Over four school years, Oakland Unified School District approved 4,232 requests for students to transfer out to neighboring districts — and just 11 to transfer in, a ratio of nearly 400-to-1 that directly contradicts claims made by the district's own enrollment director, according to a public-records analysis by The Oaklandside.

The data, obtained by The Oaklandside through a public records request covering 2022–23 through 2025–26, exposes a quiet but accelerating enrollment bleed at OUSD — one with direct financial consequences for a district that funds its operations on per-pupil attendance and has spent years trying to stabilize its rolls.

Of the 5,603 families who applied to send their children to a school outside Oakland over the four-year period, 4,232 had their requests approved. Piedmont, Berkeley, and San Leandro — the affluent districts that ring Oakland's borders — absorbed the largest shares. Berkeley alone accounted for 938 of the approved outgoing transfers, though OUSD enrollment director Kilian Betlach noted that Berkeley requires annual re-applications, a policy unique among neighboring districts that may modestly inflate that figure.

The pace is picking up. The 2025–26 school year saw more than 1,200 outgoing transfer approvals — a 60 percent increase over 2022–23, according to The Oaklandside's analysis.

Betlach had told The Oaklandside before publication that the outflow was roughly balanced by incoming transfers. "There's this narrative that people only use this process to leave the district," he said. "That's not factually accurate." The records undercut that claim: over the same four years, only 46 students requested to transfer into OUSD from another district, and eleven were approved.

Betlach also acknowledged the pressure in an April 22, 2026 presentation to the OUSD board, warning that the district "continues to face enrollment pressure from competing systems" — including private schools, charter schools, homeschooling, and interdistrict transfers. That presentation included a 2022 marketing flyer from Piedmont Unified actively recruiting non-Piedmont families to apply for transfers in.

The financial stakes are significant. California funds school districts based on average daily attendance, meaning each departing student reduces state revenue. OUSD has identified enrollment stability as central to its long-term financial plan; the district carries chronic budget deficits and has faced repeated state fiscal oversight. The multi-million-dollar enrollment stabilization campaign the district launched in recent years has now exhausted its funding, Betlach told The Oaklandside.

Betlach was direct about the district's posture on the outflow: "I don't think districts have an obligation to stem the tide at the level of these transfers."

Despite the transfer imbalance, OUSD's overall enrollment did tick upward in 2025–26 compared to the prior year — a point the district has cited as evidence its outreach is working. But broader headwinds remain: statewide public school enrollment is declining across California, federal immigration enforcement has sharply reduced the newcomer student population that has historically bolstered OUSD rolls, and falling birth rates make a reversal unlikely.

The transfer data itself is imperfect. OUSD only recently digitized its application process, and the records turned over to The Oaklandside contained misspelled district names, blank required fields, ambiguous acronyms, and incomplete entries. The analysis excluded 261 entries where the destination district could not be determined. Public records custodian Geri Baskind confirmed the data as complete as filed.

Transfer figures, quotes, and data sourcing from The Oaklandside's analysis by Ashley McBride, published July 16, 2026.