announced, Lundy had already decided her son would leave Berkley Maynard. Having attended school on the same campus as a child, she chose Berkley Maynard for her son when he started kindergarten during the pandemic.

“No one will get to experience the BMA that I experienced,” Lundy said. “The community of students and families will be forever lost.”

In a statement, an Aspire spokesperson said the organization’s established processes for hiring school leadership include participation from regional leaders, staff, students and families. The spokesperson said Aspire communicated the decision to close as soon as leadership “became aware of the enrollment data and financial realities.”

“For nearly three decades, we have partnered with families to provide high-quality public school options, and we will continue making thoughtful, responsible decisions that put scholars first,” the spokesperson wrote.

Teachers and parents had little time to prepare for the news. Aspire informed teachers of plans to close on May 1, months after open enrollment for students had ended.

“I’m still angry,” said Monica Franco, the Berkley Maynard business manager. “If you have to close, you have to close. Got it. I understand. However, you let people know this is happening so people can figure out what they’re going to do with their lives.”

Franco helped start the school, and said when Berkley Maynard opened, founding staff went to churches, knocked on doors and stopped by daycares to spread the word. They asked the families of Robert C. Maynard and Thomas L. Berkley, two Black newspaper publishers in Oakland, for permission to name the school after them both.

Franco said she never thought of leaving, even when conditions got tough. The school is her home.

“There’s a saying that rats are the first to get out of a boat when it’s sinking,” Franco said. “I wanted to make sure my kids were gonna be okay.”

She said school officials asked administrators to stay on longer, but she plans to leave on her own terms — when the students and teachers do.

“They are my family. They are my people,” Franco said. “I’m leaving with them.”

As Berkley Maynard closes, Aspire turns to its surviving schools

Berkley Maynard is not the only Aspire school in trouble. Last year, the Oakland Unified school board voted against renewing the charter for Golden State College Preparatory Academy. An Aspire spokesperson said the organization is currently appealing that decision.

In an effort to address a $1.1 million deficit, nine positions with Aspire’s Bay Area regional office were eliminated, according to a May email sent by Ogier-Marangella to staff.

An Aspire spokesperson said the organization also created five new roles and encouraged impacted employees to apply based on their qualifications, adding that the staffing changes were made to align resources with organizational needs while continuing to support students, schools and staff.

The eliminated positions include those in student services, academics, external affairs and hiring, said Aspire employees who spoke to KQED on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

The employees said that five out of nine people being laid off are Black and also lead the region’s pro-Black and anti-racist school programming initiative.

“All nine people are people that are vocal and speak up for families and for students,” one employee said. “A growing number of us would like for leaders to either figure out how to better service students, families and teachers — or go.”

Now Berkley Maynard educators are preparing to say goodbye to their students. Families and alums are organizing a block party this evening to celebrate the school’s legacy.

One longtime Berkley Maynard teacher said the end of the school year is always hard, but this year the emotion is “turned up to a thousand.”

As her students will disperse to schools across the Bay Area, she won’t get to see them grow up and reach their potential in the same way, but she said her students will thrive anywhere.

Students told her they’re sad they won’t get the chance to stop by her classroom and wave, as the older kids do. Some asked why the school was closing.

“‘It’s not any kids’ fault,’” the teacher said she explained to her students. “‘Grown-ups didn’t do a good job, and we had to close the school.’”