Oakland teachers to strike Thursday, jacking up tension in the troubled district
The Oakland teachers union announced a one-day strike set for Thursday, saying the district has 'refused to provide basic financial transparency' and keep cuts away from schools.
Labor leaders notified the district of the impending strike just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, but said they were 'committed to finding a resolution at the bargaining table to avert this strike.'
If teachers strike, it would be the fourth strike in six years.
On Monday, district officials said they had already responded to 30 information requests submitted by the Oakland Education Association, which represents about 3,000 educators and had met with union officials recently to answer any remaining questions.
'OEA acknowledged that the District has fully responded to all but two complex, budget related (requests) that were recently submitted,' district officials said in a letter to Oakland families on Friday.
'We strongly believe these pending items are not a reason to disrupt student learning or the routines of our families — especially given our joint agreement to exhaust all other steps before considering a strike,' according to the letter sent by spokesman John Sasaki. 'The threat of a work stoppage at this critical time of year is deeply concerning.'
Sasaki said the strike 'risks interrupting students' education and their participation in important end-of-year learning, celebrations, and milestone events.'
School will remain open and families can expect another update Tuesday, Sasaki added
District officials did not immediately respond to the union's official notice of a strike.
Of the 1,441 educators who voted, 939 voted yes to the strike, according to union leaders.
Parents were just learning of the called strike Tuesday morning as they dropped their children off at school.
'The last strike in 2023 kept students out of school for 8 days, led to skyrocketing rates of chronic absenteeism, disrupted student learning, forced special education students to go without IEP services, all to get our teachers the same deal that was on the table before the strike even started,' said Megan Bacigalupi, who has two children in the district. 'With only 35% of OEA members even voting for this strike, it is sad to me our students will once again bear this burden.'
The impending strike comes at a pivotal time for the district, with the union-backed board majority recently voting to remove Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell from her post at the end of this school year.
Johnson-Trammell, born and raised in Oakland, has spent her eight-year tenure working to stabilize the district, specifically the board's pattern of overspending and using one-time funds to backfill deficits. She has also advocated for school mergers and closures to address the loss of thousands of students in recent years to ensure resources are not spread so thin across the city.
The teachers union has largely opposed those efforts and backed three winning candidates in the November election, creating a new majority led by board President Jennifer Brouhard.
The four, with the teachers union's blessing, voted to remove Johnson-Trammell from her role at the end of this school year, giving her a payout to leave before the end of her contract in the summer of 2027.
Brouhard was not immediately available for comment regarding the union's strike announcement Tuesday.
The teachers union has frequently claimed that the district's budget deficit was a 'manufactured crisis' and that there is no need to make cuts or close schools, although they have failed to provide evidence of that.
Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, president of the union, recently claimed the district added $90 million in central office overhead to the budget mid-year while claiming a deficit of $95 million. When pressed by the Chronicle for details, she said she would provide them when she returned to the office Monday, but failed to do so.
District officials, however, say the $95 million deficit projected next year is now closer to $12 million after central office cuts and other reductions, including layoffs and the elimination of vacant positions.
The most recent strike occurred in May 2023 and lasted nearly two-weeks. That walkout was over pay and other issues and followed a one-day strike in March. The end of the longer strike came with 11% to 22.3% pay raises and a retroactive 10% raise for all teachers plus a $5,000 bonus.
That contract remains in place.
The strike announced for Thursday would be based not on failed contract negotiations, but rather a labor complaint based on the union's allegations that the district hasn't been transparent about the budget.
Adding to the tension, the union failed to pay the district over two years for the salary and benefits of district teachers on leave for union work, ultimately owing the city's schools more than $400,000 in 2023.
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