Latest news with #FamiliesinAction
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oakland school board ends contract with superintendent as district exits receivership
The Brief OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell is expected to finish out the school year. The superintendent had two years left on her contract. The board is calling this a voluntary separation agreement. The district is now out of receivership after 22 years. Despite this the board has voted Johnson-Trammell out. OAKLAND, Calif. - The Oakland Unified School District on Wednesday voted behind closed doors to remove longtime Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell. The decision was made despite her being credited with getting the district out of receivership. What we know The district has had a state or county trustee with veto power over financial decisions. Boardmember Mike Hutchinson said the district has had this oversight since 2003. Tonight's vote means, after eight years, Johnson-Trammell will be leaving the district at the end of the fiscal year. A preliminary 4-1 vote came down earlier this month, which set up tonight's final vote. Upset parents and community leaders were at Wednesday's board meeting. The crowd was largely supportive of the superintendent and criticized the board for their closed-door decision. The school board took action to approve a voluntary separation agreement with the superintendent to which a crowd of people booed. The reaction from the audience was swift when Oakland school board President Jennifer Brouhard announced that it had voted in closed session to end its contract with superintendent Kyla Johnson Trammell, who was not present at the meeting. The vote was 4-3. Hutchinson was among those who opposed the move. "We have a school board colluding with our teachers' union leadership attacking our district. There hasn't been one public discussion, not one person has given any justification for it or explain why they would want to do it and this is a superintendent where we just extended her contract less than eight months ago," Hutchinson said. He said today should have been a celebration with the district "finally leaving receivership after 22 years." "We're facing the biggest crisis we've ever seen," Hutchinson said. As Brouhard headed into the open session of the meeting, she declined to answer KTVU's question as to why the board voted to end its contract with the superintendent. Brouhard simply told us, "I'm going to report out in just a minute. I'll talk to you guys as soon as I'm done." Before the school board meeting got underway, Families in Action, a public education advocacy group that supports the superintendent, rallied and marched. "The stability of our top leader is crucial to the stability of our schools, the safety and the learning and the educational outcome of our students," said Kimi Kean, founder of Families in Action. Parents and students criticized the board, saying that it is not focusing on the needs of students. They say many Black and brown kids are not proficient in reading and math. "I know high school is not for everybody, but there is a life after high school and you need to prepare for that and you're not going to be prepared for that if you can't read or do math at your grade level," said Sarai Raines, a student at Oakland Tech High School. Gregory Nash is raising his 9-year-old grandson who attends Hoover Elementary School. He is critical of the board making decisions behind closed doors without community input. "Why are the board people fighting who's getting fired? Who's going to rasie our kids? Who's going to give our kids an education where they can stay at and be somebody?" Nash said. What's next Superintendent Johnson-Trammell has two years left on her contract, which was renewed within the last year. She is expected to finish out the school year in her current role. After that, the board will appoint an interim superintendent on July 1.
CBS News
24-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Oakland Unified parents upset after seeing data about how students are doing
On Wednesday night, parents and students in the Oakland Unified School District were organizing for a rally and march on the district's meeting. A local parents' group said they'd seen the data showing how students are doing academically, and they don't like what it shows. And they are demanding that the district be more transparent about the situation. Cecilia Perez-Cervantes had her hands full with two young children bouncing around the house. But next year they both start school, and she said she hopes they'll do as well as her older daughter who is on her middle school's honor roll with a 4.0 gpa. Still, she planned to be one of the people marching on the district's meeting. "Just because my child is doing good doesn't mean other kids are," she said. "So, I do want everybody to be aware of the data. That's our goal for the march, is just to bring the data to everybody's front doors." A parent's advocacy group called Families in Action was organizing the protest. Founder and CEO Kimi Kean said they've pored through the district's data and found some pretty damning results. "80 percent of Black and Brown students here in Oakland cannot read at grade level," she said. Kean said the district promised last year to commit to improving minority academic performance, but the results have been slow to come. "I think we had a two percent increase in reading/math," she said. "If we keep continuing at this really slow pace, it's going to take four generations for all of our kids to be at grade level. For our parents and youth, that's just not OK." She blamed a lot of it on a lack of transparency, saying many parents simply don't understand how poorly their school may be doing. So, they had three demands. They want schools to post their performance scores for all to see. They want there to be better collaboration between the schools and home. The third demand might be surprising to some. They want the district to stop wasting resources on having so many small schools. "How about we condense the schools," said Cecilia. "How about we make it from about 80 schools to 40 schools? And we make those 40 schools really good schools? That's ironic, because for several years, the district had been suggesting closing or consolidating schools. But each time, parents at those schools turned out in massive protests against it. "I know," said Perez-Cervantes. "I feel like they're not given the data, and they don't understand why." Families in Action was also angry that, during such a time of turmoil, it was revealed that the district is considering firing long-time Superintendent Kyla Johnson Trammell, despite giving her a new three-year contract in 2024. It is once again something that is being discussed behind closed doors and without informing parents. "We are angry, but peacefully angry," said Cecilia. "I tell my family, this is my angry mob pitchfork," she said, holding up a sign shaped like a large heart covered in flowers. "Because we're coming with love. We want our children to succeed." Neither she nor anyone else at Families in Action claims to have all the answers about how the schools should operate. They simply point to the results and say something has to change — quickly. And they would like to be kept informed about what's going on.
