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April 22 Board Meeting Recap

By Anna Utgoff —
April 22 Board Meeting Recap
1025 2nd Avenue, the district's former headquarters. Photo credit: Amir Aziz for Oaklandside

Hi community,

Thank you for trusting us with another board recap.  As usual, it’s a long one. So take a breath, and remember that staying engaged, like you’re doing right now, is how we drive the conversations that move our community forward. 

You can watch the Board Meeting in full on Youtube, or read our take on the key points below.

📹 OUSD 2026-04-22 Board of Education meeting

🔥 Cool the Schools

The board unanimously passed Patrice Berry's resolution directing $8M in Measure Y bond funds to a districtwide plan for cooler classrooms. As reported in the Oaklandside, the facilities team will spend this summer installing temperature sensors and heat-mitigating equipment like window films. The unanimous vote was a credit to the incredible organizing work done by the Cool the School movement.

As frequent commenter Assata Olugbala noted, "These parents stood up for what they believed in, and they did an outstanding job of representing what they thought needed to happen. Not just for their children, but for the entire district."

🔑 Planning for the old Central Office HQ and other unused facilities

Context: California ed code requires districts to get community input before making decisions about use of excess facilities via community bodies called 7-11 committees (named because they have between 7 and 11 members, not because they serve Slurpees 😆). The 3 buildings listed are all already vacant.

The majority view: 6 board members voted in favor of Berry's resolution Establishing a 7-11 Advisory Committee for 1025 2nd Avenue, Lakeview, and Bunche. As Berry explained, planning processes like these take a long time, and we can't "lose sight of the seeds we need to plant for the future." President Brouhard praised Berry's "hard work and many iterations on the resolution" and also clarified that the intent is not to sell the properties.

Hutchinson's take: Director Hutchinson was insistent that the purpose of a 7-11 committee is to declare a property surplus so that it can be sold. (There was a fair amount of legal debate here, on which the General Counsel was called to comment. The GC said that "if a district is selling or leasing a property a 7-11 committee is required." The GC also confirmed Berry's assertion that the committee is advisory only and the board retains decision-making power.) Hutchinson strongly opposes any sale of OUSD property.

Our view: This resolution is an important step towards repurposing the district's vacant properties, and we were glad to see it pass. As the Facilities Master Plan makes clear, our district has too many facilities, many of which are crumbling and half full. OUSD needs to have a restructuring conversation, and that conversation needs to show the community a positive vision for what the district will do with excess facilities. We've heard in board meeting after board meeting about fires breaking out at Bunche because encampments have sprung up in the unused lot. How can we ask communities to consider consolidating campuses when our already closed campuses are blight that cost the district money? We applaud Director Berry for initiating this important planning work and collaborating with other Directors to pass it. Joining this committee will be a great opportunity for parents looking to get more involved in the district. We'll keep an eye out for the application and pass it along.

🏗️ The Facilities Master Plan

As we reported in our March 25 meeting recap, the Facilities Master Plan explains how the district will improve school buildings and prioritize working on the $3.5B in repairs our buildings need. You can learn more in Sequoia parent Rachael Kirk Cortez's Facilities explainer.

The Facilities Master Plan passed unanimously, with several board members applauding the team behind it from the dais. (Director Hutchinson, who expressed skepticism during the first read of the plan, had left the dais and did not vote.)

💰Contract Extension for the District’s Fiscal Advisors

Context: Interim Superintendent Saddler has hired Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) to advise the district on stabilizing its budget. HYA has reported on implementation of "Scenario 3," the district's plan for closing its budget gap, at several previous meetings.

The majority view: The resolution passed 6-1 (with Hutchinson dissenting), but Directors Latta and Berry made comments expressing reservations. Latta expected the extension but wished the contract had been more transparent about what essential services HYA is providing "above and beyond a typical fiscal team's work." Berry felt "surprised and disappointed" that HYA wasn't presenting on the fiscal stabilization plan. "Scope of work is nice… but who's gonna do what? Who's reporting to who? And when are we going to see it?"

Hutchinson questioned the need for these consultants, given that the Alameda County Superintendent offered free financial advice in her recent letter. He referenced a recent SacBee article about the Sacramento County Office decision to cancel HYA's contract because "the scope of the agreement was too broad and potentially duplicative of the current chief business officer's duties."

Our view: If the HYA team is essential to stabilizing the district's finances, then extending this contract was the right choice. But has the budget actually been stabilized? Has the district found funding for the new raise we've promised teachers? We don't know, and got no update tonight. That's worrisome.

✅ Enrollment & Attendance:Wins with uncertain futures

Teams working on reducing chronic absence and maintaining district enrollment both reported significant progress last night. During the Superintendent's report, we learned that the district has cut chronic absenteeism (students missing 10% or more school days) from 61% in the 2022-23 school year to 27% this year to date. That is huge for students, as chronically absent students are less likely to learn how to read. It's also huge for the district's finances, as higher attendance means higher revenue from the state.

The District's Director of Enrollment Kilian Betlatch reported similarly big wins for the district's enrollment stabilization work. OUSD enrollment has gone slightly up this year, bucking nationwide declining enrollment trends that have been especially devastating for urban school districts. As Betlatch explained, the district's investments in enrollment have paid for themselves twice over, because every enrolled student brings additional funds from the state.

Several Directors noted that funds for both the enrollment and attendance teams have been cut. The people doing that work this year do not have jobs next year. Berry wondered how we'll continue these successes, so essential to funding our schools, when the folks doing the work have received pink slips. As Betlatch explained, the burden will fall on schools, and most lack the capacity to take it on.

Moment to watch: 📹 Superintendent Saddler answers a question from Director Berry about how cuts will affect the attendance work by saying that teachers can spend time making calls home

📢 Principals Speak Out

We leaned forward when Cary Kaufman, president of the principals' union UAOS, approached the podium. As Ashley McBride reported this week in her excellent Oaklandside article, two thirds of OUSD principals signed a letter to district leadership urging them to focus on student outcomes, because only 30% of OUSD students are reading on grade level. They reframed the contentious discussion about school closures, stating plainly that OUSD operates too many schools for its enrollment and that continuing to delay that conversation is itself an equity issue. As Kaufman noted, the UAOS typically works collaboratively with the district, which is what makes this letter so striking. 

Kaufman didn't address the letter in his remarks, which focused on the pink slips UAOS members have received. He also asked why the district has still not responded to the union's complaint about an incident in which the teachers' union president allegedly threatened a principal, despite 13 months having passed since the complaint was filed.

🤔 Conspicuously absent

As mentioned in our discussion of HYA’s contract, we heard little about the budget stabilization plan last night. Also not on the agenda:

Thanks for sticking with us again, friends! See you in two weeks!

Best,

Anna, Bekah, and Jess