March 25 Board Meeting Recap

Hi OUSD community, welcome back to The Dig. We’re parents who show up to every board meeting so we can bring you a full recap. Here’s what went down on 3/25. As always, can dig into our breakdown below or watch the full meeting on YouTube. 

📺March 25 School Board Meeting

Before we dive in, we want to share an upcoming community event that PSAC mentioned last night:

🗓️ Community Meeting on Tuesday, Mar. 31 at 5:30 PM at Santa Fe Campus (915 54th St.)

Many of you care deeply about OUSD holding onto our community’s values as they make tough budget choices. This meeting is your chance to make your voice heard. The Dig editorial team will be there, we hope to see you too!

🏗️ Facilities Master Plan

Background: The Facilities Master Plan describes priorities and strategies for improving school buildings to better serve students, staff, and the community. Sequoia parent Rachael Kirk Cortez read all 157 pages and wrote a Facilities explainer for Dig readers.

Last night: Chief Systems and Services Officer Preston Thomas presented the draft plan. After board comments and revisions, it will come back for a vote. Thomas showed the board a set of facilities dashboards and explained a "T-shaped" investment strategy — district-wide work in areas like heat mitigation, plus focused projects at high-need schools. The plan doesn't name specific schools yet; instead, it sets up a framework for making those decisions.

Board reaction: There was no vote, so there's no majority/minority split. Here's what board members said:

• Bachelor, Latta, and Brouhard praised the plan's transparency, especially the public dashboards.
• Berry asked how the district can act on this plan without a broader vision for restructuring. Preston agreed, and used Measure N as an example of what happens when facilities planning isn't tied to the district's strategy — career technical education spaces weren't built to support career pathways programs.
• Williams asked whether the plan accounts for Oakland City planning, like new affordable housing in West Oakland. Thomas confirmed the district is working with City planners to align investments.
• Hutchinson called out the plan for being a year late and asked for a clearer connection to the district’s established long-term goals, like eliminating portable classrooms.

Community reaction: More than 20 people commented on the Facilities Master Plan. Their comments showed the urgent need for both district-wide and school-specific investments.

Many parents and educators from Cool the Schools spoke about how hot classrooms are making it hard to learn and putting students' health at risk.

• 📺 Parent Rachael Kirk Cortez said 3 elementary/TK students were hospitalized last week for heat-related emergencies. She stressed the need to act now.
• 📺 Parent Kim Ayers talked about how small concrete steps can help rebuild trust with the OUSD community.
• 📺OEA member Jasper LaFortune, who teaches computer science at Elmhurst United, spoke about how they’ve done everything they can to cool their classroom down (including crowdfunding a portable AC unit) and students still can’t learn and regularly get sick from the heat.

The board also heard from the McClymonds community, who are frustrated that the Measure Y project approved for McClymonds High in 2021 has taken so long. They feel the board has ignored McClymonds because it's a predominantly Black school.

• 📺 Longtime commenter Assata Olugbala asked why Cool the Schools community has gotten the board's attention when the McClymonds community has not. 

Our take: The most corrosive conversations in Oakland are the ones that pit school communities against each other. But keeping every school open, as the board has directed, creates meaningful tension between different Oakland communities’ facilities needs. As the Facilities Master Plan makes clear, the needs across our 100 campuses are far greater than our bond funding and facilities staff can handle, and some communities’ needs will go unmet. Given this context, it’s easy to understand why the McClymonds community is frustrated.  

We applaud the Facilities Team for doing the hard groundwork like sharing data and a set of criteria for deciding which investments to prioritize. We also agree with Director Berry that the plan needs to connect to a vision for the district's footprint. As Director Latta said, families experience facilities investments as an expression of care. Every family deserves a facility that shows care. To get there, we need a clear plan for reducing the footprint.

📊 Resolution on the Financial Implementation Plan and the One-Pagers

Background: This was the first meeting in a while where the fiscal stabilization plan wasn't on the agenda. The Superintendent noted progress is continuing, but no formal report was given.  Director Hutchinson has been a vocal critic of the board’s decision to abandon the previous 3Rs process, and of the fiscal stabilization plan the Superintendent has brought forward in recent months.

Last night: Director Hutchinson introduced a resolution directing how cuts should be made. The resolution says schools with enrollment over 360 should keep Community School Managers (CSMs) and Teachers on Special Assignment (TSAs). It also protects Middle School electives from cuts, and directs staff to make Kaiser and Carl B. Munk D4 TK Hubs.  Since this was a newly introduced resolution, there was no discussion. It will go to the finance committee, and if approved there, back to the full board for a vote.

Our take: We're not governance experts, but our understanding is that the Board is meant to set a vision and leave the details to district staff. This resolution seems to get pretty far into the weeds. We also note that Hutchinson has not suggested alternate cuts to offset the CSM & TSA positions that his resolution directs the district to restore.

That said, as Hutchinson pointed out in a tense exchange with Saddler earlier in the meeting, the district hasn't explained how they decided which sites kept positions like Community School Managers.  Like Director Hutchinson, we'd welcome more transparency on how those decisions are being made.

Thanks for sticking with us to the end of this week's meeting recap. See you next week at the PSAC Community Meeting!

Best,

Jess, Bekah, and Anna