I hope the 2023-24 school year is getting off to a good start for you and your family. For me, it is very exciting because I have a graduating senior, so this is my last year as an OUSD parent! #ClassOf2024 🙌🎉🎓



I helped drop off my friend’s daughter Denia at her first day of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) at International Community School.



After two and a half years of service on the board, including navigating the pandemic, debating school closures, leading the successful Measure H campaign, and enduring a prolonged strike, I took a much-needed long break this summer to travel to visit family in Europe.



Travel, whether it’s to another continent or just to another county, is always a great way to get perspective on how things can be different. Given the epidemic of gun violence in Oakland, it was a relief to see how free Europeans are from that scourge. Yet it was shocking to see how many young people over there are addicted to cigarettes. Truly, public policy can have a profound impact on our daily lives.



Claremont Principal Tremaine Moore and a few student leaders welcomed the Superintendent, her staff, Councilmember Dan Kalb and me to the school on the first day of classes.



Getting Back to "In School Every Day"

This year, everybody, from families to teachers to all school and district staff, needs to focus on improving attendance. 



Before the pandemic, the message was always that students need to be in school every day. It’s time to return to that message, after a prolonged period where we encouraged families to be cautious about sending students if there was any chance they might have symptoms or be infectious. 



Labor-related absences also lowered attendance, so that the average for the 2022-23 school year was only 85%, compared to 93-94% pre-pandemic.



-- Attendance without strike days, post-strike days, and wildcat/sick-out days



The reasons for boosting attendance are many, but to name the big two: In California, school districts are funded based on average daily attendance (ADA). 



But even more importantly, the cliché that ‘if you aren’t in class, you aren’t learning,’ holds true. In OUSD, students who were chronically absent in elementary school last year made far less progress on reading assessments than students who attended regularly



The causes for chronic absence are many: not just illness or labor issues, but also transportation problems, mental health, crises due to poverty and housing insecurity, and much more. It will take many innovative strategies, drawing on teachers, staff, families, and community organizations, to bring our attendance rates back up. If not now, when?



Sankofa PTA President Nadia Rodriguez welcoming principal Dr. Charquita Arnold. I co-sponsored the event to introduce families to the energetic new administrator.

Questions from a Concerned Teacher

On June 30, I attended the afternoon session of the OUSD Black Studies Institute, and got to circulate through a dozen or so excellent small-group presentations of teachers’ favorite Ethnic Studies lesson plans.



During a break, one teacher came up to me and asked several direct questions about the recently approved contract with OEA. They were such good questions that I will paraphrase them here, along with my answers.



1. Why did it take the Board so long to approve the OEA contract?

The strike ended on May 15, yet the Tentative Agreement did not come to the Board until June 28, with the result that back pay and bonuses were received by teachers and other OEA members in July.



At our most recent Board meeting, I said that the delay was due to layers of county oversight: first, OUSD is in receivership, and second, has a ‘qualified’ budget rating. In my opinion, this is a reason we should continue our efforts to get out of receivership and improve our budget status as soon as possible.



Under AB 1200, if its budget has a ‘qualified’ rating, a district is required to certify to its county office that it can afford a labor agreement at least 10 days before the Board votes on it. OUSD got that budget rating from the county in January, in large part because of our vote to rescind school closures without first doing a fiscal impact analysis.



In a recent conversation, the county trustee took issue with my statement, pointing out that even if a district has a perfectly functioning budget office and a positive-qualified budget, it would also take great precautions before okaying such a massive pay increase, to ensure that the multi-year consequences of making that commitment are clear to staff and to the board.



In fact, it was in part a lack of such carefulness that drove the district into state receivership in 2003, when it ran out of money to pay the salary increases that it had committed to.

2. How can the Board commit to pay raises that it won’t be able to afford in a couple of years?

As the AB 1200 letter states: “the Board can only afford the Tentative Agreement if additional budget adjustments are made prior to the 2025-26 fiscal year.” 



We can hope for (and advocate for) a windfall of state and federal dollars, but barring that, we will need to make cuts in order to balance Oakland Unified’s budget and implement the raises.



Superintendent Johnson-Trammell, Board President Hutchinson, Vice President Thompson and I at Acorn Woodland/Encompass last Friday, announcing a $13M federal grant to OUSD supporting laptops and internet connectivity for all families through #OaklandUndivided.



3. Is there any chance the District will go back on its word and rescind the pay raises?

A contract is a contract, and so the district’s commitment to the pay raises is legally binding.



However, it’s worth noting that if the Board fails to make the necessary budget adjustments and the District is forced to request another state loan, a condition of such a loan from the state might be allowing the trustee to renegotiate contracts, including labor agreements. That is a very extreme measure, but one that did happen in 2003 when OUSD first went to the state for a loan. In the end some pay increases that had been won in a previous contract were reversed by the trustee.



This is unlikely to happen, but is another reason I believe our Board needs to work hard to put the governance and fiscal systems in place to emerge from receivership, and to make the necessary budget adjustments in the coming years.



4. Why does declining enrollment lead to a cycle of cuts?

Demographics and the pandemic have taken a toll on all public schools, with enrollment shrinking across the East Bay and California. Numbers are not yet final, but it’s clear that overall enrollment continues to decline in Oakland this school year, even as TK expansion has radically increased that grade’s numbers.



To address this trend, the Board passed an Enrollment Stabilization Policy in 2021. This directed Oakland Unified to take several steps to compete better with other systems: 



For one, OUSD is responding with its own billboards to advertising by neighboring school districts. Also, the district has created a new enrollment website that excludes competing systems such as charter schools. And, each school is now required to have a plan to connect to local feeder schools or preschools.



These measures have stemmed but not reversed the decline. Why does this mean painful budget cuts? 



Using round numbers, assume that OUSD’s enrollment goes down by 400 students in a given year. At about $13,000 per pupil funding, that would mean OUSD gets $5.2 million less in state funds tied to ADA. 



Now that there are 400 fewer students, the district could reduce roughly 16 classroom teaching positions (assuming an average class size of 25 students per class), saving about $1.6 million including both salaries and benefits.



Subtracting 1.6 from 5.2, the district will still need to cut an additional $3.6 million to balance its budget as is legally required. Some of that can come from central office, but assuming the district still is not closing any schools, that central office infrastructure still needs to be able to support the same number of campuses, buildings, and school site staff.



Everyone always says there is central office bloat, but as soon as an actual central cut is proposed, we at the Board hear concerns that “Wait, that is a central department that actually supports me in my work at the school site!”



This cycle is how OUSD continues to need to make budget cuts, and gets spread thinner and thinner across the same number of schools. And that's why people at every school feel like they are not getting the resources they need to be successful.



Thankfully, the state has recently provided generous one-time block grants and community school funding that are helping to sustain our schools and district. As those run out, difficult conversations about consolidating schools will have to start again.



At the end of the Black Studies Institute, the same teacher came back up to me. “Sorry if I was jamming you up earlier with all those questions!” he said.



“Not at all,” I replied. “Those were great questions and I'm glad you asked—I bet a lot of other people have the same ones.”



Superintendent Johnson-Trammell listens to Student Board Directors Anevay Cruz and Vida Mendoza’s report at their first board meeting. Welcome student directors!



Upcoming School Board Resolutions

• Resolution supporting School Solar Projects, co-sponsored by Director Bachelor and me:
  
  Given our ongoing climate crisis, we are asking our Board to advocate that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) reverse its proposed decision to make school solar projects less affordable (posted here, to be voted on Aug. 23).
  
  

• Resolution reaffirming September as LGBTQ Pride Month in Oakland Unified, co-sponsored by Director Williams and me:
  
  As we see school boards across California passing homophobic resolutions and policies, here in Oakland we stand with our LGBTQ+ siblings, students and families (to be voted on Sept. 27).
  
  

• Board Policy on Sustainability, developed by staff and the Sustainability Advisory Committee in response to the Board’s Climate Emergency Resolution of 2019:
  
  This will focus on energy conservation and the goal of net carbon neutrality for Oakland Unified (to be discussed at Facilities Committee on Sept. 21).
  
  

• Board Policy on Asset Management, co-sponsored by Director Brouhard and me:
  
  This is in response to recommendations from organized labor that the district use vacant property to develop affordable housing for homeless families and school employees (language in development, to be discussed at Facilities Committee on Sept. 21).

Families play tug-of-war on the Sankofa play yard.



Upcoming Events and Resources

• Mayor Sheng Thao is asking for all Oakland residents to weigh in on her priorities, including increasing support for youth and families, in her Talking Transition survey, which takes about 15-20 minutes to fill out.
  
  At our school leadership meeting in August, Mayor Thao promised to prioritize urgent calls from school sites for trash cleanup, safety issues, and other city services relevant to the immediate neighborhood of schools. Her top education advisor, Brooklyn Williams, is in frequent communication with our Chief of Staff, Dexter Moore, Jr., on these issues, and I’ve heard from principals that it’s helping.
  
  Please join me in filling out the survey to share your thoughts with our new Mayor.
  
  

• Please also join me in donating to support the victims of the wildfire in Maui. As OUSD’s delegate to the Council of Great City Schools (a coalition of the 50 largest school districts in the U.S.), I was sent this list of recommended relief efforts.
  

• The OUSD Latino Family Summit is this Saturday, August 26, from 10:00–2:00 at Fremont High School. Workshops on English language learning support, helping students learn to read, college eligibility and financial aid, and much more. You can RSVP at this link.
  
  

• Please consider volunteering on one of our citizen advisory committees, overseeing spending of tax funds that go to school libraries, middle school electives, school construction projects, and more. You can apply on this webpage, and feel free to reach out to me by email for more information.
  
  

• The City of Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission seeks new members. You can apply on this page before September 14. There are serious concerns for traffic safety especially on Broadway at Oakland Tech where a student was hit, though thankfully not seriously injured, last spring. Mr. Price and district staff are advocating for changes on Broadway.
  
  

• The awesome Third Annual Kits Cubed Science Fair and science kit give-away will be Saturday, September 9, from 10:00–3:00 in front of Oakland Tech, organized by Tech grad and current Stanford student Ahmed Muhammad. If you want to pick up a free science kit, you should RSVP on their webpage today!
  
  

Political Endorsements for 2023-24

So far, I have endorsed: 

• Retired Oakland Unified principal Jorge Lerma for Oakland School Board District 5 in the November special election
  

• Oakland Unified parent Jen Esteen for Alameda County Supervisor District 4
  

• North Oakland Councilmember Dan Kalb for California State Senate District 7
  

• Congresswoman Barbara Lee for U.S. Senate

What if I were replaced by an AI?

I asked ChatGPT 3.5 to generate a version of this newsletter for me— you can read its version here. I think mine is a little better, but I may be biased.