Please do not merge school, that’s not a good idea and is not saving money , we willl lost a lot wonderful teachers and classmates for us kids , that’s not good idea

My name is Sonia Thacher, and I’ve taught special ed in OUSD for over 20 years. I don’t have a solution that fits within this box; there is no *one* solution. I believe that we do need to make substantive, sometimes hard, changes in order to do right by the important work we’re tasked with–but they must be intelligent changes which can seed future success, and we must genuinely look at what is possible and what is real, without blame, undue fear, or grown-up ego: we must listen as well as seek to be heard, and we must above all else *understand* all the options. There's a term Brené Brown uses, "rumble," for hard conversations. I'd like to see more of that, genuine difficult *dialogue* with all stakeholders--not just more presentations where people talk past each other and double down on their own narratives.

I am a parent of a TK and 9th grader and Preschool Teacher. A ratio for supervision doesn't look at student needs. Ratio doesn't tell the story of the community. TK children will be 4 years most of the school year (students who under preschool licensing regulations would need 1:8 or 1:12 ratio). A deeper look at population needs should be evaluated not the numbers of children enrolled in the school.

I am a parent of a 3rd grader and a kindergartener at Manzanita SEED. We choose SEED because of the dual immersion program. SEED is currently over enrolled (current enrollment is 437 and our site capacity is 358), and has been over enrollment for the past 5 years. However SEED is still being considered for a merger solely because it shares a campus. For a board that is looking for solutions for under enrollment, please look at what is working at our schools already and support the dual-immersion programs.

I'm a parent at ICS and we oppose any cuts to our essential staff. Our TSA Micaela is a huge part of ICS. ICS could not function successfully without her presence, knowledge, & rapport with students, parents, & staff. Our school has already suffered by being on the merger list. And just today, our principal presented a sobering scenario: if our supplemental funding were cut, how would we choose between our social worker and TSA? Our Title I funds only cover one of those positions, yet both are essential and have heavy caseloads. Losing either of them will be harmful, especially on a campus where 90+% of the students are Latine, & majority ELL. How do we expect to attract families to OUSD if the few resources we have are constantly gutted? Schools should still be able to tailor their staffing—they’re on the ground & know best what their campuses need. I would love for staff to be relieved of managing contracts, but over-centralizing can lead to more bureaucracy & delays in resourcing.

As an OUSD parent, I thank our CBO Team & the OUSD Board for working hard on our budget to keep our neighborhood schools open. We have approximately 15,000 students attending Charter Schools in Oakland - not public schools - and we can have a vibrant public school system in OUSD if we were not spreading our student population into that Charter System. Why have we so may Charter Schools in Oakland ?

Many of the challenges you are explaining in this meeting need to be addressed and I support you in making changes in these areas. You listed things like the number of TSAs in the district, the number of Central Office positions and the scope of their programs and offerings, the number of extended contracts, positions that are being modified in the middle of the year, contracted agencies providing transportation and other services to our sites, copy machine maintenance, etc…. I agree that a lot of these need a thorough review and that shifts should definitely happen, but addressing and tackling these challenges at the expense of children and families attending our current schools should not be an option. Schools should be kept open regardless of the challenges and mishaps you are facing in Central Office / in the district’s management. Is that not the job of a school district’s leadership; to think creatively about how to solve problems without harming the community you are serving?

OUSD administration need to start looking at their budget crisis as a long term plan to make their wrongs right. Children and school sites did not mismanage $90 million but the finance dept, the superintendent and the whatever other dept that relies on hiring outside contractors to do absolutely everything from building and grounds to school counseling to writing reports for the district, to pbis spin offs as the go to.
What you are doing is leaving every school site to lose valuable staff to want to quit before you pink slip them due to your enormously financially devastating decisions.
This admin has destroyed the district and they all have to be removed asap.

As an Oakland teacher I strongly oppose the closure/merger of schools. Our students deserve schools near where they live. I have been with OUSD since 2018/2019 and the schools you closed did not equate to BETTER schools for our current students. Shameful misuse of funds. How is the superintendent getting a raise and then we are having to have this conversation?

I’m Teacher Sophie of ICS TK. I am so so scared to lose members of my community after this round of cuts and losses that our school may face. I am dumb-founded with the delay of moving towards a balanced budget through processes that continue to invest in our central office and repeatedly take away from our families, students, and teachers. We raise our deficit, where now to cut budgets that impact directly our students and localized support for the population of Oakland. This is a big deal, it’s not a solution you can pass off in one month and expect our most affected members of this community shrug it off and say oh well. It’s hurting, it has hurt this community for years, decades, and I beg you all to explore options with maybe surviving off a 5-digit salary so that the schools you say you care for are able to survive.

According to OEA, the proposed budget inflates the amount of money needed in the category of Books and Supplies. Per OEA, the district's actual spending is $30m (averaged over the last 5 years) but the budgeted amount is $90m. As such, simply reducing the budgeted amount to be in line with actual spending ($30m) would automatically reduce the projected deficit by $60m! Please address.

I teach 5th grade at ICS. Our TSAs are an integral part of our school community and the support they have given me in my first year of teaching has been invaluable. Our TSA Micaela not only provides much-needed literacy support to students, but has also helped break down Benchmark, worked with me on lesson planning, modeled ELA lessons with our class, and showed me how to administer and score assessments. She provided essential new teacher training and made things more manageable in an overwhelming year. If OUSD values teacher retention, cutting the people who make this work at all sustainable is a mistake.

My son is a student at ICS. Please do not eliminate the essential services that our TSAs, Ms. Micaela and Ms. Diosa provide our students. Our decision to put our children in OUSD is determined by quality staff like them!

The idea of cutting staff and shutting down schools when our schools are understaffed and we have a huge literacy problem is absolutely disgraceful.
OUSD is already paying teachers under a livable wage. Instructional aides in OUSD can make as little as 19 dollars an hour meaning they can literally work at in-n-out and make more money.
Our students already don’t have the supplies and services they need to succeed in school. They feed the kids food thats extremely cheap and lacking nutrition. We have substitutes every day babysitting(not teaching) kids, sometimes for months and entire school years.
It is amazing that OUSD oversees 28 charter schools, when OUSD can’t even manage the schools it has. Truly a mess. And “oversee” means nothing because some of these charter schools are barely functioning.
If we have to make cuts, let’s start with the salaries of the OUSD leadership team because they’re running this district into the ground.

I am a reading interventionist and Special Education Teacher at CCPA and a resident of district 6. I believe your projection of $90 million a year for books and supplies is higher than necessary and could be adjusted. The average spent over the past three years was 34 million. I hope you are taking a look at reducing spending on outside contracts as well in order to avoid budget cuts that will harm kids.

I am a parent at ICS and the TSA position in our school is absolutely essential for our TK class. The level of care and support my son receives from Ms. Diosa is instrumental to his success as a first-time elementary school student with so many other high needs students in the class. Ms. Diosa comforts my son when he cries, checks in on our family as she gets to know us as parents and our son’s two younger siblings, and gracefully navigates the intricacies of TK families’ dynamics and access to resources. Cutting her position or removing it from the discretion of our school will be detrimental to the well-being and learning of our students.

My name is Rumeli. I was born and raised in Oakland (and went to Kaiser Elementary, one of the many schools affected by closures/mergers). I am currently a resident and voter in District 1. I am also the one social worker for Oakland High School's nearly 200 newcomer students. I provide emotional support and resources for our newcomer students, to allow them to be kids and to focus on school. This is a big job, given the number of students and the amount of need (legal, medical, emotional, educational, financial, etc.).

The idea that we would take funding away from our immigrant students in the current political climate is deeply upsetting. In addition to the richness they add to our schools, newcomers make up a large percentage of OUSD's population, and bring in a lot of ADA dollars for our schools. I am against all cuts that make students pay the price of OUSD's poor budget management, and given the reasons explained above, I specifically oppose the cuts in option number 26.

My name is Jen Kelly-DeWitt. I teach recently arrived immigrant students at Oakland International High School. Every student I see is a complex and important person with complex and important needs. Our schools are where many of those complex and important needs are met, to the best of our ability as educators with the resources that we have. If our resources are cut, we will very simply be able to meet fewer of the students’ academic and social-emotional needs. As someone who sees those needs vividly every day, I think cutting our newcomer program resources is a counterproductive idea. I ask that you do not cut in ways that make it less possible to educate and support students.

My name is Susan Keen. I teach newcomers at OIHS, and am a resident and voter in District 3. Our budget does not need to be cut, it needs to be re-analyzed. For years, OUSD has cried "budget deficit" while ending with surplus due to the ridiculous amount of money that is placed in our books&supplies budget. I wonder if our current Board realizes - these cuts impact real students and have real consequences. Tonight, students, families, and educators will share about the impact of school mergers at your meeting. You have the opportunity to truly listen to your constituents, to those you serve - something you have NOT done in the past - the opportunity to choose to support instead of destroy our communities. Look at OEA resources to find ways to better manage your budget in order to 1. retain HBGB, 2. stop unwanted school mergers, 3. provide necessary resources to all schools, and 4. maintain a fiscally sound budget for the 2025-6 school year and beyond.

NOW is the moment to do better.

My name is James Barbuto. I teach newcomers at Skyline High School. I am a resident and voter in district 7. I specifically want to advocate against the cuts in option number 26 on the backs of our newcomer students. We must continue to fund FTE for late arriving newcomers so that our students can continue to get all the support they need when they first arrive to OUSD and get on the right track. Our newcomer students boost our enrollment and enrich our campuses. Additionally, funding for ELD electives allows there to be sufficient space in master schedules so that students may take an ELD class and continue to get support learning English and for there to be an elective option in their master schedule. After all of the politics and attacks on immigrant communities, OUSD must stand in solidarity and continue to improve its services to secondary newcomer students.

Jimmy Barbuto