Oakland Unified School District's Board of Education is set to decide Thursday whether East Bay Innovation Academy can permanently shrink from a 6-12 charter school into a middle school serving only grades 6 through 8. The vote caps months of upheaval that began when the school's own governing board moved to eliminate its high school grades before securing district sign-off.
A Charter Built for Grades 6-12 Faces a Narrower Future
East Bay Innovation Academy was designed to serve middle and high school students in grades 6-12, according to NBC Bay Area. The school's governing board voted in May to suspend enrollment and operation of grades 9-12 for the 2026-27 school year while continuing to run grades 6-8, according to East Bay Innovation Academy board minutes, which record that “the board VOTED to approve the motion.”
That May decision, however, came before the school had district approval to make the change permanent, per NBC Bay Area's reporting. Oakland Unified has since confirmed that a charter school's material revision cannot take effect until the Board of Education formally approves it, according to the district's charter schools office.
District Set a Two-Step Review Process
To make the grade reduction official, East Bay Innovation Academy needed to file a material revision request with Oakland Unified. The district's charter renewal page describes the request plainly: a proposed “change in grades served from 6-12 to 6-8 only,” per the same Oakland Unified account. The district scheduled an initial public hearing for October 6 and set the decision hearing for Thursday.
Ahead of that process, East Bay Innovation Academy's own board was scheduled to take up a resolution authorizing its leaders to submit the material revision petition, seeking district approval for “the permanent reduction of East Bay Innovation Academy's authorized grade span from grades 6-12 to grades 6-8,” according to the school's board agenda.
Stakes for Students if the Board Says No
If the Oakland school board does not approve the grade-level reduction, East Bay Innovation Academy could eventually close, and the mismatch would put the school out of step with its own charter, per NBC Bay Area. If the board does approve the change, the school would remain open as a middle school only, the station reports.
The district's current review follows a longer history with the charter. Oakland Unified's Board of Education previously approved a renewal of East Bay Innovation Academy's charter for grades 6-12 covering the term from July 2019 through June 2024, according to Oakland Unified School District Legistar records, which list that 2018 action as adopted and passed.
