Oakland parents are whipping out protest posters in anticipation of a key meeting tonight to discuss closing several schools with low enrollment in the struggling district.

Citing an exodus of students and tight financial times, state Administrator Randy Ward has put 13 schools on a preliminary list, with the goal of deciding next week which five or six schools to close this summer.

All of the schools have fewer than 300 students -- too few, Ward says, to justify the $400,000 annual cost to run each one. There are slightly more than 100 schools in the district, where enrollment has declined by 6,300 in the last four years, to 47,000 students.

"Parents are voting with their feet," said Ward, who was appointed last June to run the district, after it accepted a $100 million state loan to bail itself out of deep debt.

The closures could save the district about $2 million, a small chunk of the $20 million Ward says remains to be cut to right district finances. Since his arrival, Ward has dismissed about 75 employees, including 35 custodians. He persuaded teachers to take a pay cut of up to 4 percent to save money, and got rid of district cell phones.

Ward acknowledged that closing schools "is an emotional issue for people, and that's why we're having a public discussion."

His idea is to whittle the list down to five or six schools on Wednesday, and close them July 1. He wants to consolidate underenrolled schools into new schools with enrollments of at least 500 students.

"Students will still be able to walk to a neighborhood school; they aren't going to be abandoned," he said.

The schools under consideration are clustered in East Oakland in the hills near Interstate 580, and in northwest Oakland between Berkeley and Piedmont.

Taking a cue from the independently run small schools that have caught on in the Oakland flatlands, Ward is working with the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools to consolidate the schools with low enrollment and create new ones that are small but not tiny.

Vacant school buildings could be used for special-education programs or rented to generate revenue, and would be maintained by the district, Ward said. No one would lose their job as a result of the school closures, Ward said, because they would move to other jobs in the district. Savings would come through natural attrition.

But parents say they don't feel the discussion is genuine when they've been given just a week to plead their case.

"The way this is set up, parents are going to go to the meeting, and each try to yell louder than the other in an effort to save their school," said Henry Hitz, co-chairman of Oakland Parents Together.

"We understand there is an enrollment decline, and this is an opportunity to create some great new schools, but we want at least a year to do demographic studies and have true parent involvement first," he said.

Parents warn that closing schools could backfire, causing enrollment to drop even more with students going to private schools or parents moving outside the district.

"My boys are flourishing here, and we're going to fight this every step of the way," said Michelle Beauchamp, as she picked her three boys up from Marcus Foster Elementary on Wednesday. They are among the 264 kids who attend the school.

"I come here to learn and even though a lot of people don't like this school, I love it," said her son Joshua Willis, 7.

His mother started a petition at Marcus Foster on Monday, and gathered 65 signatures in two days.

"I don't want to split the boys up at different schools," she said.

Mary Nash spent Wednesday leafleting schools about the meeting.

She has a child at Toler Heights and a child at Marcus Foster, and both schools are on the list.

"My kindergartener loves his teacher, and at that age, it's really bad to take children away from the first teachers they are bonding to," she said.

Valerie Denise Alexander, whose daughter Tatiana attends Carter Middle School, said she's considering homeschooling her daughter.

"She suggested it, and that's a sad thing," Alexander said. "You don't hear of other schools suffering as much as Oakland. The kids are losing their motivation."

Ward says that children in under-enrolled schools are getting underserved.

"Anytime you spread limited resources among a lot of different schools, your ability to provide a quality program for kids diminishes," he said, citing a closed library due to lack of funds at Toler Heights, teachers doing double duty as guards, entire floors taken up by independent study programs and principals who serve as their own secretaries.

"This district lacks any kind of policy about consolidating schools," Ward said. "It's a touchy issue, and it's been avoided for a real long time."

Principal Caroline Yee of Emerson Elementary said it's discouraging to watch her school's test scores rocket and then face possible closure.

"It's certainly disheartening," she said. "We know we're in the middle of a budget crisis, and we have to figure out what's best."