Oakland School Board Approves Wide Layoffs, a Day After Similar Vote in SF

Updated 1:50 p.m. Thursday

Just a day after massive staff cuts moved forward across the bay, Oakland’s school board has approved sending preliminary layoff notices to reduce the district’s workforce by more than 100 employees as it also grapples with a massive budget deficit and a looming threat of financial insolvency.

The board voted 6–1 on Wednesday evening to eliminate hundreds of credentialed teaching positions and cut vacant positions as the Oakland Unified School District deals with a $95 million shortfall. While the total cuts are over 700, the net loss of employees is about 100 after taking into account new positions and others being added back with different funding sources.

The district is set to exit over 20 years of state receivership after paying off its loan in just 18 months, but it risks backsliding after certifying a negative budget in December.

“We knew that we had a larger looming budget adjustment to close the hole projected in next year’s budget,” board member Mike Hutchinson said during the meeting. “It’s because we didn’t make enough of an adjustment last year. A lot of our COVID dollars are sunsetting. We’re still cleaning up the mismanagement of the past. And this is now the way that we project forward as a district.”

The staff cuts are part of the district’s multi-year budget-balancing plan, part of which was approved by the board in December to allow staff to realign spending and revenue.

Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said that declining enrollment, the end of COVID-19 relief dollars and rising costs for teacher salaries and other expenses are forcing districts across the state to make hard choices about how they’ll operate going forward. A day before the OUSD vote, San Francisco’s school board on Tuesday night approved a plan to send preliminary layoff notices to hundreds of employees.

“We made investments, and now we have to figure out how to pay for it,” Johnson-Trammell said.

During the pandemic, OUSD teachers got a 10% raise — sorely needed after years of minimal wage increases — that was partly paid for with one-time pandemic money. But the last of the district’s $300 million in relief funds has been gone since September, Johnson-Trammell said.

Those additional funds also allowed the district to add permanent substitute teachers, known as STIP subs, at campuses where teachers were increasingly out sick. STIP subs are now among those that could receive layoff notices before the statewide deadline of March 15.

“It seemed like the most strategic thing to provide them to all the sites, and we had the money to do that,” Johnson-Trammell told the board. “We had the money to increase a lot of the site staff support. And in people’s contracts, it said the end date.

“It didn’t feel like we had a deficit growing because we had all of that one-time money,” she said.

As part of the plan passed Wednesday, OUSD could send pink slips to STIP subs, teachers on special English literacy assignments and community school managers, who liaise between parents and staff, among other roles. Some positions could also be moved from 11-month to 10-month roles to reduce costs.

One STIP substitute who spoke at Wednesday night’s meeting said that she had essentially become the primary teacher for a preschool class, providing stability after their teacher quit in November.

These educators also cover for teachers when they have individualized education plan meetings with families or need other coverage.

Under OUSD’s staff realignment plan, there will be dozens of centralized STIP subs who work at all of the schools when teachers are out. Some parents and teachers pointed out that not having them on the same campuses every day changes the role that they can play, though.

‘“Why on earth would you think it’s a good idea to put STIP subs out of the central office? That just means they’re a sub,” Michael Shane, whose daughter attends Lincoln Elementary School, said during public comment. “What’s the difference?”

In addition to staffing changes, the district’s Re-envision, Redesign, and Restructure plan recommends centralizing contracts with community agencies and service providers, like those that provide photocopying services. Both have been up to school sites’ discretion in the past.

Board members said that as they continue to work on finding a new stable point for the district, they hope to increase community engagement and focus on cuts away from students, like in the district’s central office and contracts with outside consultants.

“I didn’t come on the board to lay people off,” board member Rachel Latta said. “We’re far enough in the process that I feel that I do have to vote on these, but I want to make it clear that I don’t plan to do this anymore. I’m committed to a process where we as a district look at what are the positions that are actually protecting our students, protecting their experience, protecting their achievement, and I don’t feel that we have done that as a district so far.”