Community Forum Recap: A Conversation with Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro
Monday, March 16 · Life Academy at the Calvin Simmons Campus
Welcome to our recap of Monday night's community forum at Life Academy!
Unlike our board meeting coverage, this was an event we organized. We invited Alameda County Superintendent of Education Alysse Castro, and we’re glad she came. She brings deep expertise in school finance and oversees districts across Alameda County, so her assessments carry real professional weight. At the same time, some of what she shared touches on contested local debates. We’ve tried to clearly present her statements as views, rather than settled fact.
With a wonderful welcoming from Life Academy principal and student leaders, a local pastor, and an OHigh parent, we started into questions. The room was full. The questions were sharpish.
📉 The Root Cause: Enrollment decline
When asked what's driving OUSD's structural deficit, Alysse didn't hedge. The root cause is enrollment decline. In 1965–66, Oakland Unified served 64,000 students across 88 school buildings. Today, the district serves roughly 33,000 students in nearly 78 buildings. That mismatch of half the students in nearly the same infrastructure sets up everything else: the lopsided staffing ratios, exhausted facilities, and unstable budgeting.
She noted that enrollment decline is a statewide trend, and that Alameda County is projected to continue to see declining enrollment. Fewer births, rising costs of living, and a worsening immigration climate are the primary drivers.
Her bottom line: "This is not a revenue problem. This is a decision-making problem." At $850 million for 33,000 students, OUSD has the highest per-pupil spending of any large urban district in California. The money is there. The follow-through has not been.
🥊 We Know How to Fight. Do We Know How to Win?
One of the most memorable moments of the evening came when Alysse reflected on what it actually takes to move Oakland forward.
She recalled something a longtime Oakland parent and advocate said to her in the middle of a recent strike: "In Oakland, we really know how to fight. Not sure we know how to win."
She said that line landed in her gut. She pushed back gently on the factions and suspicion that had surrounded even this event (she'd received calls warning her about the organizers' alleged motives). Her response: she got an email from parents who wanted to talk about school budgets, so she showed up.
Her ask to the community was direct: the next step can't be to form your own team and fight with the other people who also care about having a functioning school district. Coalescing, not clashing, is what winning looks like.
🏛️ Local Control: The Board Has the Ball
Alysse returned again and again was local control. She was emphatic that it isn't just a legal technicality. It's something she believes in deeply.
She described moving OUSD out of state receivership as a conscious, principled choice. Her reasoning: being under oversight for too long creates learned helplessness. She sees the same dynamic playing out in how some community members relate to the school board, waiting for the county to step in, rather than demanding accountability from their own elected representatives.
She was clear: "That's the board's job. It's the board's job to make the hard decisions. And if you wait till I make the hard decision, now I'm your board."
She named examples of other districts — Hayward, Pleasanton, Livermore — that made hard calls and stuck with them. They closed a school at 111 students, corrected a major budget error, and changed leadership when things weren't working. These are the kinds of decisions that stabilize a district, and they are decisions that belong to a locally elected board, not to a county office.
She also shared what she sees as her role: not to be one more layer of competition or infighting, but to support, resource, and convene. "It can't be against or around" the board, she said. It has to be with them.
🏫 On School Closures: Setting the Record Straight
Near the end of the evening, audience questions surfaced a claim that's circulated in Oakland for years: that school closures don't save money. Alysse pushed back firmly and personally.
"I love the comfort people have misquoting me," she said. She told the audience she’s never said that, because the research shows and basic math confirms is that closing schools does save money. The rules of math, she noted dryly, don't work differently in Oakland. "The rules of implementation sometimes do."
She acknowledged that one Oakland school closure in the past may not have saved much money, and she's willing to believe that happened. But she argued that's a far cry from the sweeping claim that closures never work — and that everywhere else closures have been studied, the research shows real savings.
What makes the difference, she argued, is how you do it: moving communities together, not just moving buildings; keeping promises to families about the quality of the receiving school; and working on a structural time horizon. We cannot give short notice or not involve community and call it a plan.
💬 Other Topics & Tidbits
- Supplemental and concentration funds: Alysse explained that OUSD's plan to redirect these funds to cover some general fund expenses is, on its face, a legitimate strategy as long as it goes through the proper community process (LCAP, ELAC, PAC involvement). You should always spend your most restricted dollars first.
- Consultant spending: She couldn't verify the specific number cited (30% of non-salary spending), but broke down the main drivers: special education staffing shortages filled by outside agencies, legal fees from special ed lawsuits, and contracted community-based organizations running afterschool programs. The staffing piece, she said, is the most fixable.
- The second interim budget: Alysse is watching closely. Based on what she'd seen from the board meeting, the numbers looked negative to her, but she committed to withholding formal judgment until her team could complete a full analysis. We look forward to this analysis, too.
- Board development: Her one concrete commitment of the night: she meets individually with anyone considering running for school board, and offers coaching and training. Oakland has openings coming. She wants the next board members to know what they're walking into.
🏫 What's Next
The OUSD Board meets again on March 26, where the Facilities Master Plan is expected to be introduced. This document has billion-dollar implications. It will shape the 2028 bond measure and guide how remaining Measure Y funds are spent. If you want to engage before that meeting, the Facilities Committee meets March 19.
Thanks to Life Academy's principal and students for hosting. And thank you to everyone who showed up — in person and on Zoom — to ask hard questions and listen carefully.
In community,
Bekah