By Edmond Chun Special to The Post

Oakland Unified students are falling behind: fewer than 1 in 3 read at grade level, and the numbers are worse for Black and Latino students. This is happening in a district that has received more per student than even the highest-funded states. As Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro has said, “OUSD’s biggest problem isn’t a revenue problem. It’s a decision-making problem.”

That is why Grace Park-Bradbury and I, two OUSD parents, started Oakland Parents for Quality Education, the ParentPAC. We believe our kids deserve a school board that faces hard decisions honestly. This board has not.

The county has warned them repeatedly. Earlier this year Castro said the new teachers’ contract “endangers” the district’s fiscal stability. That wasn’t because of the raises, but because the district was counting on cuts it had not identified.

Days later the board passed a budget that assumed $30 million in still-unnamed reductions. Board President Jennifer Brouhard and Vice President Valarie Bachelor voted yes. Director Mike Hutchinson voted no. The plan to name those cuts isn’t scheduled until mid-December, after the election.

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The Oakland NAACP called for public forums and honest answers about the management of public funds. This fall Castro approved the budget only conditionally, noting that “a budget can be balanced but not be good for kids.”

Principals have spoken out as well. In January, 30 school leaders wrote that asking schools to do more with less “erodes the dignity of our profession” and “unconscionably compromises the quality of education our students receive.”

In April, 60 principals raised concerns that “have diminished our confidence in our current leadership,” warning that district decisions had produced “a structural deficit and cash-strapped schools.”

In June, all 15 high school principals objected to using voter-approved Measure N and H reserves for expenses already in the budget. The district did it anyway. The measures’ citizen oversight commission has demanded the money back. Auditors found the board had the legal authority, but as Castro observed, legality does not settle whether it was what voters thought they were approving.

Opponents claim we want to close schools. Our candidates do not all agree on consolidation. Hutchinson has fought closures for years, yet he also wrote the 3Rs proposal examining how many schools the district should operate.

What our candidates share is a willingness to weigh every option openly. This board told the superintendent not to even consider consolidation, and every school is being cut instead. As principals representing two-thirds of OUSD schools wrote, “the gradual starvation of our schools is also an equity issue.” Closures disrupt families, especially in Black and Brown neighborhoods. So does starving every campus.

You may have seen ads calling us a front for out-of-town billionaires. Every contribution is publicly reported, and 140 Oakland families have given. The people sounding the alarm are principals, citizen commissioners, the county superintendent, and the NAACP. None of them are billionaires. They are the people who see our schools up close.

Oakland schools are staffed by excellent principals and teachers. Our kids are like kids everywhere: eager to learn if given a real chance. They are being held back by a board that will not make hard choices.

In District 2, vote for Arielle Fleisher. In District 4, rank Kathryn Camp and Mike Hutchinson first and second. In District 6, rank Alexandra Williams and LeAna Powell first and second. Leave your third choice blank.

Vote like our children’s future depends on it. Because it does.

Edmund Chun co-founded Oakland Parents for Quality Education and is an OUSD parent.

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By Dr. Kitty Kelly Epstein and Dr. Kimberly Mayfield

Oakland schools have excellent leadership right now. I know it’s hard to believe – because there is so much wrong with the national education picture.

This school year:

• The Oakland Unified School District escaped from state control after 22 years.  
•  Every classroom had a teacher at the beginning of the year, unlike past years when many classes started the year with day-to-day substitute teachers.
• Dr. Denise Saddler, an African American woman, is leading the district as Superintendent. She was an excellent choice with vast understanding of Oakland, of schools, and of educational systems.
• The school board and teachers managed to avert a teachers’ strike by strategizing, listening and compromising.  
• The school board does not plan to close more schools for the first time in decades.

The two women leading the school board are excellent educators.  

Board President Jennifer Brouhard (District 2) served as an Oakland teacher and was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching and the U.C. Berkeley Social Science Project Teacher of the Year Award.    

When Brouhard joined the board four years ago, she voted to reverse the vote of the previous board which had planned to close Brookfield, Carl B. Munck, Grass Valley, Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy and Horace Mann elementary. Half the students at Carl Munck and at least a third of the students at several others were African American.

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She focused funding on classrooms rather than paying outside consultants. For that, she and her colleagues have incurred the wrath of real estate developers and school privatizers who want to get their hands on public property.

Board Vice President Valerie Bachelor (District 6) has worked on important facilities projects. She helped to set up the first school-based dental project at Frick United Academy of Language. She championed the Melrose Leadership Academy groundbreaking and the Skyline dining facilities. 

Bachelor facilitated a balanced budget, which was pivotal in helping the district finally end state control. She also has worked to direct funding toward student-centered programs like the Black Thriving Community Schools Program.

The people financing the opposition candidates are Ryan Graciano, co-founder of Credit Karma, which made $ 2.7 billion last year; and Gagan Biyani, who says he became a millionaire at age 25.

The literature produced on behalf of the opposition supports closing schools, which harms student and could put us back under state control.

Looking at past school years, parents and educators can see how far the district has come. Oakland students and families have seen 25%-30% of educators leave their classrooms for districts with more competitive salaries.

But this year, we saw a change in those trends.

Since Jennifer and Valarie have taken office, Oakland Black student progress in reading and math is outpacing California’s state average. California School Dashboard data show that from 2023 to 2026, Black students in OUSD made greater progress toward proficiency than Black students statewide overall in both English Language Arts and math. 

To read more, go to Education Week, “The Harm of School Closures Can Last a Lifetime, New Research Shows” (2024), www.edweek.org/leadership/the-harm-of-school-closures-can-last-a-lifetime-new-research-shows/2024/06

About the Authors

Dr. Kitty Kelly is a Professor of Education and Urban Studies. Dr. Kimberly Mayfield is Dean at Kalmanovitz School of Education, Saint Mary’s College of California.

Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb, a former Oakland school board member, contributed to this article.

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By Oakland Post Staff

Alameda County Office of Education has called the budget ‘a materially stronger submission than the district has filed in recent years’

Caption: Dr. Denise Saddler. Courtesy photo.

The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), the state-funded nonprofit in charge of advocating for budget cuts and school closures in local school districts, on Thursday released its Fiscal Health Risk Analysis (FHRA) of Oakland Unified School District.

FCMAT initiated the review after the Alameda County Superintendent of. Schools issued a ‘Notice of Going Concern’ last April. Basing its analysis on the district’s 2025-26 Second Interim Report which reflects financial data as of Jan. 31, FCMAT rated the district’s risk for fiscal insolvency as “high.”

But a later review of the district’s financial reports demonstrated faith in OUSD to turn things around. In its Sept. 15 letter conditionally approving the district’s budget, the Alameda County Office of Education called the budget “a materially stronger submission” than the district has filed in recent years.”

 The County Office of Education noted that closing a structural deficit requires staff to bring forward hard choices, that the Board make them, and staff to carry them out. The county found all three appear to be happening in OUSD. The district is rebuilding the reserves it needs to remain stable, and it still has challenging work ahead.

The district’s progress reflects difficult choices by the Board of Education and staff. In June, the board adopted one plan for the district’s financial recovery and approved the 2026-27 budget. 

Emphasizing how much progress the district has made in the last few years, OUSD Superintendent Dr. Denise Saddler said, “We are working to balance our budget and fund the programs that show results for our children. FCMAT’s findings are part of that work, and we will address the findings in the report.”

Oakland is not alone under state scrutiny. This year, FCMAT also rated 11 other districts, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Antioch,

Burbank, Saddleback Valley, Petaluma, San Ysidro, Rincon Valley Union, Pleasanton, Santa Rosa, and Pacifica as high risk for fiscal insolvency. 

Those districts range from a 2,600-student elementary district to the second-largest school system in the nation. Across these districts, FCMAT found many of the same pressures: compensation growing faster than revenues, rising special education costs, declining enrollment, and budgets that count on reductions not yet named.

That pattern points to the challenge facing public schools across California, and Oakland Unified intends to help lead the response, according to a district press statement. 

California districts are navigating the challenges of a rapidly changing state and an evolving educational landscape. As one of California’s most diverse urban school districts, Oakland Unified faces these pressures with a distinct responsibility to the students, families, and communities it serves. While standing in solidarity with districts statewide, according to OUSD.

Oakland Unified remains steadfast in its commitment to educational equity, innovation, and student achievement, demonstrating that even in the face of significant challenges, its mission to provide every student with a high-quality education remains unwavering, the district said.

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