Oakland Unified School District Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Uh good afternoon and welcome to the January 28th uh meeting of the oh sorry Oakland Board of Education. Uh Mr. Rickstar, can we have uh roll call to establish quorum, please? Yes. On the roll call, student director Simmons. Student director Smith. Director Ladder present. Director Williams here, sir. Uh, Director Hutchinson, Director Barry, Director Thompson, Vice President Bachelor here, and President Proh

President. Mr. Hollis, can we have a interpretation check, please?

Uh, yes, Madam President. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation. They are Cantonese, Arabic, and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will start with live interpret uh for live announcements for live interpretation. We will start with Cantonese. I will lower all hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced, which at this time is Cantonese. And I will ask Miss Ho if she can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese. The Cantonese announcement is done. Mr. Hollis.

Thank you, Miss Hope. Checking the attendees on Zoom to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Being no hands, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Arabic, I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if need if you need the language being announced, which at this time is Arabic. And I will ask Miss Abdi if she can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Arabic structure is done. Thank you, Miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will we will not start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish. I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And I will ask Mr. Copenhagen if he can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish. Simultane.

Gracias. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Mr. Copenhagen. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the first interpretation announcement for this evening. There will be later more in the evening and I will pass it back to you madame president.

Thank you. Tonight in close session we will be discussing the following items. Item D1 25-1864 conference with labor negotiators. Item D260088 conference with legal counsel existing litigation under public employment. Item D3 24/1967 P um I'm sorry public employment superintendent of schools. And now we have um public comment on closed session items. Are there any speakers? Mr. Seich. Yes, Madam President. We have one speaker, Tia Johnson.

And how many minutes would you like to allocate?

Uh two minutes. Hi, my name is Tia and I am in fifth grade and I got and I go to this school. I am here to say what I think school should spend money on and why I support the teachers. A lot of teachers at my school have quit because they did not get paid enough. Teachers need to pay their bills and put food in the refrigerator. If you can't pay them more, then they might go somewhere else. I also think you should not close any schools. You tell kids to keep going to learn and you should too. Closing schools is like giving up. You need to keep going. Keep them open and make them and make them better. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Very nice.

Are there any other speakers? No. That concludes public speakers for close session items. Okay. And with that, we will recess to close session and return at 5:30. Thank you again, Tia.

I started working at Skyline two weeks after I graduated. I know if board members could come to the dis so we can get um form Uh good evening and welcome to the January 28th uh regular board meeting of the open school board. Mr. Rickstar, can we have roll call to establish quorum, please?

Yes, m president. on the roll call to establish quorum. Uh, student director Smith, student director Simmons, Director Lada, present. Director Williams, present. Director Hutchinson, Director Barry, present. Director Thompson, Vice President Bachelor here. And President Brohard

here. Quorum present.

Thank you. Mr. Secha, can we have an interpret? Uh, Mr. Hollis, sorry. Can we have interpretation check, please? Uh yes, Madame President. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation. They are Cantonese, Arabic, and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will move on to announcements for live interpretation. We will start with Cantonese. I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced, which at this time is Cantonese. And if you need a translation laptop for Cantonese, you can see the gentleman underneath the basketball court or tech support for a translation laptop. And I will ask Miss Ho if she can come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese. for the Cantonese announcement is done. Uh Mr. Hollis,

thank you, Miss Ho. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands raised on Zoom. Uh no members in the room. We will not start with Cantonese interpretation. Moving on to Arabic interpretation. We will lower all hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Arabic. And if you are in attendance and need a translation laptop for Arabic interpretation, you can see the tech in the room to your left underneath the basketball court. With that, I will ask uh Mr. TK if he can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic.

Thank you. Zoom interpretation, language interpretation, Arabic mute original audio. Arabic interpretation is done.

Thank you, Mr. Turk. Checking the attendees on Zoom to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised on Zoom, no public members hands raised and we will not have Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And if you are in attendance in the public and need a translation laptop, you can see the gentleman uh for tech support to your left underneath the basketball court. Uh with that, I will ask Mr. Copenhagen if you can come off mute and uh give the interpretation announcement for Spanish. in Spanish. Momenta. Thank you, Mr. Hollis.

Thank you, Mr. Copenhagen. Uh, checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised on Zoom, no public members in the room, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the second interpretation announcement for this evening. There will be later announcements in the evening and I will pass it to you madame president.

Thank you. Tonight there will be ample opportunities for public comments after the um budget uh presentation. There will also be after the student report after our um and then at the end there'll be public uh comment on non-aggenda items. After there will be public comment after items O and P, the consent agenda items and after T one and two, the audit comments. Uh cards are on the box right here by the door. And if you've already registered on Zoom, we will call you on Zoom as well. Um tonight, uh I want to also report out close session for January 28th, 2026 on labor matters. Item D1, number 251864, conference with labor negotiators. The board discussed this matter. Under legal matters, item D2, number 26-0088, conference with legal counsel. Um the board just made it uh voted on this uh motion by President Brohard by seconded by Vice President Bachelor and passed with a vote of five to zero with uh directors Hutchinson and Thompson absent on public uh public employment excuse me on item D3 number 24-1967 superintendent of schools the board discussed this matter and that is the end of the close session report out. Uh there are several modifications to tonight's agenda. I'm going to go slowly on them. I know people are taking notes. Uh in order to hear the budget presentation first, we are going to take unfinished business as our first item and the first one is S1 declaring an emergency. To that will be S2, the budget

presentation. We'll stop at approximately 7:35 for a public hearing of the Bay um charter renewal decision hearing and we'll move to item K which is student report item L PAC report item M labor partners Q public comment on non-aggenda items O consent items um and P consent items facilities Please T, new business, T1 audit, T2 audit, and then we'll have the end with the president's report, board member reports, and introduction of new legislations if there's time. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? Okay. All right. Thank you. And with that, um, is there a motion to adopt the, um, declaration of an emergency? There's a whole thing.

So moved. Madam President. Yeah.

Is there a second for S1? Second. And is there public comment on this item? Yes. One more, please, as we go through these speakers cards. The um so far we have one speaker, Asalo Labala.

Uh two minutes. Mr. S labala for S1.

We are on item S1. Mrs. Sada S1 the uh emergency continuation of the emergency. So that's related to uh the demolition, right? I think I read something that said the emergency should not be an emergency because you have documentation in uh the agenda today that said the demolition was supposed to take place months ago and at this point it everything should be over with. You have the day it was supposed to start and the day the demolition was supposed to be complete and that has passed and we haven't gotten to it. It's very similar to what's going on at McMain. Oh Lord, McMain is in New Orleans. That's where I used to teach. Uh at Mcleimman's had a start date. Nothing has happened. Children have been sitting for five months inconveniently sitting in half the school. No library, no auditorium, no other a lot of things. But this is way past due. You have a health safety issue going on. Why I have all this time? Y'all usually don't give me all this time. So listen, we have to make sure that we have start dates and finish dates, particularly when health and safety is involved. And you have toxic materials that are still being exposed to the public in West Oakland. Mr. Williams and I shouldn't be doing this. You should be speaking up for something to happen immediately.

Thank you. Are there any other speakers on this side? No, President, that includes public speakers. Thank you, Mr. Rickstar. Can we have a roll call on the vote, please? Yes. On the roll call to adopt uh S-1, which is the continuation of the emergency resolution. As stated, the student directors are not present. Director Lada. Yes. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson, present. Okay. Director Barry, yes. Director Thompson's absent. Vice President Bachelor. Yes. President Brohard. Yes.

Motion's adopted with the required five members voting yes.

Thank you. Next item on the agenda is S226-01 06A financial stabilization implementation plan protecting equity maintaining local control and prioritizing students OSD structural deficit fiscal years 2025 26 26 27 and this is our first presentation um superintendent Good evening, President Bruhard, Vice President, Bachelor, uh directors, and members of the Oakland community here in the room and um virtually. Thank you for being here tonight. Eight days ago, we stood together as Hazard Young and Aia and Associates Hya presented their analysis of our fiscal position. Tonight, we return as promised with our progress report and implementation plan. Tonight's presentation is titled financial stabilization imple implementation plan. And I want you to hear clearly what this is about. It's about protecting equity, maintaining local control, and prioritizing students.

I want to say that again. It's about protecting equity, maintaining local control, and prior prioritizing students. That is our northstar. That is what every decision we've made reflects. This is what tonight is about. Before we begin, I want to introduce the team who will be presenting tonight. First, let me introduce my senior leadership team members who are here. Uh, uh, Preston Thomas, our chief systems and services officer, Curtis Duriki, our chief partnerships officer, Ryan Wyn, our chief financial officer, Tara Guard, our chief talent officer, and Dr. V. Lynette Mhaney, our chief of staff, and Janine Lindsay, our general counsel. Okay, this is the team that has been working day and night to deliver on your scenario three authorization with care for our schools, care for our students and families, and care for this board as we navigate these difficult choices. We're also joined tonight by our fiscal advisor team from HYA. Dr. Rub Ruben Futros brings more than 30 years of California school finance experience. He led fiscal stabilization at Sweetwater Union High School District during a period of significant deficit and is known for his steady leadership

and ability to guide districts through complex budget corrections while maintaining trust with labor partners and governing boards. We also have Dr. Latana Kirk Carter who is here with us who served as interim state administrator for Inglewood Unified during state receiverhip and has led financial turnarounds at multiple California districts. She's recognized also statewide for her re for rebuilding financial systems and correcting structural deficits. I also want to indicate that I have confidence in this team and the analysis that you will hear tonight. Before we dive into the details, let me ground us in what matters most. Our responsibility to help every student succeed and to manage our resources so we can keep serving Oakland's children today. tomorrow and for years to come. Everything you'll see tonight reflects that commitment. Tonight's presentation has four parts. First, we will recap the challenge. It's essential that everyone understands the severity of the projections at first interim when staff recommended a negative certification. Directors, you have now received County Superintendent Castro's letter where she makes it clear that involving the county is involving the state. There is no intermediary step. Seeking a loan under those conditions would have

been a welcome mat for returning to state oversight. Second, you gave this team the opportunity to demonstrate our ability to make prudent decisions in support of our community. You authorized scenario three. You empowered us to act. Tonight, you will see our response. Third, we'll share implementation results, what we've accomplished in six weeks, and the path forward. And finally, we'll outline next steps, the engagement process ahead, and key decision points leading to your final action on February 25th. Now, I'd like to invite Dr. Frutos who is at the lectern to walk us through the challenge we faced and I want he will also share hya's analysis to date. I just want to say Dr. Futos and our CFO Ryan Wyn have been doing a truly amazing job. They're not only focused on these efforts. We are all we're not only focused on these efforts. We are also doing the work of preparing for our audits, getting ready for the second interim, and revising our accounting systems to implement these important adjustments. Dr. Frutos, welcome.

Good evening, uh, board directors. Uh, it's a pleasure to be back uh, with you again. As the superintendent stated, we've been working on on several different areas to try to bring to you the latest information. Let me start by uh helping with the understanding of the challenge. At the last meeting uh some of you asked very important questions. How did we get here? Why the transition from 100 to 50 million etc. We prepared this chart to give you a little bit of a historical perspective. If you look from the left to the right, you see the balances of the district uh dating back to 2015. And each year, as you can see, there are fluctuations. There were years that we had balances as low as $3.4 4 million and years that we had balances over $118 million. Of most importance are the last two bars. And if you look at them, you'll notice that the district reported financial condition as of first interim in December of 2025 where we were going to end the year with 19 million which is below the threshold of the 2% mandated by law plus the 1% that the board u indicated as a buffer for the total of a 3% which is a reasonable budget reserve. Um and and it didn't comply with that. In addition to that, as we were doing uh the review of the projections in the past, there was a deficit of up to $74 million in the out years. And one of the things that I wanted to mention is that as we look at these budgets, it is important to look at the at the savings, the shifts, and the manipulations that we've been doing to the budget. And understand one important item. There is no new funding. These are simply the same budgetary figures we had, but we are looking at shifting some of the funds in order to protect and restore the unrestricted portion of the budget. And that's what

you see what you'll see in future slides. So this slide serves as a basis where where were we? How did we get going? The board asked where did that 100 million come and how come it's 50 now? But we've done a lot of those shifts and reductions over the last few weeks. Of importance is to see that there are um there are some outcomes that have been very good. One of them as the superintendent mentioned is that we went from what was believed to be a negative certification thanks to the board direction to a qualified certification that now has received the memo from the county. And again, what happened? Well, the reserves are of primary importance. The original estimates had inadequate reserves when we have a mandate at 3%. Um, with a negative certification, you risk state intervention and the district is in a position now where we want to direct our own financial future, not have intervention. We have had that interest in good compensation and as you know under a negative certification there are a variety of compensation constraints including the fact that they have to be approved as part of the AB1200 process and in a negative certification is much more difficult. What is clear is that regardless of all the manipulations we do this year to have a solvent budget for 2526 and to finish the year with a qualified or better second interim report there continues to be instability in our budgets. So the development of the budgets for 26 27 and beyond are incredibly important because that together with all the work we've done for this year to increase our balances will create a stable series of budgets for years to come.

Thank you, Dr. Futos. As we've just heard, the county has accepted our first interim report as qualified while making clear the significant challenges ahead. Inadequate reserves, the risk of state intervention, compensation constraints, and ongoing instability. Directors, I want to acknowledge something important about that acceptance. In December, when staff recommended a negative certification for first interim, the board exercised its authority and judgment to direct staff to submit the report as qualified instead. You believe this team had the capacity to stabilize our finances and chart a path forward. That was not an easy decision. It required confidence and leadership during a an important time. and it was a time of in uncertainty. The county's acceptance of that qualified certification validates your judgment. The work we've accomplished in six weeks with HYA's expertise guiding our approach demonstrates that your confidence was well placed. But let me be clear, this is a trajectory, not a destination. The first interim interim qualified.

The board certified as qual qualified. The county accepted.

The second interim will be qualified. We are preparing to submit it in March. Our goal, positive certification through continued discipline fiscal management and the systems improvements HYA is helping us implement. directors, the path ahead still requires difficult votes, reductions in force, program cuts, operational changes, but your leadership in December was crucial to maintaining local control, and giving the district the opportunity to stabilize on our own terms. Success looks like retaining old local control. That's what success looks like. Getting that job done meant first and foremost restoring the reserve for economic uncertainty. So, let me show you our response. When you adopted scenario 3 in December, you gave us clear direction. You set both financial goals and operational priorities. You directed us to financially restore the 3% reserve approximately 27 million. You directed us to address projected deficits of over 70 million in each of the next two years. And operationally, you directed no school closures. You also directed to us to prioritize reductions in central office furthest from students.

And you also directed us to enhance efforts to improve in attendance and enrollment, reduce reliance on one while I support teachers. Huh? What? I appreciate I know the teachers are going through a bargaining right now. If we could continue with our business,

I know Thank you. I'm going to plan Open it up. Open it up.

This is something.

Me too. Right. So, yeah. All right. I want to um again as part of hoping to resolve our negotiations and ne and support our workers, retain our teachers, we want to continue with the budget presentation and again I know some of you were outside so there'll be ample time for public comment but again in that effort of solving a budget that

is student centered and retains our staff supports our staff fairly compensation we need to continue with our budget uh discussion. Thank you.

I think that beautiful OEA sign is blocking the camera right behind you. That is so you might want to turn it around, I guess, so the camera can see that. But it's a a beautiful sign. But yeah, thank you.

That camera's right ahead of you, right above you. So if you can keep your eye on that. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Uh Dr. Ftos, you want to continue, please? No to continue um our focus area was to enhance efforts to improve attendance and enrollment. We will reduce reliance on one-time funds and then improve fiscal controls, monitoring and transparency. This wasn't a suggestion. This was your blueprint. Over the past six weeks, I've led the senior leadership team through disciplined sober discussions. We had to make hard choices about what we can preserve and what we cannot. We had to prioritize. We've had to be honest with ourselves about what's possible within our fiscal constraints constraints. What will you you will see next is a result of that work which is strategic and there are surgical decisions made with student outcomes at the center. Let me show you what we've delivered. We've restored the 3% reserve. We've projected a 35.1 million ending balance reserve. We met that target. The B board, you requested no school closures. All 80 plus schools remain open. Small schools protected. Check. Central cuts deeper. We've eliminated significant a significant number of FTE

positions at the central office, taking 20% reductions compared to 10% at schools. This budget year, we've improved fiscal controls and transparency. HYA experts contracted to provide independent validation and ongoing monitor monitoring of our controls. We are working to improve attendance in our enrollment. We're seeing promises promises promising early attendance growth. This work continues. We've are addressing the hund00 million structural deficit through reductions and reallocations. We've identified over 50 million in sustainable solutions. This work continues. directors. This is accountability. This is what happens when a board sets clear direction and a leadership team executes with discipline and integrity. Now, let me be clear about the choices we've made because while we're making 50 million in reductions, we have worked to minimize impacts to the investments that directly serve children. We've made hard choices. We've had to prioritize ruthlessly, but we've guarded these student focused investments. Small neighborhood schools to continue serving families in every neighborhood while we work toward our long-term plan for the district. alternative education programs keeping students on track for graduation with flexible supportive learning environments.

We've in investing in 11th month teachers at focal school sites providing extended planning time to support improved student outcomes and to ensure students have access to a TOG requirements and electives. We are supporting additional special um electives for college preparation. This is about ensuring our graduates our graduates are enrolling in college and career pathways. Now, culture and climate investments, including our awardwinning programs like the AfricanAmerican Male Achievement Program and our culture keepers who are working every day on school safety. The coordinators who have helped connect services and supports for students and families addressing non-academic barriers are areas we f we're focusing on. Directors, I want to be honest with you. Even with these protections, students will feel the impact of the budget crisis. Services will be reduced. Support will look different. Classrooms will have fewer resources, but the reductions we're making prioritize what you directed. central office management first, operational efficiencies, administrative overhead as far from classrooms as we could possibly get while still maintaining the essential functions that keep this district running. As we move toward budget adoption in June, we will continue seeking grant opportunities and partnerships to restore services where possible. This is strategic leadership during fiscal constraint. Making the hard choices

while protecting what matters most for our students success. Now let's look at how this shows up in the financials. Dr. Frutos will walk us through the specific adjustments that restore our reserve and the most restricted first philosophy the HYA has guided us to adopt. a best practice that ensures we're using funds appropriately and protecting our fiscal position going forward. Dr. Futos, please. Thank you. one of the important elements and and we appreciate the board taking that initial step to make uh the qualified um a decision as opposed to accepting the negative is that it allowed us to come in with three different ideas. One cuts which is the painful piece try to minimize that to the best of our ability. The second one is funding shifts, which is what we're going to be discussing. That allows us to move expenditures that were in the unrestricted portion to more restricted, thus freeing up unrestricted and allowing us to do things like meeting the reserves that are mandated in the current year and also gives us a foundation for further years. So a combination of reductions and allowable shifts, we were able to reduce the earlier on projected deficit in 2526 of approximately 100 million to as of the last presentation about 50 million and we're we're still going. This improvement supported a qualified first interim report rather than a negative. Now earlier projections assume that all cost pressures and this is key. This is something we didn't discuss before that all the cost pressures were absorbed by the unrestricted funds. Our recommendation is that now and in the future we look at this differently. As

many pressures in the budget as possible adopted by the restricted in order for the unrestricted portion never again to fall into a situation uh of qualified or negative. That is that is the key of this presentation. In addition to that, we are looking at first globally the reductions, reallocations and opportunities that we're taking. And then each one of these we will go into slides where we see more details. Let me begin. The reductions in savings one time and one time means that we can benefit this year but we will not be able to continue benefiting because we're using monies that are either carryovers or unspent. Saves us about $8 million in the current year. And then ongoing we have about 12 million for a total of 20 million of reductions in savings. The reallocations and again using most restricted first one time about 18,500 in the current year about 4.9 million as we go into budgeting for for the subsequent year for a total of about 23 million. And finally, we have reallocations and reductions that will be detailed, but the total for 2526 is about 26.5 million, about 37 and a half for 2627 for a total of about $64 million so far. If you recall that first slide where we said that we had a 19 million and this is an early projection before first interim and then a $74 million deficit. This begins to address some of those issues especially as we come back to you with the attendance and what was actually spent at all the sites thus clarifying our balances. So this is another way of sharing the information from the current year. Remember that $19 million balance? That's your first bar chart. And when

you look at the second bar is the additional $8 million in shifts on the unrestricted. And when you go to the third one, you see $8.1 million in reductions from unrestricted. When you combine the three, it is the $35 million that we were looking at that will allow us to not only finish this year, but the 3% is approximately $29 million. So it allow us to finish second interim and begin to build a budget that will be structurally better for the future. Very important because as we come to the board with recommendations for budgeting, it is very important that we keep understanding that all the difficulty doesn't go away because in 2526 we are able to meet the obligations. It begins because we need to build the budgets for 2627 and the two subsequent years with a little bit of a different philosophy. So what are the spendings reductions in categories for 2526? Well, the board directed us to look at central office first. So you will see about twice as much reduction in central office as from schools. About 20% in supplementary and concentration operation funds, just about $3 million, about 20% in unspent dollars for staffing, that's about $1.4 million, and reduce unspent operation funding of about 1.9 million. Now you ask us to look at the sites for as little as possible. So it was about 10% in some categories only about 10% reduction in unspent based staffing. And that is good because those are dollars that because they were not spent they don't impact uh the staff that was already uh working and being paid. Then a 10% for base operations. That's about $74,000. And if you recall on the last presentation, we mentioned to you that one of the areas that we focus reductions for our sites were what we call the four, fives, and sixes. And those are material supplies to try to

avoid impacting employees to the best of our ability. And then we have a reduction of unspent supplementary concentration staffing, again with the focus of using our most restricted dollars of about $1.4 4 million or a total of $8 million in spending reductions in the current year. And that's what provides some of the allowances to meet the required balances. As we look at realignments, this is where we try very hard not to cut but to look at areas where we could fund from other categories. We are funding the small schools from supplementary and concentration that provides a benefit to the unrestricted portion of about $10 million and again it's one time at this point uh funding our student support professional development with discretionary block grant. The district has a variety of grants, some of which have discretion. And the important thing is to comply with the law to make sure that any expenditure that we make is compliant but at the same time that we use the most restricted dollars which at some point as we develop the budgets for the future you will see us saying something like we spent this with unrestricted in the past we want to use supplementary and concentration but because we want to keep the service from supplementary and concentration we will look for a more restricted source for that. So it's a cascading thing. It makes it very difficult to budget. It would be very easy board for directors if we just had made a 10% cut across the board, but a lot of people are impacted. A lot of our budgets are already spent. This forces us to look at the budget in detail, but it allows also not to make some of the drastic cuts that are made sometimes when the budget is in the deficit that we have had. We are looking at funding custodial expenses from

another grant. are expanded learning opportunities. That's about $2 million. Funding attendance specialists and noon supervisors from another block grant. And finally, funding allowable expenses to supplementary concentration to about half a million dollars for a total of $18,500. And again, this preserves staffing in a lot of areas that were funded with unrestricted. And now we have other ongoing sources that can maintain the staffing in a lot of our locations. Dr. S.

Thank you, Dr. Futos. Directors, I want to speak directly to what we've heard from the community throughout this process. You told us reduce central office management, prioritize cuts away from the classrooms, be transparent about what is changing and what it means. We listen. For every dollar reduced at school sites, we cut $2 from central office. That's 20% to 10 of 10% ratio you see reflected in these reductions. 53 FTE so far positions eliminated from central operations with central absorbing twice the impact of schools. But I need to be honest with you about what this means. Cuts at central office have real impacts on the experience at schools. Fewer people to process contracts. Slower response times for facilities requests. Reduced capacity for recruitment and hiring support. Less communications support for school websites and family engagement. The appendix to this presentation contains greater detail on these impacts by division. I know the board wants and deserves more spec specificity. and we will provide that on February 11th as we continue to analyze the full ramifications of these recommendations. But let me be clear about our approach. We know and understand that the human impact is of paramount importance. That's why we are triplechecking the math, validating our assumptions, and

ensuring our final recommendations are as accurate as possible. This is not work that's about rushing to get it done. This is work we're doing with great care because every number, every number represents a person, a colleague, family, someone who's dedicated their career to Oakland's children. Now, let me walk you through where we are in the overall implementation plan. You'll see this table shows our path our path to addressing the $102 million structural deficit. Let me just make sure you have the slide. We're on slide 16.

It's not advancing. Okay, there we are.

Thank you. You'll see this table shows our path to addressing the $102 million structural deficit identified in scenario three. We've identified over 50 million to date through the action we've actions we've discussed tonight and the adjustments Dr. Frutos just pre presented. But I need to be very clear about what this means. Last week when we said we reduced the deficit by half, that was not intended to suggest we've eliminated $50 million in expenses from this year's budget. What we've done is reduce the projected deficit by making decisions today that impact the compounding effects of tomorrow. As we said last week, $50 million is still a huge deficit. There will be more adjustments required to bring our spending in line with revenues. The work is not done. You'll notice several items marked under review in this table. You'll notice the school site budget reductions, special ed contributions, attendance improvement targets. These items require additional time because we must carefully consider state law, regulations, labor agreements. We need to determine not just if these actions are feasible, but in what final amounts and through what implementation process. We are approaching this work systematically, addressing the most straightforward adjustments first while continuing our research and analysis on more complex items. We're being conservative in our approach as we prepare for March 15th reduction notices while also continuing to refine our budget assumptions and multi-year

projections. Some of this work requires engagement. Some requires additional data. All of it requires care and precision because we understand the stakes for employees, for students, for families, and for this community. Our commitment is to provide, excuse me, our commitment is to provide you with recommendations that are legally sound, operationally feasible, and as minimally disruptive to student services as possible within our fiscal constraints. Now, Dr. Frutos will walk us through the specific reductions we've identified for 2026 27 and help us understand the ongoing structural adjustments required. Thank you. Um, as I mentioned before, um, it is apparent, at least to me, that the earlier projections, which by the way are helpful to us, assumed that the general fund, the unrestricted funds were to absorb uh the challenges that now appears to have overstated our structural deficit. So I want to be very clear, we continue to have a structural deficit and at the end of the year once we know finally what our attendance is, once we know what our ending balance, we will have as we build the budgets for next year still a structural deficit but much smaller than was uh reviewed in November, December by making some of the shifts and the implementations that I'm about to list. Um, we know that some services were already aligned to high need students and supplementary concentration, but we what we have done and we appreciate the board's allowance for some of these shifts is that some costs are eligible to be appropriately charged to restricted funding. So, that has been

key for some of the changes that we made. So, the central office reductions are about $21 million. And when we say on track, it means that we are making sure that everything is okay and is moving along. The school site budgets reductions between 7.5 and 10% which would total about 32 million is under review because as the superintendent said and the board has said, we're trying to keep cuts as far away from schools as possible. The central office reductions of about 15 20% as you saw from the prior slides, 20% for central, 10% for schools is on track reducing uh school access to unutilized spaces is on track after budget development. The second tier contract review is something that we're going to to continue reviewing. It's on track in the review, but we don't have yet an amount that we can bring you. So, this is the estimate savings that we believe we can generate and that'll happen a lot as we look at a variety of other elements in the budget. Um, decreasing our routine restricted maintenance expenditures will be about a million dollars and that is on track. increasing attendance by 2%. Uh I I can tell you the district has made an incredible effort to increase attendance. You have colleagues working at the sites. We have tried to improve our enrollment. We announce it. We advertise it. Our ratio of enrollment to attendance, which by the way is what brings us the funding. Uh we've tried to maintain it at around 90% or better. Our goal is to continue to improve. So that is an ongoing goal that we'll have now and in the future trying to improve our enrollment and more importantly for financial issues and for the provision of educational service our attendance. Um another area is the TK hub launch for two three hubs. Uh that's about a million five and it's on track centralized procurement for materials and services. You already saw us doing some of that where we're trying to realign what we call the four fives and

sixes. That will be determined. Fleet management also future savings is on track, but we will determine the amount. Shifting the attendance specialist and noon supervisors to supplementary and concentration is about $3.8 million. And as we indicated in the prior slide, that's been completed as well as shifting cost of small schools to supplementary and concentration. That's about eight.5 million. And that has been completed. The 10% reduction of contribution to special education is under review. And we want to be very very clear about that. In no way, shape or form, the intent is to reduce the services of special education. We have a variety of laws including maintenance of effort that tell us that we need to maintain services. However, there are a variety of services done outside, done by a variety of different agencies that we can review contracts and hopefully be able to implement some savings without negatively impacted provision of services. Which takes me to the last one, which is the feasibility study for non-public schools on our properties. And again, that will be determined and they work together and that is on track. The grand total is about $102 million. So this is still uh work to be done. When we say we are on track, we're continuing to do the work, but it does provide a platform where the budgetary process is not in a position where we can say we think we're going to be negative. We continue to believe that second interim will be qualified or better. And the intent of the entire team is to bring a 2627 budget that's balanced and certainly doesn't have the challenges that a negative certification would have including loss of control etc. As we look at the reductions to date and the budget building for 2627 there are two elements that are ongoing and the

important piece of the ongoing elements is that they will serve us not only in the present and in development for 2627 but in subsequent years. One of them is reduce unrestricted central office planning as the board had indicated originally in scenario one which was bundled into scenario three of about $10 million and a reduction in contribution to defer maintenance of about $2 million. Now that amount could fluctuate if the needs continue but because of the strong facilities investment we are hopeful that the two can work together to maintain some savings in that category. Now the funding realignments as we begin to develop budgetary um instruments for next year. This is how we correct some funding sources by aligning them uh to restricted funding. Funding the student support professional development with discretionary block grant although it's one time it's almost $5 million funding small schools uh with SNC that's ongoing and it's $9 million. That's something that if we continue year to year will be like not spending money out of unrestricted and yet providing the full service that we were providing before. Funding alternative education with supplementary and concentration a similar strategy of about 11 million and funding noon supervisors with supplementary and concentration it's about $640,000 or a total of about $25 million. number two components. One is to look at this year to make sure we finish this year solvent and the second is to make sure that as we build the budgets for future years including some of the interest that the board has indicated u that need to be included in the budget development all these elements will contribute to make that happen. And I wanted to mention uh as we look at impacts ongoing supplementary and concentration in our district is about $119 million and we have a carryover of

about 35 million. That's very good, very useful, very important because that aligns with the strategy of trying to free up unrestricted funding and using more restricted dollars first. However, we do have categories and this goes back to what I was mentioning on my second slide. there are categories that were being used um or funded with supplementary and concentration that because we are shifting unrestricted to that area we need to look at even more restricted areas or make some some reductions now it sounds complicated it might be uh a difficult process but I believe it's necessary because nobody has another solution or we've been able to resolve our problems before by doing something else so we either make significant cuts In this case, we want to protect school. Therefore, shifts are necessary. And we are open to any ideas because we've looked at the budget multiple times and that seems to be the least restrictive way that doesn't impact personnel or students. Dr.

Thank you, Dr. Fuks uh for walking us through those financial details and helping us understand the structural pressures we're managing particularly around supplemental and concentration funding. Directors, we've shown you tonight where we are, the progress we've made, the decisions we've implemented, and the work that remains. Now, let's walk through what comes next. Between now and um February 25th when you will take action on reduction in forths, we have extensive engagement process ahead of us. We've already met with our labor partners um in the in December and again this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll meet with our high school all city council uh at Castlemont and Friday we have our L Friday we have excuse me Saturday we will have our LCAP fishbowl engagement and next week our budget and finance committee. Uh there are many opportunities for organizations and community partners to give their input around the decisions that we're making. Thank you. And I'm going to ask um Tara Guard if you could come forward and go through our process going forward from this evening. Thank you.

Good evening board and community. Um I'm just want to talk about what we will be doing once the board votes on any budget reductions which would happen on February 25th. So at this board meeting, I would come forward with a list of positions that would be uh impacted by budget decisions and um this would be your decision at that point and after that we would start uh our bumping process. So we would notify employees by March 15th. Um, and what I would like to share with you is that our superintendent Sadler has u made it really clear that she wants to make sure that we are caring for our employees that are impacted in ways that we have not always been able to accomplish. And that is by reaching out to our neighboring districts and to our city to see if there were opportunities that we can support our employees to get to. Um looking at maybe current openings that maybe they were not um currently doing but might still be able to and working with our unions um to do that. So, uh, we will be focused on helping our employees through, uh, what we know will be a difficult moment.

Thank you, uh, Miss Cart.

And that concludes our, um, M Dr. Frutos, I'm sorry. Thank you. Um that concludes our um report for this evening. I want to highlight again in the appendix there's there are more details um connected to the presentation this evening and um we are prepared for questions at this point. President,

thank you. Um, we're going to go into public comment on this issue before we go into board comments. U, Mr. Ch, how many speakers are there? Yes, President Bhard, we currently have 27 speakers. Um, in order to hear everyone's comments, we're going to give uh speakers one minute each.

Call all the names of first five speakers. The first five speakers are Carol Delton, Laura Blair, Nicholas Bondov, Kokuch, and Claire G. Those are the first five speakers. Good evening board. Good evening, community. Good evening, union siblings. I'm here to speak about more about getting the fair contract and getting the actually bargaining dates that been uh requesting for more than few months. Uh every time we trying to get to meet we don't get respond at all. Uh I don't know what's going on. Uh we are going into our third month and our contract expiring on June 30th and we can't get anything done like that. I thought that unions and not just me, it's every other union behind me. It's the same issue and same kind of stand that they have in it. That's why you seen it all these people here because we can't get to the fair contract and to the table to sit and start negotiating fair wages for many people that they deserve to live in Oakuckland. As you know, it's really hard and many of my members are even behind me here. They don't live in Oakuckland. They stayed today away from their families to to come here, express themsel because this is being too long and we need to do something about this. Please take in consideration and please help us with this. We need start negotiating and bargaining for better wages. Thank you so much.

When we fight, My name is Nick. I also work for buildings and grounds. Um BTC team member. And um yeah, we just wanted to ask that you would just expedite contract negotiations that it doesn't take seven or eight months past when it's supposed to be done to finish it as it has in the past. And we just want a fair contract negotiations to at least start uh so we can get them done on time. Um same thing that Besa said. Thank you. Um, good evening board. Carol Delton speaking as an individual. Um, I submitted a number of questions in e comment. the gist of which was really that while I very much appreciate HYA's approach um that we need more clarity because there were certainly a number of of position reductions that were part of scenarios one and two. I'm not clear on whether the 52 are in addition or instead. Um when we talk about uh the amount of reductions I think that the 20% versus 10% um really reflects a lot of salary disparity. So please look at whether more managers who manage managers may be reduced so that we can keep some of the TSAs and other people who support at sites. The charter office is the same size that it was despite declining charter enrollment and despite a number of charter schools closing and that

could be downsized. I realize that my time is up so I will uh be happy to communicate my suggestions at other times. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please.

Hello board. My name is Phoebe Wen. I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also vice uh president of SEIU and I coming here to say that I can't believe we're still doing this. It's so tiring. I thought because we had such a hard time that was kind of like one off, but it's like over and over and over. So this isn't just it's it's just practice common practice around here. So the people that lose are the students, right?

And so if you're going to do a student centered budget, you have to look at the people who actually work with the students and you have to give them your time. There are people these positions that I guess slow walk everything. There's people that hold those positions. Hold those people accountable.

POWER. Hi y'all. My name is Claire Green. I coach teachers at Life Academy. And so I am keenly aware of their working conditions. I see teachers come in early in the morning and stay late at night every single day. And frankly, a 0% pay raise is an actual pay cut. It is frankly insulting. It's unacceptable. Our teachers can't live on that. And our students deserve better. Thank you. Next speaker.

Next speaker is online. Laura Blair, if you could unmute yourself to speak. Hello. Thank you. Uh my name is Laura Blair and I'm a Skyline parent. I am standing here with my two children and I'm also uh on the uh PTSA leadership. I'm here to ask the board to commit to keeping the violence prevention program and developing a comprehensive ch uh training program for the culture keepers and overall prioritizing violence prevention on campus in your budget process. Since the student on student shooting two months ago at the school, I have met with a variety of OSD staffers and respons uh people and responsible for security at this at in OSD and it is clear that there is while there is a lot of well-meaning people, there is a need to prioritize violence prevention in the schools and that that's not happening. There were missed opportunities for applying for federal grants when Biden was president. There are inefficiencies with the reporting mechanisms. And so as you prior as you continue this budget process, I ask that you prioritize violence prevention because your values are your budget and you need to prioritize violence prevention.

Thank you, speaker. Next five speakers are Lena S. Jasmine M Martin, Jazz R Castanza, and Malia. Those are the next five speakers.

If you heard your name called, if you could come to the DAS, I mean to the um podium. Hello, my name is Constansa. I am a taxpayer and resident of Oakland. I pay my taxes with the understanding that they are an investment in the kids of this community and their right to a decent education. But what I'm seeing right now is a betrayal of that investment. We we know we now know that the claims of a massive district deficit were exaggerated and the consequence is a real proposal to slash millions from our schools. We have 25 more senior administrators than a neighboring district of the same size. Meanwhile, barely half of every dollar we trust you with reaches our teachers. I pay taxes for that, for poor management. No, I pay taxes so that our kids can have stability. And who knows what these kids need more than the educators who are in their classrooms with them. Yet, their expertise in these negotiations continue to be ignored. And this isn't about numbers. This is about human impact. Every dollar that is misspent on bureaucracy is a teacher fighting tooth and nail to make up for the kids themselves. O USD that is shameful putting teachers in that position is impossible and they leave and for that US you O USD faces massive teacher turnover. So again every dollar misspent on these central office positions is a young person losing their footing. This is why we demand one that you reject these proposed cuts and two that you follow the leads of OEA's bargaining team and adopt a student center budget. Our kids deserve much better from you. Next speaker, please. Should I call the next five speakers?

Uh, yeah. Next five speakers are Snehi Lohani, Adv Mike Fletcher, Ma Matt Glasser, and Kimberly Mayfield. So, I didn't prepare anything tonight. Uh, Mike had to take off actually. My name is Steadus. I'm a business representative with Alama County Building Trades. Um, if the building trades are here, something's wrong.

And we just want you all to know that we've already submitted our sunshine letter. We've done all the formalities. And like brother Nick said, we don't want this to take six, seven, however many months to get to the table. Honestly, I've been doing labor rep work for about 14 15 years and that's beyond unacceptable from what I've seen. This is like an anomaly as far as I'm concerned.

And I want to say that the trades are here and supporting all of the other bargaining units that work here in the district and we're behind them 110% on everything that they're TRYING TO PUSH. SO, THAT BEING SAID, I HOPE YOU DO the right thing and get to the table quickly with us. Um, we'll see you there.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Kimberly Mayfield. I'm a former Oakland teacher, the incoming dean of the School of Education at St. Mary's College of California, the education policy co-chair of Black Women Organized for Political Action. Six weeks ago, many predicted chaos. Instead, we've seen steady leadership when staff presented an over$und00 million deficit. This board refused to panic. President Brohart asked the hard questions. Directors demanded independent verification rather than rushing into across the board cuts that have failed Oakland before. That prudence is paying off. Superintendent Satler hired one of the nation's most respected consulting firms and HYA confirmed both the urgency and the path forward reserves are restored and we're halfway there. Let's trust Dr. Satler's experience, make the necessary actions and keep our district solvent so we can serve our children.

Thank you, Dr. I'm Sneha, a community member living in West Oakland, my wife is a teacher in OSD and also a proud member of OEA. I have seen how hard she works for her students. In addition to having four 90inute classes a day, teachers in OSD come home and grade, plan, respond to parent emails or texts, review IEPs, all out of school. All unpaid labor that is just expected of them. On top of this, teachers have to figure out snacks because not all students come to school with their bellies full, raise funds to replace broken desks and chairs, and buy stationary. Educators are asking for a budget allocation that serves their and their students needs. Centering their needs in this decision is beyond reasonable. The district dishonestly inflating the budget deficit and asking the students and educators to pay the price for their mishandling of the budget is against the people of Oakland. It is a betrayal of our students and our families. Today, I urge you to pass a student centered budget that our educators are asking for.

Thank you. Next speaker. Hello board. Uh my name is Matt Glazer. I am a parent of two OSD students and a member of the PAC. Uh as I'm looking through all of this, this is an enormous undertaking. All of the details that were presented tonight take need to be looked at very closely by as many people as possible. We appreciate the detail. As we're looking at this, there are three questions that jump out at me that I really believe uh the board in particular needs to be very very aware of. Uh one of those is a is we need to have a focus on clarity regarding the cuts to supplemental and concentration including how we're going to maintain compliance when moving $55 million into SNC from the base fund. Uh and then also knowing what's actually being cut from the SNC fund. uh that that deta those details aren't currently very clear to anyone. I know that they're uh they're being worked on, but I encourage everybody to keep that in mind and very very close to mind as all of this plays out after this implementation. We still have $50 million in cuts to make and I think that that strategy to meet that need must be shared publicly as soon as possible. And then bluntly, if this is a strategy to buy time to implement a wider fundamental strategy, that needs to be said out loud by people at the district for the good of the community and the district. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Next five speakers are Swatcha Chandori, Asal Loalin, JD Wilson, Carrie Kaufman, and JT Mage Munchin. Those are next five speakers.

Good evening. My name is Su Chanduri. and the principal of Walkin Miller. But today, I stand here before you on behalf of elementary school principles across networks three, two, three, and four. We're writing to you in response to the one-page budget allocations recently shared with us. We understand the magnitude of the district's financial challenges included the including the projected deficit and have long anticipated that difficult decisions would be required. But at the same time, the consistent message is that we will maintain highquality schools. We are writing because there appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding embedded in the current approach to school funding and how we achieve high quality. The notion that the bare minimum required to operate a school is a teacher in each classroom, a principal and an administrative assistant and that anything beyond that is optional, extra or nice to have. As principles doing this work every day, we need to be very clear that assumption is incorrect. We, believe it or not, did not become principles because of a passion for building management, lunch duty, or operational troubleshooting. We stepped into these roles because we believe deeply in the power of education, because leadership matters, because instructional improvement is intentional work, and because students thrive when adults are able to lead, plan, reflect, and respond thoughtfully to their needs. Highquality schools do not happen by accident and they do not happen on endurance alone. Our charge as instructional leaders is to ensure that students feel seen, valued, and supported. And across Oakland schools, principles are working toward ambitious, necessary goals. None of this happens without adequate planning time, professional learning, instructional support staff, updated materials and technology, and opportunities for educators to collaborate as professionals. Just as teachers cannot provide differentiated

instruction without time to plan and analyze student work, principles cannot effectively lead schools and instruction without essential staffing. Therefore, we are asking the board to protect and fully fund the following essential roles and supports. Community school manager, teachers on special assignment, attendance clerks, stiff substitutes, noon supervisors. When funding decisions strip away these supports, the impact is immediate and real. Principles are left managing impossible trade-offs, teachers are asked to absorb more without the conditions needed to succeed, and students receive a diminished educational experience. This is not about discomfort or resistance to change. It is about integrity. We know what it takes to do this work well and we cannot pretend otherwise. We are committed to Oakland students. We show up every day ready to lead, to problem solve, and to shoulder responsibility. But we are not willing to quietly accept a system that repeatedly asks schools to do more with less while redefining adequacy downward. That approach erodess the dignity of our profession, undermines instructional leadership, and unconscionably compromises the quality of education our students receive. We ask that you listen closely to principles and school leaders as experts in this work. Preserving high-quality schools requires more than meeting the bare minimum for operations. It requires investing in the people, structures, and conditions that make meaningful learning possible. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, please. Good evening, board. Trying to stick to one minute. I got it. Okay. Thanks, Gary.

Um, Carrie Coffin, president of the United Administrators of Oakland Schools. We are still here waiting for clarity on the cuts and the impacts and time is ticking. We have heard that there is only 40 $50 million uh dollars needed in cuts, but that does seem ingenuous because the report and the presentation actually shows over $100 million in cuts. The 50 million number seems to ignore moving over 50 million in supplemental and concentration. That movement of supplemental and concentration is site and central staff that are being cut based on this. But those seem to be not called cuts. So it is very confusing. There's still been no clarity as to what the cuts are for central and how that will impact sites. This is and it only and because of this it makes it seem like sites are the only ones being cut because principles have received their one pagers. This has led to conversations. This has led to SSC SSC conversations and staff across almost all units will be receiving March 15th layoffs based on the information that we're receiving. These cuts to our site have been extreme where principles do not believe they can meet basic A to G requirements for their students. The cuts have significant impacts to our community school managers. These cuts have been made without consultation or input from any bargaining unit to my knowledge and we still have yet to hear a vision for students and learning behind these cuts. Thank you.

This will be our last speaker.

Um hi. Um, my name is J D Washen. I'm a parent of two seventh graders in the district. And first of all, I'd like to encourage everyone here tonight to pay attention to the LCAP reports. Um, every committee has uh been having ongoing discussions on the budget and we will be giving our feedback tonight um during our reports. Um, but I want to say that one of the goals of the district uh to keep us financially solvent is to increase the average daily attendance. And every parent I speak to is uh aware and concerned about that and wants to help support the district uh with that goal. But there will also be strikes and walkouts that will be necessary to build solidarity both locally and across the country. And we won't be afraid to participate in those. And we should think creativ creatively about how to build the movement using those important tactics while preserving the district's financing. Thank you. I understand there are more speakers. Um we're going to because of our time constraints tonight, we have a hearing that we do have to hear at Senator.

President Brohard, I'd like to move I'd like to move that we extend the time for public comment then because we know we had all of these people show up for this specific item. You only gave them one minute and I mean some of the names were even already called. So why don't we take another 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever necessary, and allow the community to speak on a plan that nobody's even seen before. If we do that, we will limit board comments because we'll have to end them by 7:35 to hear the vacation.

No, we don't have to end by 7:30. We don't have to by 7:30. Our meetings end at 11:00. So, let's be very straight about this. And a public hearing means it can start at that time or later. So, let's be very honest when we're speaking with the community. And it should be fine to allow people to speak. That's what they're here to do. And we're supposed to You're not taking their time. Director Hutchinson, again, we will extend if if the board would like to, we'll take a quick vote. Would people like to extend that vote? Point of point of information. How many more speakers are signed up? Madame President, the debate is out of order unless there is a second to the motion to extend the time. There isn't. Is there a motion to extend the time?

Second. Okay. is and who made the first I did. Point of information, how much time exactly are we voting for? Because you said 15 or 20. So is it 15 or So I was hoping that the president unilaterally would just allow people to speak. But if we want to play this game, I would like to move for enough time for everyone who signed up to at least get their limited one minute like they were promised. Dr. Hutchinson, you're taking time from that. We're just getting a check on how many more speakers there are. there approximately right now including the the one that hasn't spoken yet we have 12 speakers each speaker if you could

Madam President we need to determine whether or not there is a willingness for the board to have an extension of time by voting up or down president of vice I mean director Hutchinson's motion to extend the time and then it may or may not be in order right is there a vote Can we take a roll call to is to extend the time? All right. On the motion to extend the time for comment on physical stabilization implementation plan on the roll call. Student director Smith. I mean, yes. Smith. Yeah. Okay. Student director Simmons.

Yes. Director Lada. Yes. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson, yes. Director Barry, yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice President Basher, yes. President Prohart, yes. We'll now extend the time for motion's adopted. All right. Uh, one minute for each speaker and if you could really stick to that, that would be great. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um, hi. I was stepping up. Um, the document reflects protecting equity and priority prioritizing students. You haven't been doing that. Protecting equity for African-American students. You've completely relinquished reparation for black students. you now engaging in antilackness healing over at Fremont and other schools. That's not equity. When you have racism going on in your school district, you have favoritism going on. You have 20 administrative for new for newcomer students. You have newcomer schools. You have newcomer programs. You have newcomer curriculums. You have nothing for African-American students. And mimons is declining. That is not prioritizing students when you give to some and you don't give to other groups. So it's not about just the dollars. You can't say you are protecting everybody when you are biased and unprotective of AfricanAmerican students.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Okay. Hi, my name is Destin from Life Academy High School. Uh we are deeply concerned about the budget cuts because you guys don't know our school. You don't know our students and you don't know our culture. We have you have never been inside of our schools. You have never spoken to any of our students. And as a school board member, each and every one of you guys should be at the schools and districts you guys represent. Have you seen the amount of money being used for the schools versus the amount you guys asked for? Less than half of that money is being used for school resources. Where is the rest going? Is it being used for us? These cuts are taking away our teachers. We need our teachers. I have teachers in my school that are need teaching every nearly every high school grade because we don't have enough. These cuts are forcing teachers to buy their own supplies with their own money. Supplies that should be given to us by the school district. You guys need to be at our schools if you're going to represent us.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi board. My name is JT Mates Mushin. Um, I will speak briefly and I've spoken before um that the math isn't working for me with the student center budget and I think that there's a lot of harder harder work that needs to happen to figure out especially hearing the principal talk and the students talk and the teachers talk. I know that we want to keep all of our schools, but I think that with a community effort to figure out what is the best for our district as a whole, um, we can figure out how to make a budget and support our students and our teachers and our principles in a way that doesn't seem like we're going to get there with the budget that we are being presented right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening board and superintendent Sadler. My name is Kim Eys. I'm an OD parent in East Oakland. First, I just want to say how upsetting it is to feel how deeply broken the trust is within this community right now, as we could hear from the principles who spoke, from the teachers, and how I'm feeling as a parent right now. So, a word to any other parent who's listening right now. You are not crazy if this feels like this is not normal and this is not the way that a board should be operating, especially a board that operates with a nearly billion dollar budget. Think about the number of organizations that run a billion dollar budget and the way that they should be operating in terms of governance. I'm really upset about this because of how this affects our kids. when I was and also to other parents out there uh if I found it very difficult to find a speaker card tonight and so did other parents and my name was not called to speak so that's really concerning about what's happening here in this board and I want to say that when I was working as a server as a restaurant I learned a really important concept about getting stuck in the weeds this board is stuck in the weeds please a board that runs a billion dollar budget is supposed to be responsible for seeing the forest above the trees and you're stuck in the weeds. Please, if you are not capable of bringing a strategic vision and values to this organization, then you should not be on this board. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Uh hello board members. I want to start by thanking you. You did the right thing. You hired a superintendent you could trust and gave her clear priorities. You hired financial consultants who could be real with you about how to achieve those priorities. The presentation tonight makes one thing clear. You cannot have all of those priorities. The math does not math. You want to stabilize enrollment, but we're cutting three FTEEs from enrollment stabilization. You want more financial transparency, but you're cutting five FTEEs from the finance team. You want to protect students, but we're making massive cuts to schools. The people here tonight deserve raises and that isn't possible with the plan that we looked at tonight. I am sorry, but you need to make harder choices. Your list is too long. You need to be clear about which of these priorities are important to the community. And as a member of that community, I ask that you consider real restructuring. Let's stop protecting buildings over students. Good evening board. Oliver Brennan, parent of two students in no USD. The emperor's got no clues and she's got no plan either. At the last board meeting, you spent three hours spinning that our problem was $50 million lower than what it is. Untrue. The cuts are still $27 million this year, $12 next million dollars next year. And in that plan, you have outlined in a slide tonight that you still need to cut $55 million from a $120 million SNC budget. Half of the SNC budget needs to be cut to to make this plan. And another 10 million is going to come from a 2% increase in ADA enrollment. that really is not materializing. We already know

it's it's it's improving, but it's 10 times less than 2%. And if for whatever reason we have a five-day strike this year, that cost us 2.5% in enrollment. Our teachers are here behind us tonight. And I want to say to them, they're vital members of our community. But we won't get to a situation where we can pay those teachers properly and we can have properly resourced schools until we restructure our district. And we were planning to do it a year ago and you guys put it on a shelf. We need to get back to that. Thank you very much.

Go Ireland. Two Irish people in a row. Thank you board. Um I'm a school counselor at Frick United. and I have been there for over 10 years. Frick, as we know, is a high need school with a lot of students and families amongst the most marginalized, segregated, unhoused, unserved, yet resilient demographic in the USA combined with the highest levels of community violence. There we have approximately 350 375, it changes all the time, students at our school. I am the only school counselor. We have over 200 open cost service referrals currently and our population's crazy. That's the need that we have. Um I personally have provided supervision for over 40 school counseling interns and mental health interns. I'm a licensed clinician as well, but I don't get any compensation for that. and all those extra hours of liability. We need every I'm just representative of many people at Frick, hardworking people, and we need every single person at Fick. My position has been cut partially. And um by the way, with respect, for every $1 at schools, two at central, I have to question that. I mean, that doesn't that's kind of empty really. That doesn't mean anything. I see what we're all doing at AFIC and all the other schools. So, thank you for your time. Please do not accept this, not this, the budget. We're going to call the next five speakers. The next five speakers are Katherine Carter, Cassandra Lazardi, Judy Greenspan, Paige Irvine, and Ian Patton. Those are next five speakers.

And I know you were in the last batch of five, correct? Was your name called? The person who's at the podium now? I'm Cassandra. Okay. Thanks.

Hello. Hi. We have no color printer. We're at Frick. A guy you pay over $200,000 to walk around with a clipboard told me to beg my principal, ask my principal for a color printer, knowing full well that he had already said no even before these proposed cuts. I want each of you to admit that this country right now is exactly how you want it to be. You're not too different from the people in power. You're hiding numbers and you're lying in our faces. You've during times of a worsening inflation, you've decided to add onto the unemployment crisis. During a national crisis of shrinking resources and gross civil rights violations, you're choosing to fire case managers, social workers, and underpaid young workers entering the workforce. While our country suffers from an emergency of illiteracy and lack of critical thinking, you've chosen to fire some of this country's most passionate educators. You've completely disregarded your commitment as a sanctuary school district. And I wonder if any of you are going to come and walk these children to their bus stops and stand and replace me in front of the classroom and answer their questions about their civil rights.

Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Judy Greenspin. I'm a retired teacher who's now working as a substitute teacher at United for Success Academy. And I want to tell you that substitutes in the district are very much in favor of the struggle that all the teachers are going through right now. And we fully support all of the efforts that are happening right now to get a fair contract. It is just crazy that we're working without a contract. It's totally crazy also that the district who cared so much about substitute teachers during COVID is now just they don't really care about us anymore. They're will they're willing to throw us out the way they're basically throwing the teachers out. We have a very very serious situation. Over 600 teachers, educators, and family members came out tonight and demonstrated we don't want to have to do all this. We don't have the energy after teaching all day to do this. But we will because we're going to fight for fair compensation because teachers deserve to stay and live and teach in Oakland and it's up to you to find that money and to and to um get us a fair contract.

Thank you.

The last three speakers are Kim Ayer, George P. and Anna Utah.

Hello board. Hi Dr. Sadler. It's nice to see you. Uh my name is Ian Patton. I am the school counselor at Melrose Leadership Academy and I I just like this focus on dollars just really obscures the fact that this is actually a conversation about human lives. Uh I talk to people regularly who want to kill themselves, who are hurting themselves. I talked to kids who are worried that mom or dad is never going to come home because they get picked up by ICE. Like people are being murdered and abducted in our streets and this is the life that our kids are living in. Uh so a 10% reduction. What's that look like at MLA? Uh it's a reduction in my position. It's a reduction of our newcomer supports. It's a reduction of assistant an assistant principal position among other vital people. uh your your budgetary priorities have got to be in favor of student supports. Like we we cannot do this work. We cannot educate our kids if our kids are not okay. And my job is to help make it so kids can be okay to learn. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Adi Vn. Sorry, I had to step outside when you originally called on me, but um I live in Chinatown. Shout out to the educators in the room. Um I'm here to support the student centered budget advocated by OEA. The Trump administration has made it their mission to privatize public education, saying that it's time to break it down and rebuild it with market discipline. And it is so important for our district to reject this faright billionaire agenda and stand up for our public school families and educators. A key part of that is ending our over reliance on expensive outside contractors which drains funds that should go to hiring locally. Many of these contractors work remotely and some have even failed at providing legally mandated services like special ed which some of my family members need. Um, and you know, this report that the district just released makes it clear that it is possible. It is possible for OSD to pay educators proper family sustaining wages, reduce class sizes and case loads and more because our communities deserve safe, stable, and fully funded schools. Thank you. You next speaker.

Hello. Uh, my name is Jorge. I am an ethnic studies teacher at Oakland High School and I'm here to voice my support for a student centered budget. For too long, the district has continued to lie about not having the money for our students and yet we know that there's enough money for everyone to be paid a livable wage. Shout out to the SEIU brothers and sisters for winning a strong contract showing that we can also win. At our school at Oakland High, we're not getting any new freshman newcomers. And yet, our number of enrollments will stay the same and if not increase. That means that the teachers that currently teach newcomers like myself will have to decide be from having to work with extra work with no pay increase or having to find a new place to work outside of the district. If you want to keep the teachers in OSD, make sure that all students have a high quality equitable education, then you should support a student centered budget that the union has provided. It worked in San Diego with a bigger student enrollment size than ours, then we can do it, too. 80% of our budget to studentf facing staff. Period. Last year when there was a potential strike for May 1st, I showed up in front of all of you to say that we did not want to strike, but we will if you give us no other choice. And I am now here again to say the same. If you don't want to see us strike, support our student centered budget. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Sheila Haynes. If you can unmute yourself to speak, Miss Haynes, give us one moment. Yeah, go ahead. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Hi, thank you. Um, I appreciate Superintendent Saddler always and have much faith in the superintendent for getting us to this point. Um, but I am confused because you say that you're keeping cuts away from special education services, but I thought I just heard Dr. Frutotos say 10% cuts to special education. So, I'm still not clear on the impact and what exactly is being cut. Um, as you know, I do have a resolution for music and hate speech, and I hadn't been asking for this, but I'm asking for no more cuts to arts and music education since you've already taken a million in cuts. The needs of our students and special education are severe for many like my son who's been learning online for six years. Funding for the arts is a definite pathway for our most vulnerable students to gain skills in many areas of their development. Um, as I said before, I'm at least grateful and very thankful for the ongoing commitment to no hate speech. um as a huge part of violence prevention and with the defunding of services everywhere. I'm hoping that we're moving towards an official ban on hate speech because our students and staff and communities as well as you board leaderships. Everyone deserves fair and equal treatment with respect and up under any cuts that's going to happen, there must be respect first and foremost. But I'm hoping for a real clear picture and clarification on what's actually being cut and what the impact's going to be. and um thank you for your ongoing work. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh that concludes public comments. I don't believe there are any more speakers. No, President Bruha, that include all the um register speakers.

Okay. Uh we'll now take board comments and I'm going to start with the student directors. Um, Wagwan, how are you guys doing? Um, I would say my my biggest takeaways from this report honestly would just be suggestions. Um, I'm big in restorative justice. A lot of students love restorative justice. Um, and they look forward to it every day. Um, that's definitely a priority for me. mental health support for students. We heard a lot of people in the audience talking about ICE. It is an increasing problem for the amount of time that it's been around. So, mental health support, supporting students in a time of need and a time of angst and a time of sadness and a time of confusion. um just giving making sure that we give resources to students where they can be successful. That's really my biggest suggestion for the budget. Um whatever you guys do, just give resources to the students where they can feel like students. Make sure you give resources to students where they can feel like, you know, just a a kid. people around them that support them. You know what I mean? So, just keep students at the front of your mind while you're doing this. We hear a lot of stuff around,

you know, curating the budget wholly to the students, which isn't something that we're going to be able to do. And I know for a fact we're not going to be able to do this. So throughout you guys's entire course of planning for this budget and curating a budget that's going to reflect the values that we have as a district. Try your hardest to put as many resources as you can into the programs and into the already existing resources that we have that we are seeing and that we have tangible evidence that are working. you know, get and you know, that's partly on us as student directors to have students show up, but get tangible accounts um get verbal accounts from students on what programs are really working, what programs are making them feel supported, what programs are allowing them to show up at school even when they don't want to, you know? So, just keep all I would say just keep all that in mind as you're building this new budget and trying to get rid of the existing problems outside.

Director Smith.

Um, Director Barry. Yeah, I don't know if we have time for answers, so I'll just make comments and questions, but we can address them when it makes sense to. My first question is a bit responsive to some of the public comment that we heard. So, uh I know that I've asked this before, but one of my concerns is that if we continue, we made $50 million worth of cuts last year. for that's on the table again for us this year um and next year. And if we continue to make cuts apart from a vision for teaching and learning, my fear is that we're going to end up with this fragmented education system. And Dr. Dr. Sadler, you spoke a bit about this earlier and I think it it is probably worth the public hearing sort of like how you're thinking about your vision for teaching and learning driving some of the decision making because it's not just about us meeting the financial bottom line. That's my first question. The second is I was excited to hear earlier in the 2 by two about um the that it's on your radar to do multi-year budgeting. And one of the questions that I left with was what the plan and the process is leading up to that and if any of the what we're doing right now is setting us up for that and if there are milestones that you can share perhaps mapped to timeline that I think would be helpful to scope right now. And then my last question is can you for that I think it's slide 18 explain what happens for the cost that are not able to move into a restricted

resource what's the plan for that so after we move money into SNC and that displaces cost the plan is to hopefully resource some some of that through restricted but then they're going to there. I'm assuming there will be dollars that we won't be able to to account that way. And so then what happens and what's the plan and and will we be set up in terms of timeline um uh to respond to that if and when there are millions of dollars that we have to account? I think that's it.

Thank you, Director Williams. seconds. Do you want to reset? Yeah.

Um, thank you, uh, President Brohard. Just I was just asking to see if, uh, the gentleman can put up a slide for us on, um, slide number, um, slide number five. Number five. Slide number five. I just want to I just want to take some time to look at this at slide number five. Slide number five. This is incredible. This really is incredible for us, all of us in this room, because really we come to this moment to say the board needs to do better. And I agree with you. We have to get our controls, our spending intact and we have to really manage this budget. When you look at that slide, there's no management of the budget. This board is here to actually fix the problem that was created a few years ago. We're here to fix the problem. We didn't create the problem. And I just want to show you the receipts right here. When you're upset at what's going on today, we know that it started a couple years ago. When this board came here, we actually cut a hundred million in March. And in December, we had to cut another hundred million. And I want to thank Dr. Sadler for bringing a team in to help us shave some of that hundred million down to $50 million. It cost us $50 million less is what has

cost us. $50 million less. Well, whatever it cost, it was $50 million less on the money that we have to cut. So we're moving in a place where actually we are moving forward and we do and I do hear you. I think there are some things that we have to get into some difficult conversations and the first thing of that difficult conversations is making sure our kids are taken care of. Every day our Oakland families and educators and communities show up with love. They show up with love for our kids, our community, and for each other. And we have to continue to show up with love in that aspect. It's easy to tear folks down. It is really easy to tear it down. But can we show up with love? Can we show up with a commitment for our kids? Can we know that our teachers go above and beyond? So I just say that we really have to allow the superintendent to do her job. Allow her to actually move this process forward. She was given a hand that was created previously and trying to fix it. It's going to be difficult. But the thing about it is let's get together and move with love and support our kids. If we if we cut teachers, cut administrators, cut staff, we have nobody left at the school. So now we're getting to this place that we're pointing fingers at each other. And we have to actually re slow back, pull back, and actually think through this process. So I I can tell you it's way easier to point and tell people what they're not doing than actually get involved and do

something about it. So, let's actually work together. She's going to come with some other Oh, is my time up? Yeah, your time's up. She's coming up with some plans and see what else we bring to the table. And I'm okay with that. I stand with that. I stand with my labor partners. I stand with my classified. I stand with my teachers. Let's keep that. Put the money in the classroom. Oh, sorry. That's all right. That's a good way to end. Thank you, uh, Director Lada.

Yeah. Um, so a couple of um quick questions. I'll um also just put some questions out that I think we'll have answers for. Um the first thing I just want to say is that I also had had some questions about the slide about shifting from the 55.8 million. I do think that um I understand that that means that there are some things that will go into other areas that we have balances for like educator effectiveness, learning recovery, but that there are some things that will sunset some things that um we won't continue to invest in. And I do think a good we should be clear about that. So, I just pulled up this slide 12 because I thought it was a very good example of how the things that we're doing, the shifts, the reductions add back up to an an end result because I know I have been very uh I have been pushed for at least a qualified budget since I joined the board and the reserve was very important to me and I think this is a good explanation for the community of how the work that you've you've undertaken and your team has under undertaken has rebuilt that reserve and stabilized the district because it is true that if we had accepted the negative certification that would have been us going back into receiverhip we would have lost local control. Um so I think this is great. I would love to see more of this um when we talk about what the shifts are in SNC. I also think when we talk about the I understand why people are confused about the 50 and a hundred because we are getting a hundred million over $13 million of cuts presented to us. My anticipation is that through community listening sessions we'll adopt a final package that may also be more than 50 because we may need we will want to make as everyone's echoed the whole community wants to ensure that our educators and staff working with our kids are getting a raise that's appropriate and within our means. So just for clarification

then we'll ask you this question Dr. Sadler is so we pushed the D or you know your recommendation is that we don't adopt a full plan until February 25th and that will get is that correct and that will mean that then community and the board will have a chance to prioritize within the options and then um make changes by February 25th. Is that correct? Yes, that's what the engagement is all about. And also there'll be additional specific information February 11th at the board meeting. Okay.

But the that the date that you would take action in in terms of meeting the other requirements, the March 15th requirements would be required that you make a decision on February 25th at the latest. Yeah. And I also just want to say for um you know, as a parent myself or the public um the one pagers are also based on the $103 million of cuts. So, you know, we obviously, you know, as many people have said, we can't fund everything, and I don't want to make any promises, but I also just want to make that clear that we're moving forward with 103 and that hopefully we can return some based on what we find in second interim. Thanks. You uh Director Hutchinson,

thank you. Um, I'm a proud graduate of Oakland public schools. My mom was a teacher in Oakland for 40 years. My partner, who is an Oakland teacher, is home now with my newborn baby. My family is O USD through and through. I've been coming to board meetings since before my mom even had me. One thing I can't stand, and it's been a while since we've really had this problem, but one thing I can't stand is being lied to. So, y'all are being lied to right now. And these lies have actually been going on for quite a while from some people. The structural deficit, our projected deficit for next school year is over hund00 million. That's what it's been. That's what the county and the state have certified. That's what we know. But last week, people on this dis decided to just start telling people no, it's only 50 million. A bold-faced lie. And if you read their own document, they again in this document being presented tonight alternate between calling it 2 and 103 million. They snitched on themselves in their own report. Now, we have no CBO right now in the district and haven't had a CBO since December. And instead, this board and superintendent, who have railed against outside consultants and outside contracts, have spent $400,000 to hire consultants from Southern California and pay them $400 an hour to come and tell us what we need to do. The county letter that we received last week, what they actually said is, "It doesn't matter what you title it, qualified or negative. We are in a financial crisis and we must address a hund00 million shortfall in next year's budget.

Until we address that shortfall, there is no money to offer any of our labor partners. Once we address the shortfall, then we'll have to make additional cuts in order to give raises to our labor partners. This plan only identified $12 million in reductions off of next year's budget. They can spin it any way they want. But it was clear on the document, $12 million out of the over hund00 million. If we don't pass a balanced budget in June, we're being taken over. And lastly, last week, one pagers went out to my schools informing people that they were losing staff for next year. I don't know who made those projections. I don't know where those new staffing levels came from. When I asked the superintendent, I got no answer. And they aren't reflected in any of the documents that we see here. We have a hund00 million structural deficit. We were promised last week that we would have a fiscal solveny plan presented before us today and we get this dog and pony show. So, I warned the superintendent that if that plan wasn't delivered like was promised, I'm going to publicly call for resignations. This is unacceptable that on October 8th we were supposed to approve recommendations that would have led to options to choose from. And here we are at the end of January and there's still not a plan which means we won't be able to issue the kind of March 15th letters that we need to issue in order to change staffing for next year in order to pass a balanced budget which means we will be taken over automatically. That's our situation. So for everyone who doesn't like consultants, why do you let them hire outside consultants to come tell us what our finances are

while we're still paying our CBO just like they forced out our superintendent? I'm really disappointed that people are going along with this. But people should ask why is the school board that contains a CTA regional director, why have they not made any money available to give any raise to OEA? Because the school board's in charge. Hutchinson of our finances and of making every offer. And since you all walked on my house twice in 2023, I expect some real outrage at the board that is doing this to us. That is our situation. And if anyone tells you differently, they are not telling you the truth. Thank you, Director Vice President Bachelin.

Thank you. Um, I want to first start off with some appreciations. I want to appreciate the community members who are here tonight, the folks that are online and the folks that will be watching this recording. Um, I also want to appreciate our superintendent, senior leadership team and the fiscal adviserss for the work that they have done so far and the fidelity they have um um that they have uh taken our direction in. Um, and I look forward to ensuring that our direction is thoroughly followed throughout this entire process. Um, and lastly, I want to appreciate the engagements I've already had so far with students, staff, and school communities, and I look forward to continuing those conversations over the next few weeks to fine-tune what my decision will be um, in the vote that I will take. I also want to name some frictions that I'm hearing from public comment as well as from those conversations. Planning time is vital for every school site. So we must make clear decisions guided by our priorities in a timely manner so that school leaders and families can have a strong start to the 2627 school year. We also must ensure the safety of our students at our school sites and that means maintaining the investments that we have made in our safety teams and working together with our city partners. And I see council member Gao here tonight as well. And so it's again maintaining the department of violence prevention supports that the city is providing us as well as any other investments that we're working on with the city and the county. And as was stated many times tonight, we need to ensure that our attendance teams stay as whole as possible to make sure that our students are not only attending but they are getting um the education emotional supports that they need. And I really really want to appreciate the time and attend and and the time and getting folks together by the

continuation principles and the principal of Sir Jenner truth. They met with director Burhart and I and again emphasized the critical need for full-time attendance teams to support students and families. And I know this is not only a need in our continuation programs. This is a need throughout the district and this must be a priority. Now, once again, thank you. Once again, this is a process. We have begun this process by voting for scenario three, which again, the superintendent has now brought forward to us, which called for $und00 million worth of reductions. That's what was presented here tonight. We will again continue to have these conversations at subsequent board meetings. And again, I encourage school communities in my district to reach out to me, to have school site meetings, to have conversations around this. We had a great meeting at Skyline the other day, and I want to continue to have those conversations throughout the district to make sure that folks um understand and know and we hear your voices throughout this process. Um, and lastly, I want to just end with my concern around the reduction of deferred maintenance. As the facilities chair, I see every single day the needs of our school sites regarding facilities and I do not want to make those types of reductions and literally tying the hands of our buildings and grounds team as they're trying to service our school communities. So, I want to encourage us to think about every single reduction that we're seeing here today and the impact that each of these reductions is going to have in our school communities. Thank you. I too have been in Oakland Unified for a long time, although originally I am from Southern California. Um, my children went to Oakland schools. My daughter teaches in an Oakland school and I taught for 27 years in an Oakland school. In the time

that I've been in the district, I have suffered through inclarities with the budget. I think as all teachers were speaking tonight, we have gone through periods where we didn't know if we were going to get raises or not. We couldn't see a budget that was clearly explained to us. And I want to really thank Dr. Sadler for beginning that process. And I think like Vice President Bachelor said, this is a process. And I think out of this process, messy as it is right now, that we'll have clarity on where we are spending our money and we'll have clarity as a board, but more importantly, our families and students will have clarity for the years to come. I heard loud and clear from our labor partners, all of them, the need to focus our our our cuts on central office and to continue to deeply support our sites. I have never been a principal, but I know that the work is is hard, is long, it's complicated. They're asked to do many things. And I think when we build our school communities, we build them with our principles, our community service managers, our case managers, our teachers, our support staff, our attendance clerks, our office managers, and our families and our students. And that is who we serve. I think that again as the people have also said our strategies need to be clear and I I I want to thank Dr. Frutos and Dr. Kirk Carter. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Oh, just regular. Okay. Um again for helping us through this process. I think that it would have been extremely difficult to go through this without outside eyes. So again I Dr. Sadler has my full support and I again want to support our labor partners as

well and supporting our school sites. So, thank you very much. And with that, that concludes board comments. I'd like to move a second round of board comment so we can actually go into this. Again, this is the biggest issue. You can just move it. That's okay. Is there a second? This is the biggest issue we have to face. I don't know why this is where we're limiting. Is there a second? That's all we need to do. You've moved it. Is there a second? Second. Okay, Mr. Rexar, can we have a vote, please? On the motion to extend bait board debate time of the financial item. Student director Simmons abstain. Student director Smith,

yes. Director Lada, yes. Director Williams, yes. Director Hutchinson, yes. Director Barry, yes. Director Thompson's absent. Vice President Bachelor, no. President Barhard, no. Motion's adopted. Times extended.

Okay, we'll have three minutes each. Again, um, take what you need, but let's please not go over the limit. And this time, I'll start with Director Williams. Thank you. So once again, I think we're at a place where um our budget should reflect our values and investments in our kids. I think we really understand that. The question for me is um are we going to close schools? Are we going to focus on actually getting uh our budget under in hand. What we're talking about is for the last couple years we've been spending more than we take in. Once we reduce that back, we will have cash flow. We will be able to move the money into the classrooms. I I think that having a deficit for us to solve is uh is important but I think we also got to keep in mind that we cannot reduce our our case managers. We can't cut our programs for AA or AAF LSA or APIA. Those are vital programs that we really have to continue to to invest in to strengthen our schools. I think that really where we are is we have a couple opportunities again with our communities to engage this budget to strengthen our schools and strengthen our teacher retaining retention and invest in our stable and uh our special ed and mental health staff.

I think uh when we look at our budget, I just don't want I don't want our our our community to be uh misled in the wrong direction. I think we just need to like really work together and have these conversations. this is the time to record it and take it take note of it and hold the superintendent accountable to moving forward. Thank you. Director Lada, no comments. Director Barry,

no comments, but if there is an a readymade answer for any of the questions that came up, then I would appreciate responses. But no pressure. Director Hutchinson, three minutes, please. Director Barry, did you mean now in your three minutes and answer to those questions?

The superintendent is waiting for all the questions and then we'll have answers to those at the end. Well, point point of clarification then. When is that going to come? Because before we went to a second round, you were going to move on. So I heard director Barry request an answer to her questions in her time. Everyone else gets their questions answered in their time. This would be the appropriate time to do that right now. I would I assume that's what director

minutes. Can you have your comments, please? And then we'll we're going to answer the questions at the end of it. Thank you. You know, again, we we were not supposed to be in this situation. Um, on October 8th, leading up to October 8th, both Superintendent Sadler and County Superintendent Castro informed the board that we needed to make a set of recommendations for solutions to address the budgetary shortfall in this year and next year. This board failed to do that. failed to do that and take any action. If that would have happened at that time, then staff would have fully developed a list of options of everything under the sun that we could possibly look at. Then in November and December, the board would have looked at all of those options and be able to choose which ones made the most sense. But that's not what happened. And now we've lost our CBO on top of it. And so could we please put up uh page number five again which director Williams brought up before? Now page five. It was interesting to have one of my colleagues bring up uh slide on page five because what it showed clearly is when the bar graph starts to go down are the same years that this board took over and took control. That steep decline, that's what we've experienced here with this board in charge. If we could please turn to uh page 11. This page shows the sum total of the work that's been done on our budget. As we can see, under 2627 for reductions, there's only $12 million in ongoing reductions. That's all they've done to close the $und00 million structural deficit for next year. Underneath that, there's $25 million that are being moved around in different restricted funds.

Even taking their numbers, which there's no justification for, this plan is $60 million short. Could we please turn to page 19? This page has an explanation of what's happening with the SNC strategy. And if you read in the bubble, it says this means combined $55 million plus of currently budgeted SNC investments will need to be reduced going forward. That's not a strategy. That's a shell game. I don't even need to go through any of the other pages in here. This is like the bad old days, y'all. I can't believe people are accepting this as work from consultants. We're giving $400,000 and paying $400 an hour. And they had a nerve last week to send out a press release to say the deficit's only 50 million. But see, this has been a setup for all along because the school board that claims to be close with OEA engineered the finances so there's no money to offer OEA a raise. That's why there's been no offer. and they have the votes. They could vote to offer OEA money at any point because they have the votes. So why haven't they done that? Why are we in this situation when we just left receiverhip in June and I challenge everyone to go read the fiscal systems audit which we had to pass to get out of receiverhip after 22 years.

Thank you. Which was a gold standard from the accountants that signed off on all of our practices. And here we are seven months later and people can't even tell the truth. I don't know what they know in their heads. I don't do intent. But please check the actions. Demand a whole lot better. And what happens in a month when we are locked into our staffing levels and insolveny is unavoidable. Thank you, Director Hutchinson. Thank you.

I have no further comments. Board directors. Director Simmons. Um, so based off of everything that's been going on tonight, everything that's just been going on throughout the year with the budget, I think that it's safe to say that being performative is something that we cannot do at this time in our district. It would not help improve these classrooms and we need you guys to really focus and make the decisions that need to be made. My expectations moving forward is that the board reaches out to students and staff to see what they actually need to see prioritized in the board because like we have all seen and heard before, students are not going to be able to strive without the student-f facing positions. As student director, I have been told that my voice matters. But when I reach out to board directors or other adult decision makers, I have been left in the dark with no further meetups, no locations, nothing. And that's a a lot of students face that as well when they try to share their ideas. I've learned that in this position, you have to be proactive to see the change that you want to see. And like director Simmons mentioned before, we do take responsibility of ensuring that students are being updated on what's going on and they're able to project their concerns. But as the adults in power, you're the one that makes the decisions. And you have to pay attention and stop making empty threats to our students, to our community, to our families, because we're clearly out of time and we're nowhere near agreement as a board. So, we need to get this done. Get something fixed. Seriously. Thank you. And with that, we will close board comments and we're going to adjust the schedule a little bit more tonight. I know that this has gone a little bit later and I know that both the students need to get home and our PAC representatives need to on. So, we're going to do the student

report next and following that we'll do PC. Back. Well, good evening community board and interim superintendent. Um during our report tonight, we're going to go over some ACC updates, which is our middle school report back and the upcoming high school meeting. And then we're going to go into some community events.

Wan. Um, so we had our third middle school meeting of the year of the school year. 10 schools attended, 50 students, which is a lot of students by the way. We um I've been going to these middle school meetings for a while now since I was in middle school. Actually, I'm a senior now. Um, but 50 students is a lot of students to show up at these meetings, which is a phenomenal thing. I think our student engagement specialist is doing a great job at just outreaching and getting more middle schools to continue showing up and more middle schools to continue showing up to these spaces because again, every time I go over these middle school meetings, I have to I have to continue to preach that this is where these are the spaces where I came up. These are the spaces where I got into advocacy and I got into leadership and I began to find my voice and the power that I had to speak and to represent students. So these are the schools that showed up to our meeting. Um it was a good meeting. It was a very good meeting. We did a lot of planning for our upcoming middle school ethnic studies conference. Um, I'll tell you guys a little about that in a minute, but we did a lot of planning. Um, we did a lot of workshops and that was kind of the gist of our meeting, just a lot of planning for this upcoming middle school ethnic studies conference because if you because if you didn't know, the middle schoolers plan the entire ethnic studies conference. They plan the entire thing from the program to the games we're going to play to the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony. They plan the

entire thing. We just kind of all city council we just kind of clean it up a little bit when they're done with it. But they do all the work. So it was phenomenal. Edner Brewer did a great job hosting the space. They did a great job just providing us with good spaces for workshops. So, it was a good meeting. I had a great time and I love the middle school as always. But like you see on the slide, save the date. Middle school ethnic studies conference. It's coming in March. I hope I got that right cuz I I I really shouldn't have to look at the screen, but it's coming at March. It's coming It's coming in March. This is our 28th annual middle school ethnic studies conference. So, that means it's been going on since the '9s. That's a long time. Um, but these this this is an amazing space. So, if you have a middle schooler, if you have a little brother, if you have a niece, if you have a nephew, please please send them to this conference. This was the first conference that I ever MCed at. This is one of the conferences that also helped me find my voice and helped me find the passion that I have today. So, I would say if you're a teacher, if you are a social worker, anything, if you're connected to any students, any OSD middle schoolers, send them here. Send them our way. We're going to take good care of them. They're going to be in they're going to be in some great workshops. They're going to be they're going to have a load of fun. They're going to eat good food and they're going to learn a lot of good stuff. So, I would really recommend this workshop and this and this conference for you guys to send your middle schoolers.

Okay. So, tomorrow we are hosting our third ACC meeting. It's our high school meeting and it's going to be at Castlemont from 11 to 2. At the meeting, we're going to build on our conversation that we had about the budget where Troy Christmas came and gave a presentation on where the budget is right now and how OSD is doing. We're going to do an activity called build a budget and basically they're going to be given their own district and they have to you know put the funds towards everything and see how hard it is for the board members to make these decisions. And then we're going to go into our priorities which for a reminder is career exploration, inclusivity, and nutrition. So community events. So help a teacher out. Um, if you guys have been coming to some of the meetings or if you guys been following, um, I work with Mayor Barbye and I have a team called the Youth Divi called the called Mayor Barley's Youth Advisory Council in the mayor's office where we're spearheading an initiative called Help a Teacher Out where we're helping teachers out in Oakland. We're supplying OSD teacher classrooms with essential classroom supplies. It's all funded from the community and it all comes from the community. Since August, we've been able to raise enough supplies to supply over 300 classrooms in OSD. We've been to three schools so far and we're going to our fourth in February. We raised over $8,000. In in January, we raised $1,400 for Global Family Elementary. So, if you would like to donate, and I better see some phones come out right now. So, if you would like to donate, there's a QR code up there to donate to the cause. It'll bring you to a to a GoFundMe page, and all of all of the proceeds go towards these schools. It's underresourced schools. We curate with

the schools to find a a wish list that's best for them. We see what supplies are you lacking, what supplies do you not have in your classroom, what supplies do you do have, and then we go out and we fund raise. We hold fun fundraisers. We do free community workouts. We're doing free workshops. We're doing an art. So, if you have a kid and you're a parent, we're going to do a art workshop next month and we're going to do another art workshop with the Crucible in March. We're doing we're doing stuff with the roots. We're doing stuff with the ballers. We're just doing fun fundraisers and fun community events to come out so we can let you have a good time and then we could open up your pockets so you guys could donate to the teachers in Oakland. But we want y'all to have a good time first. But yes, this this initiative has been so great throughout this year. So if you like to donate and if you like to help out Oakland teachers, if you're a teacher yourself, this is a good way to help out Oakland teachers. Okay, so upcoming in February, there's the Oakland Chinatown parade. I'm sure that it's a all day event, but we are urging students to be vendors or just a youth volunteer. If anyone's interested, please have your students sign up using the QR codes. Whether they want to be a vendor, share their businesses, or they just want to volunteer and help the community out, please scan the QR code and let us know. Again, that's February 28th and it's on a Saturday. That concludes our report of tonight. Thank you all. With that, we will take uh public comment. Are there any speakers on this item? We have, excuse me, we have three speakers. They are Sar Olabalan, Holly Whisk, and Mitcho Jeder.

Uh, one minute each, please. Okay. I'm going to try to make this in my minute. Um, so yeah. So, it's been some time that we have been up to the mic. Um, and when when a microphone is in front of me, I, you know, take it as an opportunity to be a comedian. So, I'm going to tell some jokes, starting with layoffs, student facing cuts, and delaying labor units from bargaining. And the biggest joke of all is expecting this entire system to operate as if the constant cuts have no impact on the quality of care we as staff can provide to our students. and our staff and school communities. So, SEIU is here today to stand in support of our members and in solidarity of our fellow labor partners in calling for a student- centered budget. We are also here to speak in support of OEA and BCTC in their fight for a fair and well-deserved contract. The delay in their right to bargain but to right to bargain is uh it must stop. If you truly want to support our students, you will support a student- centered budget and you will support labor. And um I do hope that we all all of our labor partners can get their wage increases so that way we can donate to support our classrooms and hopefully we don't even need to do that. Hopefully we just have properly funded schools and services. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker please.

And we also have Sheila Haynes that's online. Hello, my name is Michelle Jeter. I am the president of Ask Me. I want to say thank you for the work that you've been doing, Miss Saddler and the board. Um, you guys were handed this mess and you're trying to fix it. All that we request is that you get in there and look word for word and fix it. And don't let someone tell us what we need to do. You look and make sure that's what we need to do. That's number one. Number two, as Mr. Hutcherson gladly wanted to represent, he handed us this mess also. So, while he's throwing all that out there, he handed us this mess, too. So, while he's sitting there telling it, he should have told it when he was up here handing you guys this mess. So, while everybody think that that was okay, good job. Okay, now get in there and fix the job you made. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Jeter. Next speaker, please. I just wanted to share with you that last Thursday at the police commission meeting uh the police department announced that PG&E and Kaiser has given them $900,000 to restart the cadet program uh for young people 17 and up to start the process of learning how to go into the police department eventually. I I reminded them I don't know if that would be very challenging for OSD because of the George Floyd resolution. Uh so you guys need to discuss uh members of the board uh and inform or the police department if you will be consolidatory to work with them on this cadet program. And lastly, uh I still need to see you start the process of convincing your fellow students that the phones that have to be locked up, taken away, put away that they have to cooperate on that because that's going to be very challenging. But it won't be as bad if you start them convincing it needs to happen. It's going to be a difficult thing when we start this next year. It's mandatory by the state that we have to do this.

Thank you. Are there any board comments? Director Lada, President have M Haynes online. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Miss Haynes. Miss Haynes, if you can unmute yourself, Miss H, can you hear us? if you could unmute yourself to speak. President Bhard, I'm not hearing Miss Haynes. Uh board comments, Director Williams.

Yeah, I just want to thank uh work. Thank you for the work you're doing. I'll check you out tomorrow, see what's going on. Want to roll on through there. So, bring your peoples ready to do something. And u think there's uh just really glad to see your growth, see what you move in, and uh you know, support it. So, uh just thank you. Keep fighting for the other folks, but I'm going to come through tomorrow and see what we can do. Thank you, Vice President Bachelor.

Uh thanks again for the report and um appreciate you also uplifting the ethnic studies conference. I have it on my calendar now and I will try to attend. And I also really am excited that you all will be in district six uh which is where Nor Eastern is located. Um I also wanted to um talk about a couple of other events that are going on um throughout the district. So uh the MLK ortorials are happening throughout our district. That is a wonderful way for our students to do some of the things that director Simmons was talking about. get up in front of an audience, share uh their experience, and share their poetry, their music, their connection to um MLK. So, I will be going to the MLK performances at Monk on the 30th, which I'm really excited about. This is the second year I will be a judge for those performances. Um I'm also proud to say that through the work of um uh what is it? Uh Dr. uh Gathers uh and uh Dr. Sadler. Uh the Deltas are going to be adopting Burkhalter for the next school year and they will be donating and contributing to uh the great work that's happening there. If you haven't driven by and watched the amazing murals and the turf come to life on that campus, feel free to do so. It is right off of the exit, the Edwards exit, right near my home, so I see it every day. Um I will also be engaging with uh MLA school community um through different events. So, I know Director Smith, we talked about uh our love of fashion and and um uh ecology. So, uh they're having an eco bash at MLA on the 31st uh where families are donating and contributing things that they um don't need anymore and so other students and folks will be able to um get it if they need it. Um this is a great way to be eco-friendly in this moment. Um, and then there's also a uh coffee on the curb that I will

be attending at Maxwell um on February 6th. So, if you're in that school community, uh, lastly, I'm very excited that the uh, Oakland um, Asian Cultural Center will be hosting the Lunar New Year and Black History Month celebration on February 7th. I'm planning to attend and it is in District 2. Um but it is one of uh my favorite events that they have at the center um that really celebrate both cultures and bringing folks together um who are um multithnic and supporting uh the cultural experiences of our students. Um so again if your school community would like to engage with me um happy to make those accommodations as my schedule allows. I don't have any comments. Thank you. Um, next we'll hear from PAC. Hello again to the board members. Uh, thank you very much to those of you who came to the last PAC meeting and to Dr. Sadler. Um, I'm not sure if we're going to get the slides posted up, but that's okay. It came in late. Uh, I did want to quickly just reiterate a few things that came out of our meetings in December. We had a lot of discussions and were able to draft a consensus statement that we delivered uh in a couple of different parts over the last couple of meetings. Uh, and I would encourage everybody to go back and look at that. it becomes I I believe more salient every day. Uh among other things, it addressed cuts to special education, student safety, enrollment stabilization, school site cuts, and mergers and closures. All of those things were discussed, and I just wanted to remind

everybody that this is the result of deliberations with parents and students and is uh a representative body. Uh, I also wanted to quickly read the closing statement just to remind everyone. Our community understands that this budget process will be challenging at every level. We urge the board and district to make hard decisions that prioritize the safety and joy of our students and to protect and lift up those among us who rely on public education as both a human right and as the cornerstone of a strong and healthy Oakland both now and for generations to come. like to give it over to JT. Hi board and u superintendent JT meets motion one of the PAC leads. Uh in our public meeting on January 21st which many of you were at um we learned specifics about the current OUD general fund investments that are located within school budgets. Um this was a complement to our fall study sessions uh unpacking the centralized budget. Um we looked at how these investments were funded including which of these funding sources are being reduced or eliminated. Um and we talked about plans to eliminate or reduce certain positions or shift how they are funded. Uh Dr. Sadler and President Brohard answered questions from members about the budget process. They encourage us to attend this meeting tonight uh where much more details will be presented. Dr. Sadler also encouraged us to understand this year's budget process as part of a two or three-year process. She likened it to the need of the retrofit of the Bay Bridge after Lom Pria to make it stronger uh even as there is a need for short short term to get people over the

bridge so that they could cross. And then I'll just some upcoming events. Next Tuesday, the PAC members will gather at our weekly planning meeting to examine which positions and services currently funded within the LCAP are slated for elimination, reduction, or other changes. We'll pay special attention to the use of supplemental and concentration dollars given plans to relocate some of those dollars to different uses. And we want to understand what current investments are being preserved and what new investments could take the place of those being eliminated or reduced. And then see the February 6th issue of engaging OSD newsletter for details about how we are sharing our findings, questions, and recommendations at this stage of the process to develop the budget and the local control accountability plan, the LCAP. and join us on Wednesday, February 18th at our next public meeting. And now I'll pass it over to uh the community advisory on special education. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello board. I'm JD Washan, co-chair of the CAC and um at our January 12th meeting, uh we heard about the outcomes from actions and investments to improve literacy for disabled students with IEPs. And there is much to celebrate from this work. And to get the numbers um from that and the um information you can go to our meeting recording for for that uh meeting. We got updates from our board leaison director Lada about the process to address uh OUD's budget deficit and we thank her for keeping us updated with relevant information and we heard from CAC members about the actions to achieve our goals in advance our initiatives and um we would like to remind all decision makers about our concerns regarding special education within plans for the 26 uh 27 budget. The intent of the IDA's maintenance of effort rule is to ensure that districts provide sufficient support to disabled students through at a minimum spending the same amount in special education as the previous year. And as originally stated in scenario three, the $12 million reduction to the special education budget would violate IDEIDA's rule of maintenance of effort. So, we appreciate clarification shared in our last meeting about this proposal and because a cut this size does not seem possible and it could fully eliminate all of the special education support and oversight team leaving families without guidance, staff without training and threatening the coordination of services and it would also require cuts to direct services. So we invite district leaders to attend our February 9th meeting to share specifics about what will change in the special education budget for 2026

27. And this because this will be one of the topics in our meeting. Um when we request line item details that show which types of services and expenses are being considered for changes and what specific changes are being proposed. and we appreciate the statements that we have received expressing support for disabled students and for the services that they need. At the same time, we need the specifics to help our district make any changes while protecting students. Um, and on the school stability and belonging for disabled students, uh, this has been an ongoing CAC um, um, project. There's a resolution called the school stability and belonging for disabled students in OSD and it was discussed at last night's meeting of the teaching and learning committee. Uh the teaching and learning committee voted to recommend adoption of the resolution by the full school board and we look forward to a yes vote in February and this would ensure that disabled students can attend their school for the entirety of its grades span just like their non-disabled peers. A yes vote would end years of treating disabled students like they belong in the outskirts of school communities and can be uprooted any time. Uh an important resource about this resolution uh is um a meeting that we had on uh 82123. It was a community update CAC campaign to stop the removal of disabled students from their schools. And there is um a link to the um presentation in our our slides that will be in the ELCAP PAC um folder at the website. And so thank you to directors Brewhard, Bachelor, and Williams for being early supporters in 2023 of this urgently needed resolution. And we thank Director Lada for co-sponsoring the resolution this year. And we thank all directors for their

expressed commitment to the type of proactive planning that would help to implement this important resolution. And now handing it over to the foster youth advisory committee. Good evening board and community. um here for the foster youth advisory committee as two foster uh moms, a foster mom of a granddaughter and a 15year-old. And we want the board to understand that um our foster children are removed from their care of their parents and they need um support from our community. There are um some fost some children in foster care move frequently among emergency shelters, foster parents, guardian homes, and group homes. These changes often result in multiple placements. Because of these complexes complexities in their lives, many foster youth perform below grade level, are held back in school, and have lower graduation rates than their peers, among other impacts. Over 400 foster youth attend school in Alama County. Almost 200 of them attend Oakland Unified Schools. And I'm gonna have Patty join. A little bit of the background. The foster youth services started in 2015 because OD received money from the state every time they have a foster student. But the money oh but the money was not being used to support foster youth. It was just being used for other things. A third of the money was only being used. So the foster youth services were was formed because of that state funding so that the foster students could get direct services for the money that the state was providing. So we want to keep

going with that. We're getting the money for foster youth to provide for their many many complex needs and we need to keep going with that. We have three amazing case managers in foster youth services. They're real people that interact with our high school students on a daily weekly basis to make sure they're coming to school to make sure they're turning in their homework to help out with group home issues to be interfaces with the special ed department for their IEPs. They they have a thousand jobs that they do to support our foster youth in our OD schools. They're not just people with a clipboard that are checking off numbers or checking off things h that happen. They're they're real people. They give them snacks. They find them outside their classroom and say, "What? Why aren't you in class?" You know, they're real people. They interact with them in a very relationship way. We can't just substitute somebody else for that for that um process. We have a whole table in our handout if you want to review what they do um to interact with their foster youth. We have some concerns about the budget talks as it relates to foster students. We want to make sure that none of our case managers are eliminated. They're getting funding to provide these services. We don't want to just give that funding to Alama County. We already know Alama County is very uninvolved. 200 out of their well 170 something foster youth are in our our our district out of 400 in Alama County and they're not coming to our foster youth advisory committee meeting every month like they did three years ago. They're very uninvolved. We're not going to hand that money over to them to continue to be uninvolved for our foster youth who need that relationship that they already have. We also want to um ask for some clarity uh about do you guys even know that they don't have the resources to to provide this? There's they might say they did,

but they it doesn't mean they have the resources. They don't have any kind of um staffing to provide our foster our just going to hire our foster youth case managers. Well, then let's keep them in OD so they can continue to do the excellent job that they're doing. So, please get we want we need clarity on that. We need to continue to support our foster youth with the relationships that they've already built. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any board comments? Director Barry, you have a comment? No. Okay. Um, thank you PAC again as always. Oh, did I leaned on this? Thank you again, PAC, for a very informational report. Um, I want to give a particular thanks to Patty and Tara Guard. I think um, raising our concerns about foster youth and the um, issues that they face and I did appreciate the table and looking at it. I thought that was really good information. So, thank you. With that, we are going to move to the Bay hearing. So, this is a charter decision hearing. I'm going to open the hearing, but before as I after I open it, I want to make sure I want to just ask the Beetch people, I know you're all here. I appreciate you're waiting. I You're very patient. Um, but if you could hold your applause so that we can hear everybody's I know you've all come prepared and you have your things to say and we want to be able to hear them. So, if we could hold your applause to the end, that would be great. So, we can hear everyone. Thank you. I believe first off there's a report from the office of charter schools.

Good evening. My name is Kelly Craig Arnold. I am the director of the OD office of charter schools. We can get the full screen on the slides. Great. Um so this is a slide you have seen many times this year. Um so I will keep moving pretty quickly. Um just a brief overview of charter renewal. Um so let's talk specifically about Beetch um which is up for renewal this evening. Here's a brief overview of some of the information about the school. Um and I'll talk through more of it in the rest of the presentation. Um just a note about renewal criteria starting with renewal tiers. State law has a three tier charter renewal system. High, middle, and low tier. and tiers are assigned by the CDE based on the two most recent years of dashboard data. The CDE designated Beetch as a low tier school at the time of their submission and so OSD considers the school per the low tier requirements. Um I will note though that the CDE did release new tiers on January 15, which was a day before the staff report was published. Um, Bay did move into the middle tier based on those updated tiers, but again, the renewal analysis is based on the tier as of the date of submission. Each tier has its own renewal standards per education code. This is the relevant standard for schools in the low tier, which says that schools in the low tier shall not be renewed. However, the board does have the option to renew with the finding that the charter school is taking meaningful steps. to address the underlying cause or causes of low performance. Uh here's a summary of the last three years of dashboard data. As I noted before, the renewal tier is based on the

CDE's analysis of the 2023 and 2024 dashboards, but the 2025 dashboard was released um prior to the submission of Bayax renewal petition. And so the 2025 dashboard is also shown here and in the staff report forformational purposes to get the slides. Oh, now they're moving too fast. Okay. Um the next few slides provide some of the ac academic data for Beetch. These are the same charts are in our staff report. So I'll go through them rather quickly. You'll see both proficiency and DFS broken down both by the individual grade bands, the 68 grade band and the 912 grade band as well as the full 612. So here we have ELA proficiency, ELA distance from standard including all students and student groups. And then the same thing for math, math proficiency by grade bands and full school. Be batt is in um the green line and math distance from standard um again with student groups and all students. Graduation metrics um for your graduate rate ag progress. Um this is a chart of both the historical and the school's projected enrollment in the petition. The projected is shown in the light green circles and these are some of the key fiscal indicators over the last five years. The 2526 data is all based on the fiscal

documents in the first interim um and th those were submitted to OD um as part of the renewal petition packet as well. Um this is I'll explain in greater detail in the staff report. Um but we do consider the school's financial outlook to be poor despite the projected ending fund balance remaining quite high or at least projected ending fund balance to be quite high. This is in part due to the budget's enrollment projections which we do think are unrealistically high given the school's current enrollment and their enrollment trajectory. And so unless the school has a significant increase in demand at both the transition grades and the non-transition grades, the projected budget is going to be overstating the school's revenues. It would be by approximately a million dollars if the school remains the same size next year. Um and then some of the largest expenses, including loan payments, remain relatively static. Um, and then lastly on this slide, I'll note that um, based on both last year's and um, this year's projected cash reserves as well as the cash flow statements that were submitted as part of the renewal petition, um, we do also have concerns about um, due to the school projecting to be below Matt's floor of 5% for cash reserves. Based on our staff analysis, my office is recommending denial of the renewal petition. Schools placed in the low tier by the state are a presumptive denial under education code and Beech is in the low tier. This is not a recommendation that we make lightly. We know a non-renewal vote would significantly impact the students and families that Beech serves. The full report details um provides details behind this recommendation. Beetch will present next. If the board does vote to deny the

renewal petition, Beetch can appeal that decision to the county within 30 days. Thank you. And I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Miss Arnold. Are there any board questions at this time? All right. Um, we will then move on to the petitioners uh presentation there. Anyone going to present from Bay? Come on up. So, just to remind folks, this is not public comment on this item. This is the presentation and you have 10 minutes. Go ahead.

Hi, good evening board members. My name is Enik Logan Jones. I'm a senior here at Bay Techch and I've been attending since sixth grade and I'm currently on track to graduate as class validictorian. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to have my teachers, my classmates and my parents here to present our reasoning in case for why Beetch should receive a charter renewal. Thank you for your attention and we look forward to your positive vote at the ending of this evening. Oakland Matiasio Bay. Thank you. Gracias.

Thank you. I just want to clarify really quickly. Do you all want us to interpret that or do you want us to just keep going? No need for interpretation on your end. Okay, go ahead. Continue.

So, sounds like this is the wrong presentation. Is there a way to upload the correct present? We're working on that. Thank you. I paused your time. Uh yes, I will ask one of the interpreters to off of the

Yes. So, while we get your presentation corrected, uh we're going to go ahead and interpret um the public the comment that was just made so we can make sure that everybody hears it. Um Mr. Copenhagen or Miss Vargas, if you can interpret the message, uh interpret the public commentary that just last spoke. Are you able to hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you.

Excellent. Uh yes. So, good evening um board directors of the Oakland Unified School District. My name is Matias Muika. I'm in sixth grade. Last year, my brother was validictorian at Bay Tech and uh I hope I can do even better than him. No, but seriously, uh my sister is in 10th grade at Bay Tech and I really love my school. and I'm here to support my family, my parents, my teachers in uh defending our um renovation, our charter renovation. So, I thank you for your vote in favor. Thanks. Appreciate y'all hanging in there as we get the presentation going. Miss Craig Arnold, can you come up for a moment? Thank you.

We going with it. Sounds like we're going with it is what I heard. So I'm not sure.

All right. Go ahead. Um, my name is Quattvon Web. Uh, I've been teaching at Bay Techch for two years now. Um, and I know that the decision is five years or two years. And like I spoke with Dr. Barry about, realistically, we can give the the school two years, right? We can figure it out. Um, and if if not be, then we clip it. Um, but in in this situation that we're dealing with, as we just heard, we just heard that OSD is in a crisis as we speak. So, we sent our kids into a crisis when we have an opportunity with a new building. Again, the goal is to serve Oakland community. That's what we doing. I heard you just say love, right? I I see a group of people that love these kids. We show up every single day. The kids have an opportunity that we have an inclusive environment that we can give these kids to play sports, to be there, to show up and give tutoring when we not asking for funds to even do that. We're choosing to do that on our own time. So, if we asking realistically, you give us two years to figure it out. We just moved to our own school. We've been through everything that you already seen. Shootings, this that and the third. Sharing buildings, we have our own school. We have our own opportunity to Sean and all we asking you to do if bare minimum you give us two years. Ideally, we'll take the five, you know, but realistically give us the two and then just see what we can do with the two years. Um, I'm Miss Cool. I'm the principal of Beetch. Uh, prior to becoming principal, I spent 15 years as a special educator here in Oakland. Um, I actually started with the district and was placed by the district in a charter system. Um, happy to share more about why I decided to stay in charter. Um, if you have any questions, I also have two students. My two two daughters are in Oakland schools. Um, I'll go ahead and work with what we have here on the screen. I know it's not quite exactly what what we were planning. Um but I want to highlight

here as of December our enrollment was 201. We started the year at 197 and uh the charter office has pointed toward enrollment as a cause for concern. As of our submission of our our um report for today we're at 208. As of today we're at enrollment of 211. That's a 6% growth here just in the month of January alone. Um the report itself states quote up until a few years ago but does not add critical context as to what happened a few years ago. I don't we've just we've gone back and forth amongst ourselves as to whether or not to bring this up. It's something that I don't want to speak of. I don't want to bring it back up. I don't want to relive that day. But if we're going to point to enrollment and a sharp decline in enrollment as a cause for no longer continuing beetch as a community, I have to call it out and give it at least a moment to acknowledge what occurred and what changed, what shifted. We went from enrollment of 45 in the in the sixth grade to enrollment of 15. That's a huge change for our community. But with our new our new site, we see a lot of positive change in growth. As I said, we've grown 6% in this last month. Our community that surrounds the school believes in us. They're sending our kids to us word of mouth because of what they see we're doing. In fact, in particular, we've seen an increase in youth enrolling who are in the juvenile justice system because their families, their parole officers, their support system is seeing that we are a safe, secure school for them that is going to hold them to a high standard and help them get on track and move toward college and career readiness. As we state in our mission, Good evening board members. My name is Montree Clemens. I'm a graduate student in the marriage, family, and therapy um school counselor and I work full-time as

a school counselor at Beetch. This is my eighth year in education, my fourth year at Bay. Um I know you have received the detailed information information about our academic performance, fiscal health, operations and governments. I won't repeat what you can read. Instead, I want to speak on the impact this human decision can make. Our school serves primarily black and brown students, many from underresourced communities who have historically been excluded from high quality and educational opportunities. For many of our families, this school is not a choice. It is their first real opportunity for stability, support, and belonging. We've wrote re we've relocated from our previous site due to a shooting. Safety was not theoretical for us. It was urgent and real. I share this personally because I'm a survivor of gun violence. The effects of violence don't end when the incident ends. It stays with the families, the students and the staff for years. Creating safe, affirming school places is not just policy. It is trauma-informed care and action. Our current campus is safe, inclusive, and stable. We are building trust with the families who have experienced disruption, loss, and systemic barriers. Closing this school now will create another trauma, another displacement, and another disruption for students who will already carry too many. Based on the renewal criteria, we meet the standards for continued operation, and I strongly urge the board to grant at least two years for renewal. This would allow us to continue stabilizing our community, supporting our students, and demonstrating continued growth. Shutting down this would not just be an administrative decision. It would disproportionately harm black and brown students who

already face inequitable access to safe, highquality education. Keeping us open is an investment in equity, safety, and opportunity. Thank you for your time and for considering our students and family that we serve. Uh good evening. My name is uh Antonio Ramirez and I I'm a been at BayTech for the last eight years. I am a PPS credential school counselor and a teacher for elective classes at Bay Area Technology School. Um initially I was here to talk about um how we serve our subgroups at Bay including uh English language learners um students with uh disabilities and amongst other things. Um, since we're not necessarily going off of the slides, I guess I'll talk more from the heart in terms of this stuff. Um, I think as you've already heard, BA Be Bay does a great job of serving underprivileged students, black and brown students. And part of the reason that we're here for all this stuff is because of the great work that we do. And part of the reason our enrollment is going up is because of the work that we do for these groups that are maybe overlooked in other parts of the Bay Area. And so going forward, I urge you to vote yes so we can continue to serve some of these students and other underprivileged students and families in the Bay Area. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Desire Lozano. I'm the chief of staff. I just emailed all of you the corrected email that Kelly told me to send to you. As you can see from the data, I don't know that we're not going from the script. There's a clear divide where Beth was and where we are now. We know that having our own home increases admissions, keeps people safe, and makes our teachers want to stay. Something that hasn't been said today is the incredible loyalty of our community. When we moved to our new site, we moved six and a half miles away. Yet, our families, teachers, and staff followed us. They didn't just move for a building. They moved for the stability we could finally provide. But this move was about more than just Beetch. By securing the Palace Theater campus on the border of San Antonio Fruit Veil neighborhoods, we committed $3 million from our reserves towards neighborhood revitalization. We aren't just renting space. We're investing in the future of Oakland by transforming a local landmark into a permanent secure center for learning. What the staff report didn't say is the root cause of our past challenges was an unsafe environment. There were no conversations in the report about the continuous lockdowns we face in a collocation environment. To be clear, last fall we had 10 lockdowns in 20 weeks. No student can learn in those conditions. By moving and revitalizing this new campus, we have ended that safety crisis and stabilized our learning environment for good. I am proud to say so far we had zero lockdowns since the start of school in the new location. The the decline was driven by safety disruption, not instructional failure. Now that the root cause is resolved, we are, as Miss P

mentioned previously, seeing a 6% growth in enrollment since the beginning of 2026 and continue to grow. Thank you. Good evening. And I just want to thank everyone for your service to our community to grapple with these challenging ideas during this very difficult time. And I've served on boards. I can definitely I just really appreciate you guys being here late night working on this. My name is Aua McDonald. I started my educational career here in Oakland at Oakland Ameliano Zapata Street Academy and it's my privilege to be here at MATE uh with a clear English credential and administrative credential uh supporting the pathway from uh 11th to 12th grade students into college and career readiness. So you've heard so far about the uh amazing growth uh after the crisis that we experienced the lack of safety, the vulnerability into recovery and into growth. And I am 100% positive that we will be experiencing a lot more growth um through the experience that I've had at other schools in the the neighborhood that definitely will be coming. Um the uh but what you haven't heard so far is our true impact and the impact is the adults that we're putting out that are successful that are moving into colleges and careers that um these are it's a standard of California Department of Education but it is a a critical part of what we're doing that often the district and the schools don't see and don't experience is what kind of adults adults were making, what kind of adults, and how successful those adults are being in the trades, in the higher education opportunities, and our students are being very successful.

We've had lots of different community and four-year colleges come back and report about the success of our students. And so, I'm just really thankful for your time and attention tonight. I'm asking for a yes vote. That means changing sustainable a sustainable school that puts out sustainable students into our workforce into our city in this time of crisis. And you guys are the policy makers, right? Just like the executives in the Trump administration are not necessarily um engaging with the truth with the public. We are asking you as decision makers to vote independently of what the staff says. The staff has recommended one thing, but it's on you to decide independently through your heart and your mind and your experience and understanding of what you have heard here tonight that you would vote independently hopefully for us.

Thank you. Thank you. And that ends your 10-minute presentation. So, we will now take public comment um on this agenda item. Um how many folks do we have on public comment? Mr. Say, we have 21 speakers.

So, board colleagues, we have 10 minutes of public comment, but 21 speakers. We can either do half a minute each or if you are all okay, we could extend it to 21 minutes so that we can hear from every speaker. We need to take a vote. I'm seeing Oh, sounds good. Okay. So, we will take each speaker that has signed up tonight. Can you uh please read out the first five names? First five speakers are Wendy Ojo, Jorge Joseo, Isan G, Amber Blackwell, and Assalo Labala. Thank you. And if folks could line up to speak, that'd be great. And we'll do one minute each.

Noted. Good evening, go board members. My name is Wendy Ojo. I'm a very proud parent of Daniel Ojo, a 10th grader and Caleb Ojo, my sixth grader boy. I'm here on behalf of Beetch to speak, something I didn't do for other schools like Urban Montasori and Ames College Prep. But I come here strongly in support to keep this school open for another term. This school has become a cornerstone for our children, providing not only education but a safe place, nourishing environment where they can grow and thrive. For many families, this place is not just a place of learning, but a vital part of our community. My children have built great relationships with their teachers, classmates, staff that I can't name. All of them have been so great here. And closing the school will not only disrupt their education, but also their emotional state as previously like I mentioned closing of urban Montasauri. So, I'm here as a parent saying vote yes to keep Beth open. Thank you.

Thank you. Next public speaker.

Good evening and staff. My name is Jorge Ojo. Uh uh previously that was my wife speaking in behalf of our Bay and our sixth and tth grade student. my boys, um, Caleb and Daniel. Uh, it's not easy. Um, my boys have grown academically, socially, uh, emotionally here at the very first school year. Um, I know I have four boys and, you know, I just want put my notes away because I'm just nervous. My four boys have been great boys and I got one at State University. I know he did great um at Ames, but uh I just saw the why I had to move them, right? And I know that when Beth uh came uh in support of the community, uh I believe it's very important for the San Antonio Fuvilles to have a charter school and I'm glad and I know there's uh others charter schools there, but I'm very glad and happy that Bey came along and I know it's not easy and I'm glad that um all I wanted to say is that we should keep keep the school open And please um maintain bait tick open. I'm sorry.

Thank you. Next public speaker.

Uh good evening. Good evening everyone. I'm Isam Gerggas. I'm working as a French and Arabic teacher at BETH. This is my first year working at BETH. I want today to talk to your mind and to your hearts. first to your mind to think how much at Bay we are trying our best to make our school as a model school like a private schools. I never forget the day when I make the interview in summer in the old campus when I met with the superintendent and the principal of school. They're talking at this time make me feel that this is a great experience I have to pass. I uh I find that this school will be great if we support them. Because of that, I ask you to think positively towards this school to say yes. Then I talk to your heart to think of how many people you will make them happy when you vote for yes uh before they leave. So I hope today you will say yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello and good evening. I'm Amber with the Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corporation. We have been the afterchool provider at Bay for over 10 years and I have witnessed the many changes and transition from it going from a school that was predominantly African-American to a school that is now predominantly Spanish speakaking. And I bring that up because a lot of people have talked about the different transitions that have happened and I have seen them all and been a part of uh the success in terms of turning out young adults who are prepared to learn and lead. And I would say that being the middle school after school provider, we have an opportunity to set standards and goals for the students as middle schoolers and then we're able to follow them through high school and college through our career and workforce development program. And so that is one thing that we are proud to support Beth with and to be able to train these young people to be leaders in our new community.

Thank you, Miss Assada. I believe you're next, but I do we do have a card for council member Gao. We do we he has a card already. So you can come up and then he can also speak. Okay. So yes,

I want you to think about this process as your role a role of restorative justice. Okay. It is our fault that this school has gone through a tremendous amount of trauma and is forced to relocate because of our school's poor behavior and to the point where you have been notified by the leadership at that school and by me. I came to you and told you there were problems at Rugsdale and something needed to happen. The school had to hire security and you just heard they've been on lockdown many times. So it it's unfair. I'm not a charter school person, but I'm about fairness. It's unfair what this school has gone through in terms of our school having behaviors that has forced them to impact their teaching and learning, feeling unsafe and have to go and build another school, remodel a place for another school. So I say for that reason, give them two years as your restorative justice, your form of paying back for something our district did.

Vice President, next five speakers. Next five speakers, please with council member Gao going first. Next speakers are council member Noo, Steve Rapetto, Steve Espinosa, Abby O'Neal, and Matthew Benjamin. Those are the next five speakers.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to to be able to hear about the budget and certainly being a city council member at at with Oakland and having served on your board, I understand what you're going through, but it takes unity between the city and the and the school district to work together as well as Alama County and I'll reach out to the superintendent to make sure that we can cover some of your expenses as we have done in the past with, you know, your crossing guards and other efforts that the city can cover costs as well as help helping and I'm part of that cleaning around your schools in my district to make it safe for our children to come to school and go back home safely. But anyways, I'm here to to ask for your support for Beeth Technology School. I'm here at the leadership of our parent body. I've known the school since the inception. And what I'm committed and I'm glad Beth because I help with the permitting process for the school to relocate to 23rd Avenue. And by the fact that they relocated, some businesses are starting to come back because they see the safety and growing. They see their parent body at the school and it's bringing back. But I want to say to you that I have a commitment. I have a commitment. And I have the Lao family center down the street that's going to be willing to provide summer jobs during the summer for your student body and and also the Native American Health Center already offered that they're going to hire your students to be working at their at the health center so they can learn about health and so forth. And my last commitment because I really would like to they're in my neighborhood and I'm committed through the city's summer job program to offer my 20 positions to hire your students to work throughout the city to improve the neighborhood.

And lastly, lastly, since I am involved with Stanford University and UC Berkeley, taking tours of high school students, I will take your high school students on a tour to the campuses. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Guy. And I hope you can make that commitment to our OD students as well. Please support the um next speaker.

Good evening. Good to see you all again. You guys remember my name is Steve Repetto. I'm a teacher at Beetch and the dean. I've been there for six years. Uh before I got to Beth, I worked for a neighboring county where I was the vice president, president of the CTA chapter. I was also an elected member of the CTA State Council where I was the chair of the Corton Community School Caucus. I am CTA through and through. And I can tell you though, the six years I've been at BayTech, I've loved every minute of it. It is a wonderful school. We have wonderful staff. We have wonderful children. I have literally seen kids lives changed. I've worked with students who when I first got there were nonverbal, would look down and not say a word, and now one of them was named the funniest person in the senior class. I see a kid who could not read pat in the hat when I started six years ago is now going to Laney to study computer science. We do good work at Bay and I can tell you as a CTA rep, as a 33-year teacher, we kick butt. Thank you and please vote yes for Beth.

Next speaker.

Thank you Oakland Unifi School District board for hearing me. My name is Steven Spinosa. I am I'm a senior at Bay Area Technology School. I am speaking up to express my support for Bay Tech's charter renewal and respectfully ask that the school be allowed to remain open. I moved to Beech as a freshman and from the the very beginning my experience here changed the direction of my life. When I first arrived, I was a troubled student who struggled to see a clear future for myself. Beetch provided me with the support and guidance I needed to get back on the right track. A path that has le led me towards my goal of becoming a future Navy sailor of the United States Navy. Bay is more than a school to me. It is a community that truly cares about his students and helps helps us succeed. I also have a younger brother and I want him to receive the same guidance, support and opportunities I was given here given at Bay.

Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, president and members of the board and superintendent. My name is Abby O'Neal representing the California Charter School Association and I'm here in support of Bay Area Technology Schools renewal based on the renewal tracks published this month. Beetch is a middle track school reflecting measurable improvement in student outcomes, stability, and overall performance. This progress is the result of intentional data-driven work, targeted academic supports, and a strong commitment from school leadership and staff to continuous improvement. Beech has also addressed past concerns by relocating to a new, safe, and modern facility, providing students with a secure and stable learning environment where they can focus on learning and growth. Approving this renewal recognizes real progress and accountability and allows Beech to continue to serve Oakland students with the quality and stability they deserve. We respectfully urge you to approve Beth's charter renewal. Thank you for your time and service to Oakland students and families.

Thank you. We have 11 speakers, so I'm going to hold folks until we get your names called. So, five more names. Mr. Sea got my name on Is it Benjamin? Um, yeah. Wonderful. Come on up and then we'll say the five uh names. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Matthew Benjamin. I am the English I'm a credentialed English teacher over at Bay Techch. I've been the I've been there longer than any other teacher, seven years. Prior to that, I was a professional writer in Los Angeles for 20 years. And I'm telling you, I have seen miracles at Beech. and I've been part of those miracles and uh as I don't have much to add that was already said but the transition the change from what happened and the transition you you need to give it time and uh so I'm requesting those two years thank you thank you the five speakers

yes next five speakers are Antonio RmIrez Amy Hol Christian Free, Marina Chin, folks can come on up. And Cindy B. Those are the five speakers. Great. Come on up.

Hi. And uh thank you again for listening to me talk. Uh like I said previously, my name is Antonio Ramirez. I'm a credentialed PPS counselor at Bay. Um I guess I want to spend my time talking about the opportunities that Beech has allowed me to grow as a professional. Um, I started out as a substitute teacher and throughout my years at Beetch, I've been given the opportunities to enroll in M's programs and work my way up into credentiing and I've been able to be a part of the growth that we've given to the community and I've seen countless stories as you already already heard from various students and families that have come to Beth and really grown. And now in our new location, we've been able to kind of root ourselves and we're looking forward to making more progress with the community and reestablishing some of the great parts of Oakland and the greater Bay Area community. Um, I hope you guys vote yes on us for tonight and greatly appreciate your time. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi. Uh, my name is Amy Holtz. I am a parent of a Bay graduate. I am a former board member and I am now the science teacher and and this is my third year as the science teacher. Um, what I want to say is as an Oakland resident, um, going through Oakland public schools myself, I would like you to give every student the opportunity, wherever that may be, to find their place in Oakland where they can grow. Um, so many students in Oakland fall through the cracks and Beth makes sure that nobody falls through those cracks. I would like you to vote yes so that other students can experience what my daughter experienced where she grew where she was performing under underperforming when she got to Beth and now she's graduating from UC Santa Barbara a year early because she got college. So I would like you to vote yes so that our students don't fall through those cracks. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

All right. Was no. Um my name is Mr. Free. Um I'm an education spe special education teacher. I work with students who are often overlooked um bilingual students who are misdiagnosed, misunderstood, or pushed aside. Um because we are a small school at Bay, our staff works closely together. I cannot do my work without their support and vice versa. Um the trust is what helps students show up at our school, speak up like has been previously said and succeed. Um doing this work has pushed me to continue my own education. I'm currently pursuing a doctor at uh St. Mary's College. Um to better serve this community. Um aside from that, I'm also a soccer coach. Um I've play I've coached in uh Lamarinda and Berkeley and other regions where soccer has become a payto-play um thing and I feel like it's at since we're such a small school um we are giving opportunities to kids and young children who won't have those opportunities elsewhere um please consider this extension um and give us opportunity to continue serving this community. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Marie Chen. This is my fourth year at BayTech and I'm a high school math teacher and have taught across all four grade. I work at Bay because there is stress from the administration that I will make the best choices for my students. There is stress that I will continue to evolve my teaching practices. There is trust that productive intervention and conversations will occur when I need to make adjustments. There is trust that that the decisions we make as a school are in the best interest for our students and families. I continue to stay at Bay Techch because the community welcomed and accepted me four years ago. I have earned the respect and trust of students and families and they know they will receive the same from me. This is a space that I felt safe as a career teacher and have been able to show up authentically. Students and families trust Beetch because there have been results that have proven we have made a positive impact on students and their communities. As long as we are open, I know there will always be a community around me and I will always be a part of a community. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Cindy Barisone. I'm a mother of a ninth grade student at Bay Techch. I'm also on the board. During my daughter's first year at Beech, the school experienced a shooting. As a parent, that is every fear you have realized. I had every reason to pull her out. Every instinct screamed at me to take her somewhere, anywhere else. But I didn't because how Beetch showed up afterwards. School didn't just respond. They embraced us. They met our terror with care, our questions with transparency, and our broken trust with unwavering commitment to rebuilding it. They didn't just reopen the doors after that horrific day. They opened their hearts and work tirelessly to heal the wounded community. Today with today with the opening of the new building, that commitment lives and breathes in every hallway. Our students don't just walk through the doors. They walk into hope. They enter a space designed just not to keep them safe, but to remind them every single day that they are valued, that they belong, that they can dream without fear. That matters more than test scores, and more than statistics.

Finish your thought.

I've also witnessed a devastating flip side of the story. My daughter attended a charter Oakland charter school that closed and I watched that loss shatter her world and the world of countless other. The trauma of having your educational home ripped away, of being told that your school, your second family wasn't worth saving leaves scars. That lasts longer than a semester. Beetch bought through the unthinkable and emerge stronger. These students have already endured enough disruption, enough uncertainty, enough loss to close the school. after everything it has overcome, after after the trust has been rebuilt, after the hope has been restored, that would be failing these kids again. Please give us the two-year extension just for our kids.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, folks. We have uh everybody, we have six more speakers. Uh so please, six speakers that turned in their cards on time. Um, so please line up if you hear your name. Um, go ahead, Mr. Secho.

Yes. The remaining speakers are Belinda Hernandez, Rosario Persa, Telly Zampata, Alan Owens, Daniel Ojo, and Adoa McDonald's. Those are the last six registered speakers. There's no concession of time in our board meetings. Um folks that were names were called, can you line up? All right, we're going to go ahead and take our first speaker. Go ahead. Again, I just want to um ask you guys to take into consideration that although we had carefully prepared a PowerPoint slide that was not able to be shown and we were able to rebound and give our story without all of the support that we had of all of the data. Also want to ask that you each make sure that you look at the detailed letter that kind of answered all of the questions. So, I don't believe there are any unquestioned um items that were on the staff report about our um underperformance. And I was really thankful that the staff actually acknowledged the growth since the time that she um reported to you. But I just ask that you take everything that you take the context, you take the board, students, staff, credentialed administrators and teachers into consideration. And the leader of our school, Gail P, is a um special education teacher who prioritizes that important and underserved group. I I also want to just

Sorry, one last Thank you. Um just our as enrollment is plummeting around the country and in our state and in our district. Our enrollment is growing and we will be continuing to grow significantly especially the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students because of failing schools around us. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. OSD. satisfaction. Expresschech. We're going to go ahead and interpret

that public comment uh before we have any additional comments. So, Mr. Hollis, are we ready to do that? Uh, Mr. Copenhagen, uh, if you can translate the last speaker. Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Are you able to hear me? Yes.

Thank you. Good evening. Um, respected members of the Oakland Unified School District board of directors and, uh, teachers as well. I'm here to support the renewal of uh Bay Tech's contract. Uh I'm Luis Castaneda's mother, Luis Castana, a 10th grade student who's been attending Beeth. I'm grateful for all the support his he's received during this very important crucial period in his time uh in his life. uh he has grown and matured into a student with a great deal of confidence. Having been previously a a shy student, he now has uh a voice and an opinion that he expresses uh with a great deal of confidence. And this is due to the constant support he's received at Bay Tech where he's encouraged to uh defend his ideals, his perspective, and participate uh constantly. This is the greatest gift that uh we can receive as a family from a school and from an educational institution because they're preparing him not just for academic su success but uh success in life. So, I want to thank everyone once again. Um, and with uh sincere respect to the board, uh, I hope that you will vote in favor of the renewal. Uh, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Copenhagen. Uh, next public speaker, come on up.

Hello. Uh, my name is Daniel Ooh and I'm a 10th grader at Beeth. This is my first year at Bay and I'm having a great experience here that I do not want to waste. Uh, I'm writing to share my support for Bay's charter renewal and to ask that the school should be allowed to remain open. Beetch has supported and believed in me. Ever since I moved to Bay, everyone has been one whole community that cares for each other. And I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want to go to a third high school in Oakland because lots of schools have been shutting down. I'd rather go outside of Oakland if Bay shut down. Beex doesn't just help us get college ready. They also help us get ready for the real world when we're adults so we can understand what we are going to do. I hope you will consider the voices of students like me when making your decision. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Next speaker to Oakland Unified School District of Education. My name is Matthew Espinosa and I am a student at BETH. I really love Beth because they taking good care of me and my brother. One thing that I really like about Bayetch is how the teachers treat me. They are always kind to me even when someone is having a rough day. Another thing that I like about Beth is the sports. They are really fun and involve teamwork. Beetch isn't just teaching facts, but how to become a better person. The teachers and staff support me, believe in me, and help me meet my goals. I feel safe and inspired at Bay. Beth is more than just a school to me. It is a place that cares about me and my classmates and helps us have a better future. I hope you will support me and my classmates at Baychech when you're making a decision. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Mr. S. Chowo, is that all the speakers for public comment? Yes, that is correct. Our name has been called for the register speakers. Thank you so much. That ends public comment time. Uh board colleagues, any comments at this time? Director Lada, Director Williams, Director Barry, I'll take everybody's time. Um, I'm just kidding. If board members are commenting as to the merits of the proposal before you, you need to put a motion on the floor.

Oh, thank you for that. Uh, is there a motion on the floor? I move that we accept the um charter school's recommendation to deny the charter. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Second. All right. Director Barry, I'm sorry. Vice President, may I also Before we start, uh our general counsel wanted to make an announcement.

I just I just wanted to confirm that uh we have checked to ensure that the PowerPoint that was displayed is the PowerPoint that uh the Bay um charter school did submit. submitted by first name Gil on January 19th at 5:30 p.m. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Uh, Director Barry.

Um, okay. The first thing that I wanted to share, someone mentioned, um, not too long ago failing schools, right, in surrounding Beth and I and continue. I apologize. And I wanted to speak to that because there's a and we heard a lot about this today. There are a lot of reasons why schools are struggling right now. Um, and we don't have to elaborate any further than what we heard at tonight's meeting. And I have a lot of compassion for that and for all the hard work that our parents and caregivers and our educators and our leaders are pouring into our students and families. And I'm applying that compassion to Beetch. Right. It's important to acknowledge the safety concerns that caused the incredible dip in attendance um or enrollment. 65% that's a huge number, huge spike in chronic absenteeism to 40% and they're bouncing back from that. And I think it's also important to acknowledge as we scrutinize outcomes that our students the students entering Beth are not entering ready to go. Right? You heard that over and over again today. And in acknowledging that, we need to celebrate the growth. So when you looked at all the charts and you saw all the red and the orange, pay attention to the fine print that spoke to the increases and the jumps and the gains. And that's what we want to see. We want to see schools accepting students that are in a lot of need and turn out miracles. Eric, I believe in miracles, too. And what I would like to see is Beetch have the opportunity to realize the investment of all this care in the culture and the in the time um uh the care and the culture and the space to really live out sort of what happens when we invest in beautiful and safe spaces for our kids. That's

transformative and I want to see what happens in two years. And so I'll be supporting your renewal tonight. Thank you. Um just to clarify what's what we're actually what the motion is is a motion to deny um the charter renewal. Um so yes, that's I just want to make clear for the record and for the folks on public. Um Director Brohard. All right. I don't I did have one um question which was that um Director Lada.

Sorry, just for director Barry, did you have an amendment you wanted us to consider or Thank you, Director Lada. I would like to I do not have a resolution written. Do I have to have a resolution? General Counsel, I believe that there's a question around a resolution needing to be written if there needs to be or documentation of any amendment that needs to be written at this time. Well, generally for the sake of transparency and accuracy, we um usually work on those things in advance. Um if there's something you'd like to share with me, I would not recommend um doing that on the fly. There are questions of you. Would you like to go to talk to general counsel?

Okay. Yes. Maybe continue board member comments.

Sure. Um I don't see any board member comments needed at this time. Director uh Brohard. Um, while I recognize this is a really hard choice and hearing from your students in particular and seeing your staff, um, and with the information that we were provided with, um, and I do support the work of our charter office. I know that they do a tremendous amount of work in their in their charter, um, reports to us. So, again, I want to acknowledge the work of Kelly Craig Arnold. um very thorough investigation and um again thank you.

Thank you. We do also welcome any questions if the board had any. Uh not seeing anyone. I'm trying to buy time or there's also the the letter we submitted if there were any questions about that. Yes, we all receive it. Thank you so much. Director Barry.

Thank you colleagues for your patience. Um I am I would like to introduce an amendment that proposes a renewal of the Bay charter for two years. Is there a second? Yeah, it's for lack of a second. Okay.

No, I I didn't hear a second on the record. So, can we get a verbal second? I did not hear that. So once again, uh what is on the table is a motion to adopt a denial resolution uh number 25260008. Um so without seeing any other amendments or changes um can we get a vote on this item, Mr. Rickstra?

Yeah, I just want to make sure the record's clear. There was a motion by Director uh Barry to uh approve died for a lack of second. Now we're back to the main motion that's on the floor is to adopt resolution number 262 25260000008 which is deny the uh renewal of the petition on the roll call. Student directors are absent. Director Lau yes. Director Williams. Yes. Director Hutchinson,

not online. Okay. Absent. Director Barry, no. I'm sorry. What' you say? No. Thank you. Director Thompson's absent. Vice President Bachelor. Yes. President Brohara. Yes. The motion to deny is adopted.

Thank you. that with that the hearing is closed and we'll take a brief recess so folks can transition. Uh let's do a five minute recess. The next item on the agenda is our labor partners. Do we have any uh labor partners in We got to have roll call first.

All right. Can we have roll call to establish quorum, please? Yes. On the motion, I'm sorry. Not on the on the roll call to establish reestablish quorum or to see if we have a quorum. Student directors are absent. Director Lana, not present. Okay. Director Williams, uh, here, sir. Thank you. Director Hutchinson, Director Barry, present. Director Thompson is absent. Vice President Bachelor here. And President Brohart here.

Quorum present. And Mr. Seich Scha, can we have a Mr. Hollis, I'm sorry, your hands up, too. Can we have an interpretation check, please?

Uh, yes, Madame President. Uh, we do have three languages available for tonight. Uh, I will first lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand for the language that is being announced at this time, which is Cantonese. And I will ask Mr. you when if he can come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese. Okay, getting this announcement is done. Mr. Harris,

thank you. Mr. Euin, checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not have Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Arabic, I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand for the language being announced at this time, which is Arabic. And I will ask Miss Abd if she can come off mute and get the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Everybody is done.

Uh, thank you, Miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised on Zoom. Seeing no hands, we will not have Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand for the language being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And I will ask Mr. Copenhagen if you can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Copenhagen. Checking the attendees on Zoom to see if there are any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not have any interpretation at this time. That concludes interpretation announcement at this time and I will pass it back to you, Madam President.

Thank you. Uh, right now we will hear from our labor partners. Do we have anyone in the audience who's going to be speaking? And is there anyone online? President Brewhart, I do not see any hands online. All right, we will move on to public comment on non-aggenda items. Do we have any speakers on that? Yes, we do. For non-aggenda items, we have approximately 12 speakers. Okay. Uh two minutes each.

Two minutes. Noted. We have Brandon Wall, Kim Ayes, Christian Hernandez, Sarai Valenza, Arieli Flesher, Emily Washerman, Asalo Labala, and J teammate Munchin, and also Jennifer AVdall. if all the speakers could come near the um podium. Thank you. So, uh I picked up a flyer on your table and it's very very concerning. The planning for Mccclimman's remodeling started in the third quarter of 2021 with a completion date of the remodeling being 2024. Last year you changed it that it would start in the summer of 2025 and would be completed in 2027. Now you have a flyer that says it's going to start in the spring of 2026 with a com and it says depending on something it might start and then it a completion date of 2028. That's eight years. Then you have things on here that weren't originally a part of what you were going to do as far as some of the work. The budget stays the same, but you have new things because the scoreboard was never on there. Now it's on there. The bleaches was never on there as far as uh what uh I'm talking about, not the bleaches in the on the field. I'm talking about the bleaches in the

gym. And right now, that needs to be changed. So, I don't I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on that you have this kind of uh messed up stuff. You have three different start dates starting in 2021 this this project and then you're talking about you're going to be doing plumbing but on the agenda tonight you're deleting plumbing from the scope of work. Uh you have screwed this school around so much and you you said oh don't close the school. What am I supposed to do? continue to get this kind of stuff every meeting. Nobody else goes through this but McLimman's well I I think Bunch has gone through a whole lot of uh disrespectful stuff. I'll continue to bring it up.

President Bhard, I um also want to add Tanya Kapner as part of the public speaker. Good evening again, board. Um, I got a little heated before, so I wanted to bring it back down a little for a second and say that I know budgets are hard. I know you're in a really hard position, and I really truly appreciate um the work that every one of you do on this board in this very difficult elected office. And I am very supportive of the increase in compensation to the board that went through uh last month is my understanding. I I truly mean that. And um you're not going to be able to make everybody happy in in this process. Um and that's what that's not what the job is, right? Um you were elected to set the strategy of the district, to take care of our finances, and to hire and fire the superintendent. All of those are very top of mind right now, right? So what we really need from you is a vision for what we want our schools to look like. What is a really wonderfully resourced thriving school where all the kids are at grade level excelling are ready to go. What does that look like and how are we going to get there? We can only get there if you come together and listen to your experts to um to your community members and put together a real plan like other districts who have been in difficult situations like this have done. The current proposal results in some of the schools that serve the highest number of high needs kids that are highly enrolled title one schools losing case managers, losing community school managers, and TSA's focus on literacy. So, that's where I'm really

not clear on what our values are that are driving this strategy or this plan. The status quo is not serving the kids of Oakland if they can't read a grade level and if they're not graduating college or career ready. So what is what are we protecting right now? I really believe the majority of you in this role because you care about our kids. I really do. And so I please ask you to um to come together on what the values are that are really driving this process and um understand that we're not going to make everybody happy and that's okay. That's that's what the role is. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Dr. Saddler. Board members. Uh, my name is Kirsten Hernandez. I am a parent of three OSD kiddos. I've got two eighth graders and a fifth grader at MLA. And um I'm a proud K through 16 public school graduate here in California, former middle school math teacher, high school math teacher, administrator. Um for 20 more years than I I can count. Um and I'm here today to just express my concern about the budget deficit. I've been watching the board more closely over the last couple years, although I've been involved since my kids more closely involved since 2017. Um, and so I compel you all to dig in to work together. I don't know, maybe we spend some consultant money on some circles and retreats so that we can talk across difference because I do believe you guys all want to serve our kids the best you can. But what I've seen up here is disappointing and disheartening to say the least. Um, you're going to have to make some difficult decisions. Like Kim just said, you're not going to be able to make everybody happy. But until we can get there and then and address some of the fundamental cost structures and and and challenges that have that have plagued us for a long time, we're not going to be able to pay our teachers and staff and leaders what they deserve. We've got to do something different. And so I'm asking you all to work together towards some sort of long-term solution um for our kids for and again I'm not here to advocate for my kids my school like we I am part of the SSC and I saw those cuts. They're going to be painful but we can't say yes to everything. Um and like I

said these issues aren't new. I've seen Troy Christmas speak on the budget going like this for years, been part of blueprint processes, but we I just want to reiterate, we need a vision. We need to we need transparency. We need a strategy. We need to know what outcomes we prioritize and with that what we prioritize. The leadership coach told me once when I was a young assistant principal, saying no to something means saying yes to something else. So, I want us to be thoughtful about what we're saying no to and how we can help everybody in our community understand those tough decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hello, board. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Uh my name is Brandon Wall. Uh and I'm an Oakland parent with students at Crocker Highlands and Brewer. Um, I'm concerned about the unintended consequences of this proposed budget, uh, especially actually for Lincoln Elementary and other schools like it. Lincoln has experienced de devastating cuts as a result of the school board direction to staff to move funding for key positions like literacy TSAs and community uh, school managers. Oh, sorry. And community school managers, thank you. Sorry, out of supplemental and concentration funding uh, and into the learn learning recovery grant. Um, however, Lincoln doesn't qualify for this funding because their students have strong outcomes as measured by the California schools dashboard precisely because of years of hard work by educators, uh, families and students there. So now what happens? Lincoln loses those positions entirely. That feels deeply unfair. And again, this is not my school, but this is a school that is disproportionately hurt by the decisions that are being made uh, by the current leadership. This points to a larger issue with spreading ourselves so thinly across the city. Here we have a school doing all the right things and being punished for their success. I want to share a quick story. A few years ago, a family transferred from Lincoln to Crocker. After a few weeks, I noticed that I wasn't seeing them anymore. And so, I reached out and texted. Uh they told me that while the community was welcoming, which was what I was worried about, uh they were shocked by how much less support was available for their student at Crocker, which was ironic because they had heard such great things about their new school. Why was that? Well, even though Crocker is big and fully enrolled, 23% of the students come from low-income families. So it doesn't generate as much LCFF supplemental and concentration funding revenue as some schools. As a result, Crocker very rightly does not have the student supports that that family valued at Lincoln. So they went back. So what are the takeaways from the story? Number one, great schools can be very different from one another. Number two, having choices and finding a school that's the right fit is important to families. And number three, parents are often the best advocates for Oakland's children. I know budgets are hard. I know trade-offs are real. But when decisions result in schools losing critical support, we have

to pause and ask whether this approach is working. Too often, it feels like we're trying to preserve a broken status quo that results in only one in seven economically disadvantaged students reading on grade level by third grade. Our school board must start using resources more wisely. We must end literacy illiteracy in Oakland. Um we must ensure that each student graduates from our high schools college career uh and community ready. We must compensate our educators much better. Thank you. Evening. My name is Sudi Valenza. I'm a moderate self-contained program teacher at Bret Hart Middle School. Um, it hurts to hear about any school facing closure. Um, Bret Hart is really struggling with enrollment right now. We all want to build and maintain robust school communities. Right now, Bret Hart is facing a collocation with a charter and I I think it will be hard and I think it will be harmful, but I say let them come. We would love to invite them to be part of our school community as Bobcats. So, I'm just wondering, are we having conversations like amongst each other? So if you've got schools that are really struggling and schools with low enrollment, is anybody facilitating conver facilitating conversations between those school communities? Like how can we become one school community possibly? Like why colllocate? Why not be one school community? Obviously I want them to become become Bobcats. But teachers go back and forth between charters. Every year I have students who have siblings at charters usually because my students can't go to their siblings charters because they don't have the special needs programs that they need. But um and I have some of my favorite teachers have their kids at charters. I only

judge them a little bit. But an OEA used to meet once a month with other charter teachers like their union leaders or whatever. So I know that we have these hard lines. Forgot to say I'm speaking as an individual like totally as an individual right now. Um, but I'm just wondering like is anybody helping facilitate those conversations? I would love to be a part of that conversation. I know other staff at my school would love to do that. Um, so yeah, that's all I was just hoping that we could like maybe think outside the box and like the original intent of charters was to be these learning labs and have them come back and like share those ideas. And so I really think, you know, that's something we can think about. Thank you.

Thank you. My next speaker.

Hi, JT's motion. Speaking on my own behalf, uh, O USD parent, um, I'm going to read from a press release that came out today. The California Department of Education has ordered the Oakland Unified School District to take significant corrective action after finding it created a hostile environment for Jewish students and staff over the last two years. The order released late last week requires the district to send a letter to all families condemning anti-semitism and hold mandatory trainings for all teachers administrators in the next six weeks. The new corrective measures require in Oakland schools are among the most comprehensive ever ordered in California to address anti-semitism in public schools. This is just a snippet of the press release. There are eight resolutions required by the CDE. Um I'll be following up to make sure these um are completed and implemented. And I want to close by saying this type of hate affects all students in OSD. Uh the Jewish students are just the canary. Um this is not a place for hate for any stu there is not a place for hate for any students. Um but sadly this finding shows that hate is is prevalent and is not being addressed. Please take this seriously. Thank you.

We also have Carol Dylan. Good evening, Carol Delton. I have a lot to say. I'm going to speak more on the budget. Um, I want to say that regarding the budget, I think this board and district was put at a very difficult position when the previous financial staff did not come forward with a comprehensive plan that you asked for. And in that light, I think that together with a consultant, I don't like having consultants, but the consultant was needed. Um, I think you've done a lot in a short time. At the same time, you've heard a lot of people asking for clarity. I specifically ask for clarity on how the scenario presented tonight incorporates or adds to or differs from the scenarios presented in December. and others ask for, and I would have asked for if I had more than a minute, clarity on with the shifts of SNC funding, what does that mean for promise SNC services? And I'm just going to say on the side of that, I'm aware that there is a 30 million or was a $30 million carryover, which means that not all the SNC funds were being spent every year, which which means that not every SNC service is going to be impacted, but some of them will be. Um, I want to call out something that I heard tonight and I was amazed. You mean ELOP has not been covering its own custodial costs for however many years? And guess what? There's $2 million in carryover in ELOP

that can cover those costs. It's kind of shocking to me that previous financial staff didn't make sure that ELOP was covering its own costs. I want to mention uh I have to close but I want to mention that in the special education I don't think you're going to be able to get to 12 million. I think that by um using my recommendation is peer-to-peer recruitment for speech language pathologists and psychologists. I think that those are the people that will be trusted to bring more of those positions in house. I think it will save more money than Jen Blake thinks it will save because if you're looking at the average salary of those positions within OSD, you're looking at more senior staff versus the staff currently being hired on contract. So, I believe when you look at the comparative salaries that there is probably $3 million in savings. Um, even if there's less than that, it is certainly worth doing. Thank you,

Tanya. Kappler, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Yes, I'm with the equal opportunity now by any means necessary teachers caucus and an OEA representative from Sjourer Truth online school and I just want to say that this is not a business as usual situation and we cannot wait to defend public education in Oakland and across California and across this nation. We are mobilizing for a strike because we are putting our students first and demanding justice. OD has not offered a fair contract and we are at impass. You all saw the march tonight, the rally tonight, the community support and California and Oakland has to be at the front of standing up because when there is no justice, there is no peace. And this is not just about getting a fair contract. While it is, but it is also about defense of public education. The def the Trump administration wants to dismantle public education. If we don't stand up together now and fight, we won't even have unions a year or two from now. We are seeing the rise of fascism. People here know it. But we cannot put our hands heads in the sand like the school board has been doing, acting like it's business as usual. We have to be part of standing up with the people of Minneapolis against the ICE murders, against the kidnapping of families and students, five-year-olds. This nation is standing with Minneapolis. And there are districts across California that have expired contracts that could all go out on strike together and can actually do what

Frederick Douglas called for when he said without struggle there is no progress. Can actually get Trump out now. Can actually shut it down because when there is no justice there is no peace. So, I just want to make clear that Oakland has a lot of power, that the OEA is standing up for dignity and respect for the teachers, but that this is part of a much much broader fight. And that united to the community out there to the families and students united, when we stand together, we can do like Los Angeles did last summer and force ICE out. We can be a model for progress in defense of public education. and we can get the money that we deserve for our schools.

Thank you. Your time is up. Next speaker online is Jennifer Abdullah. If you can unmute yourself to speak. Um yes, I have one clarification to start. Um my uh original comment was on 01. I believe we're in section Q. Um I did join late um as I was doing school pickup. Uh has 01 already been heard? No, we haven't gotten to O yet.

Okay, great. Well, then I will go ahead with my written statement. Um, I respectfully, my name once again is Jennifer Adal Rice. I'm a D1 voter and I work for Blueprint, a nonprofit organization that supports schools. And I respectfully request that the district board approve and report to the state that the district has zero unhoused pupils on 01, confirming that the district is fully able to serve all of its students within its boundaries. Um, this confirmation will also allow Yumang and Aia to move forward with their Prop 2 state facilities application. Um, so this is a win-win for everyone because it says that you have zero on house pupils once again that you are able to serve all students within the district, but it still allows those two schools to proceed with their applications. um by um having those applications moving forward, um they will no longer need to navigate the full Prop 39 process, including the assessments, negotiations, and ongoing compliance work that we know is so challenging. And also, um using these state facility funds will allow the schools to meet their needs without drawing on local taxpayer resources or district funded assets. Um I c I'm always happy to answer questions about Prop 2. I know it gets rather complicated, but once again, this is just moving forward with the application stage. Um, it is not a commitment um to um complete the facilities down the road. Once again, I thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Are there any other speakers? No, that include all the registered speakers for this item. Okay, we are now moving on to item O, which is consent agenda items. Is there a motion to adopt? So moved. Second and is there public comment on this item? Yes, we have labala two minutes.

So if you look at 03 it's post construction topographic ground survey soil sampling for several schools. Uh I I don't understand how you do this sampling and you don't do anything after that. McClimmans has been waiting for years understanding that soil contamination has been identified and you've done nothing. But you've done it for places like coal. As soon as you found out coal had contaminated soil, you fixed it. So I understand the state is saying that you're discriminating against Jews. uh the state is not recognizing the discrimination that's going on against African-Americans or the special education students. I don't understand this. I don't know how many Jewish students we have. I don't even know what the discrimination is. How did this happen? And we not being recognized for the discrimination you causing for African-Americans. Then the other one is the um 010 uh wellness uh Williams uniform complaints. There have been so many complaints about a uh special education students not getting services. Uh Miss Harris over at McClimus has had 14 complaints about lack of appropriate service for her child and nothing has happened. We have uh at Bernard uh Berkeley teachers have been fired and princ vice principal fired about special education students not getting services. they file a lawsuit. Uh, and this is just ridiculous. We got people going saying that Jewish people are not getting assistance and these special education children year after year are not getting assistance. And the state recognizes the Jewish problem and can't recognize the black and the African-American. Now I say Jewish, they're going to say this is anti-semitic.

I'm sick of these Jews. I'm sick of them. So where is he gone? I don't want to talk. I want help. You getting your help? I want help.

I'm sorry. We We do have We are respectful towards each other in these meetings. That is not being resp No, you you have to stop that. Thank you. Um, excuse me. Uh, is there any board comments? Mrs. Sada, we need to continue our business. Thank you. And can we have a vote, Mr. Rogar, on the um uh I have my hand raised.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see you, D. Uh, thank you. Um, and for mitzvah at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland. Um, and I think anytime the state is director Hutchson, you cut out for just a minute. Do you want to

That's fine. I'll say it again. Uh, I'm Jewish. I was bar mitzvah at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, California. And I think anytime the state issues a report like was just issued uh directly against the school district, it's something that needs to be taken seriously. Um unfortunately though, we don't have much being taken seriously in the district. So again, on the consent report, I'm going to be abstaining from voting on this like I have abstained from voting on every consent report since April because I didn't trust how the district was being managed, especially when it comes to its finances. Um, and I think I've been uh proven correct with the concerns that I've had. Uh, specifically, I'm still not going to be voting for this because uh, last week we heard an announcement from interim superintendent Sadler that the freeze on contracts have been lifted, which again doesn't make sense to me because as we saw tonight, we have not solved our financial crisis. So if there was a freeze put on contracts, if something was instituted, I don't understand the judgment behind lifting it now when we still haven't addressed the budgetary shortfall. And in fact, at the same time we were lifting the freeze, people were announcing that our deficit is only $50 million. Um at this point, um it's just really difficult because people are not being truthful about the numbers and the information that's out there. And so there's no way that I could trust to approve a consent report when the board and the district are being managed in this fashion and we don't even have a chief business officer on staff anymore and there's been no start to find a new chief business officer. Uh this is really just a complete failure across the board. uh the fa the fact that um the same people are still even in power to make these decisions over our finances after what's happened over the

last 13 months um is a growing scandal and hopefully more and more people will pay attention. Uh it's not just a budget crisis. Um it's not just the fact that the no money was put away to negotiate new contracts for our unions. We can see we're still hiring consultants and outside contracts to come and now tell us how to manage things and there just seems to be no end to this. So hopefully as more people pay attention there will finally be accountability and we can finally bring some sanity back to how both the district and the district's finances specifically are wrong. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Ra. Can we have a roll call on the vote, please?

Yes. On the motion to adopt the general consent report. Student directors are absent. Director uh Thompson's absent. Director Barry. Yes. Director Hutchinson. Abstain. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Lauder. Yes. Vice President Bachelor. Yes. President Brohart. Yes. The general consent report is adopted. The next item on the agenda is item P, consent agenda items, facilities. Is there a motion to adopt? So moved. Second. And is there public comment?

Yes, we have Assalo Labala. Sada, did you want to make a comment on item P? P. Item P. Sorry. Uh, let me get my notes real quick. Uh, so we have uh P1 deductive of change order including Mccclimman. Y'all got to explain some of this stuff. It doesn't make sense. You are deleting plumbing scope of work at Mccclimman's. P2 hazardous uh waste cleanup at some site which is good but you're not doing it at mcclimons you're not cleaning up the hazardous waste at mcc clim's been there for years but you're doing it at another school uh T3 turf replacement another everybody's getting turf replacement but not mclimments the the money is there you need to do the the remediation it is not a part of the remodeling uh project. The turf replacement is a separate thing. You haven't done it then. Um Oh, that's all three of them. What is wrong? Everybody's getting services. Everybody's getting help. Not everybody, but why is McCleman's not getting anything? Name something you've done for Mccclimman. Don't talk about the kitchen. You just brought in pieces of materials and it's not it's not anything worth talking about. So I'll continue to come back talk about this. You do nothing. Close the school down. It's almost like you're sitting in

an emergency room waiting for help and nothing's happening. You say just keep waiting. Can't do that. You can't do that. You're overlooking somebody. This is discriminating. It's discrimination at the highest level. Please don't be smiling at each other because y'all don't take this serious. I know that. You know, you want to talk about the newcomers and you want to talk about uh ICE and all of that. That's very serious to you. If I would start laughing on that, you would be very much insulted. So, when I'm talking about mcclims and black people, don't laugh and smile, please. It's already too disrespectful what you do. Are there any other speakers?

No, they include public speakers. Are there any board comments? Director Hutchinson.

Yes, thank you. Um, you know, the the reason why um certain projects, especially the projects in West Oakland, are not getting done is the same reason why our finances are in freef fall. And the buck stops at the school board and it especially stops at the school board directors who represent those particular schools. This is our responsibility. We have fidiciary responsibility and especially when a school board on top of that loses their head of facilities, forces out their superintendent, forces out their chief business officer and the chief of staff and then still is unable to get anything done to serve the community and the district. The responsibility entirely lies at the school board. And until we as a community demand something much different, it's going to continue. We had Mccclimman's High School back on the top of the list. It was supposed to be the first full rebuild done under measure Y. And there's been no movement. And like Sister Assatada said, to see the number of new football fields and turf fields that have been put in across the district when Mccclimman still waits is entirely unacceptable. The fact that we haven't broken ground on Mcclimins is unacceptable. What's been allowed to happen to Ralph Bunch is unacceptable and the responsibility lies entirely with this school board. And the fact that they're more concerned about playing games and spreading stories than actually addressing the needs of our constituents that elected us should be a growing scandal that everyone pays attention to. And so again, we need the resation of our superintendent. We need to replace this school board. And until we do, we are destined to be taken over by the state within six months and then

we will again lose the ability to make these decisions as a local community. Hopefully more people are going to start standing up and holding everyone accountable. Thank you, Sister Assada.

Any Are there any other board comments? Uh, can we have a roll call on the vote, please? Mr. Rickstar, on the roll, on the roll call to adopt the general consent report. Director Williams for Gio Bonds. Director Williams. I'm sorry I didn't hear your audible answer.

Yes. Yes. Still too low for the record, sir. Yes. Thank you. Director Lada. Yes. Director Hutchinson. Abs. Director uh Barry. Yes. Director Thompson's absent. Vice President Bachelor. Yes. And President Prohark. Yes. Motion's adopted.

All right. Um we will then move on to T new business. Um T1 uh which is the audit. Is there a motion to adopt? Uh, not a voting item. Not a voting item. I apologize for that. Um, T1 is our presentation. Great. Is there a clicker for our presenter?

Oh, my P1. All right. Hello everyone. Good afternoon or good evening. Good night maybe. Um, is there a clicker? Do I just talk? Okay. Well, I guess when the when the slides come up, my name is Nathan Edelman with ID Bailey. I am the independent external auditor and I'll give you a 10,000 foot executive overview. Really the scope and the results of the it's the June 30, 2025 audit of the district. And I did meet I a month ago. I did meet meet previously with the audit committee. We went over this in quite a bit more detail than I will share with you folks here. I can certainly talk about the audit for a good hour if you was it coming up if you'd like me to. But there we go. If I can advance it. Does it work? I wonder if you can that way. That way. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I don't know, but I can just There there we go. Okay. Scope of the scope of the audience. So, just to define And I won't go over all of these in too much detail, but just to define what I'm talking about for a moment. And a district publishes a set of financial statements. And we're talking about last

year. So the literal numbers within the report probably not super relevant to you right now, but it is an after-the-act affirmation of what the district had put together and really those unintentioned actuals. And it is confirming the payables, cash, revenues, just making sure that those numbers confirming that those numbers are correct, that they are complete and accurate and useful information for decision makers. What's you know what what is not on the screen, what's not on the slides, what's not within the scope of the audit, it is not a a fiscal health assessment. has nothing to do with whether or not you know the the district is in you know good or bad fiscal health. It is really a factual statement just the results of operations as of that that cutoff period. District also receives a whole lot of federal and state grants. You're fortunate you have the partial taxes you GG1 N&H. Um, there's also little audits within there. Not so much about the debits and credits, but is the district using these restricted funding sources consistent with what they are intended, what they're allowed to be used for. And then if there are internal control deficiencies, those are required to be reported as well. And I'll just, you know, all I do is we ask questions, we look at documents, but the auditor is just reporting the results of the audit. And it is the district's responsibility. It's the folks within the the finance office. They actually put together the accounting records. They reconcile the accounts. They need to support the audit and they are the ones that are responsible for really ensuring that those numbers are accurate that they are complete.

I'll just audit was finished on time. Um I really want to talk about this this slide for a moment which is the results of the audit. So there's four big takeaways and one you know it's it's a it's a clean opinion on the financial statements which means that the numbers that were presented in that in the June 30 2025 financial statements those are complete and accurate and that is what you want their opinion is modified and there's something I think I have a slide for it on the the first bullet point here without going into too much detail on that there is what's called a going concern disclosure and that is not normal And that should not be in there. And that is not intended for anybody who's probably ever in this room. And it's really not intended for for you folks here because you are well aware of the district's the the budget issues and you're well aware of the financial state of the district. But if you were a if you're a grtor, if you are a an outside agency, someone that is not familiar intimately familiar with with the district and you're looking at these financial statements. It is not a health assessment and an entity could be for example, you know, five minutes from insolveny. The financial statements, if they accurately reflect that, well, you'll get a cleaner opinion on those financial statements. And so the going concern is really just an alert to people who are not intimately familiar with the district to go pay more attention. And that's I guess the best way that best way that I can describe that there were no internal no internal control deficiencies identified. That's a good thing. and on the state and federal compliance. And actually the there's a there's a star for the federal compliance because of some delays with how the federal compliance work this year. It's nothing to do with Oakland

Unified. There are no federal compliance findings even though they're not actually in the report that you have, but it's probably issued within the next week or so. And that's going to be a clean opinion as well. There are a couple state compliance findings and we can talk about those if you would like. They're not not systemic um and the partial tax opinions are also clean. So the two the the findings that are in there just so that I can give you a little bit of information. There is one about reporting uh on the state compliance side there's a pupil some of the state compliance uh some of the state compliance procedures say auditors must report findings no matter what you find one item you have to report the finding and there is two of there are two of those for the state compliance but the one that's probably a little more or of of more significance would be the uh internal control deficiency about the pension plan reporting and the audit did identify instances where pensionable earnings was not accurately reported to the pension providers which is calsters and calpers. All of those were corrected. All of those were fixed. Problem is that the audit is not expected or should not identify problems. District should have a process in place so that these happen on their own. The audit is supposed to come in after the fact and just confirm that everything is happening the way that you would expect. So these specific instances were were identified, they were fixed. Expectation is when we come in next year that is that is not a repeat internal control deficiency. So, um, yeah, I can talk a lot more about a a lot of this stuff, but, um, I'll turn it over. There's any

questions, I'm happy to try and answer those as best I can. Are there any board questions? Director Barry, I don't know to whom I should direct this question, but I think maybe Dr. Ser. Um, but when I went through the report. I was curious how our current budget stabilization planning is addressing some of the insights presented in the audit report.

Actually, um our fiscal advisors have been were looking at those reports as well. Um you'll see um specifically like one of those uh audit findings that had to do with the T TK um there were some recommendations regarding um stip subs which we utilized last year to deal with those ratios. This is why they're really critical. I think one of the things I think it's important for the board to have is those specific ways that we are addressing um audit findings that occur um and some of the few that I've been doing since I've um been here. We've had actually several hundred audit findings over time and most of those have been addressed and we have systems in place to correct we have corrected those audits but we also have systems in place to address them for future you know future uh review. Um I do think that's part of the stabilization plan is to look at how we're functioning operationally. That is a significant part of the work. So these audit findings are very very important to make sure that we have systems in place so that things don't happen um ever again. So that's what we're looking at. And we're also thinking about um these findings in terms of the staffing that we're maintaining and the staffing that we're um you know cutting. So those things are really important. This is why when we talk to staff about what we're maintaining that might be seen as central, some of these things are absolutely a must in terms of maintaining compliance. So those are things that we need to note so that you're really clear of the rationale by some of the management um decisions we're making.

Director Hutchinson. Yes. Thank you.

Um it it's actually a little embarrassing really the the conversation. Um but what we heard again uh confirmed again is that uh through the end of the fiscal year 2425 that under the leadership of Dr. Dr. Kyla Johnson Tamil and Chief Business Officer Lisa Grant Dawson. The numbers were verified and we had strong internal controls, things that were also cited when we um passed our fiscal systems uh audit to leave receiverhip. Yet we now have an administration and board that claim different numbers that that claim the deficit isn't in order that is taking advice from outside consultants because we don't have anyone internally. Outside consultants that have been in Oakland less than a month. Outside consultants that at the special meeting last week uh unequivocally stated that OD should have a chief business officer. that they were not a chief business officer. So currently, we don't even know who's making financial decisions within the district. If it's not being brought before the board, and when I've asked Superintendent Sadler directly who's made certain decisions and I haven't been told, that means we lack any internal controls currently. And it it really is a uh an unimaginable situation. and the juxtosition of this conversation now about the audit findings compared with the conversation earlier in the meeting about a fiscal solveny plan that doesn't even address the deficit we have, let alone enable us to negotiate new contracts with our labor partners. This is probably the best audit findings we've ever heard because it's on the

tail end of the work that uh Dr. Johnson Tumel and Miss Grant Dawson did. This is not like in the old days where there were 20 different audit findings or the year where an audit couldn't even be done because the information wasn't even available. Yet, after years of hard work and finally fi finally finding fiscal solveny, it's been thrown over the cliff in a matter of months. This audit again confirms the work that was being done in the district, confirms the numbers and confirms we have internal controls. So my one question and I don't know if this fully applies to this audit is uh would any of your findings be different uh now knowing that OD currently doesn't have a chief business officer and doesn't have a plan to replace them. Thank you. And that was for the auditor. I I don't know what the 2026 audit will look like. So I it is it is true everything that we've done all the work in the June 30, 2025 audit was for a lot of those staffing changes. So I have I I don't know what the there I will say there are there are people in place there are folks on the accounting side that do have to support the audit and they are they are still there and are and are quite important but obviously there's a lot more a lot more going on at the district so be here next year I guess.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there other board comments? I I did have one question about the Cal personally. Um so that I just want to cl that's been cleared up the um issue with the reporting. Well, so the specific the specific instances that we identified with the audit, those were re those were corrected. Expectation is and we come in and do this next year, we kind of go through the same process. Expectation is we do not have any discrepancies at all at all. Thank you for being patient and waiting. Are there any board I'm sorry. Yes. Um, we have Falo Labala,

not present. No, she should be in person though. Thank you. And thank you again for being patient. Appreciate it. Room is clear. Next, I believe we have a report from the audit committee with Carolyn Lee.

Hello. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we can hear you. Sure. Um, am I last? Is that correct? It is correct. All right. I'll try and be quick then. Um,

given the conversation that's just happened, I did want to um I've been on the audit committee for six years. Um, and it has gotten significantly better over the over those six years. Um, and this audit really proves all of that work that we've just been talking about. So, as you heard, there are three audit findings that is absolutely amazing. I don't think can't remember if any of them were repeating. Um, but that's a huge problem that we've had at OU um in the district is having repeated uh audit findings year after year and those have all been um addressed and cleaned up. So, as audits go, um, they will always find something. You're never going to have an absolute clean audit report. It It's never going to happen. So, three is really amazing. Um, and when they do find these audit findings, this is ways that the district can can sharpen and can get better. So, it's not necessarily the end of the world. Um but yeah, just to reiterate that the audit was uh a really great result. We've been really impressed by um the district and their commitment to keep showing up and um telling us, you know, who is actually behind the decisions of who is putting those operational processes in place, who is doing the training. Um, so Ryan Newan and also uh, Miss Lisa Grant Dawson have been um, very helpful and very upfront with um, who's doing what. U, and as you see on that letter at the end, we do have a um, we call it an audit tracker. So you can see the numbers for yourselves of, you know, what are the findings um, what's happened year-over-year

um, just to see kind of those um, those results. So really uh what the letter calls for at the at the top is we need more people for the audit committee. Uh my term is up January 31st and then we have two members and we won't have enough for quorum. So I've been trying to talk to some people in the community. I've met with a couple people who might be interested but um I just call on the committee to you know put the word out and try and get more people. Um, so yeah, that's it. Hey, thank you. Are there any public comments?

Yes, we have Carol Delton and Assal Labala and and I'm not seeing Carol Delton online and I don't see Assal Labala. And are there any board comments? All right. Uh, Rachel, uh, director Oh, I just um I I noticed that um Miss Lee, your term is ending and you're moving to a different committee. So, thank you. Sure. No problem.

Also wanted to say uh um thank you for your service on the audit committee and your audit reports and we look forward to you serving on further committees. Thank you. Um and with that, we are done with the audit. Uh we are moving on to the president's report. Um I don't have much to report. I know I am going to be doing some um um engagements with principles and staff these next few weeks. Lots of calls about the budget. So we'll be attending those. And I will also be attending the Chinatown parade and on on February 9th. Um are there any board reports? So, yeah, just a couple of quick um reports. The first is that I will be at um the bring an adult to the playground um grand opening of Emerson's um new uh Kaboom EatLearn playground. So, um you're in the Emerson community or helped build it, I hope you can come. Uh, next Wednesday I'll be at Shabbo Elementary um doing a budget engagement and then just a reminder that we'll be having our um first budget and finance meeting of the year next Thursday at 6 in the committee room.

Williams. Uh yeah, I just want to uh lift up Hoover Hoover Elementary. We're going to have a uh African-American readin on Friday. Um so that's going to be really exciting. Um thank you Director Barry

Vice President. Thank you. The only other thing I'll add um outside of the events that I'm going to at school sites uh that I discussed at the student board report um is that we are uh going to be discussing the facilities master plan draft um and there will be two spaces where folks can view the draft and provide feedback. And so that is in the um the first of those engagements is the um measure BJY independent citizen facilities bond committee which is on um February 9th at 6:30 p.m. um in the committee room upstairs. And then the next uh engagement around that um the uh that uh plan is going to be on the 19th at the facilities committee um at 6 pm. So folks can find the facilities master plan draft document and on both of those agendas um and then uh provide public comment or engage with those committees at that time and then it'll subsequently come to the full board as well for discussion and comment. Um again the facilities master plan is making an assessment of every single school site building anything that we own in the district to assess where uh it is structurally where um some def defects are um so that then we can use that information to think about what are some of the areas uh where we want to invest uh in subsequent bonds um and or if we want to restructure any of the bonds that we uh bond dollars that we currently have. So again, I'd love to hear from school communities. We've heard about heat mitigation. We've heard about water quality. We've heard about um safety and other kinds of improvements. And so it'd be wonderful to have community at those conversations

so that both the SEABOK committee and the facilities committee can be hearing from school communities about what school communities uh would like to uplift from the uh facilities master plan. Thank you. On to item W. Was there any new Oh, I had my hand. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand. Go ahead, Director.

Thank you. Um, and just for the record, the master's facilities plan is a year late. Uh, it was due in the spring of 2025 and it's one of our requirements uh every five years uh in order to go out for a facilities bond. Um, you know, thank you to everyone who came out tonight uh to all the emails and all the text messages I've received. Hopefully over the next uh week or two, I'll have a chance to meet with the PTAs in District 4 who reached out to me. Um for those who haven't reached out yet, please do so we can set up a meeting. Um I think it's clear to everyone that it's it's really up to us as a community to step in and save the district. Um it should have never been allowed to get to this point. We know what the numbers are when it comes to our budget and our finances. Uh we just heard them verified one more time by our audit. And so this is a real crisis of mismanagement by the schoolboard majority and by their interim superintendent. And the fact that last week we were promised that we'd have a fiscal solveny plan um up for discussion at today's meeting and today we saw a plan with nothing and instead um people decided to not tell the truth and claim that the numbers are actually different numbers. Uh we're facing a a a real crisis right now. If we don't do this by March 15th, there is no way we pass a balanced budget, which means we will be taken over by the state, which means the superintendent will be fired. The state will um slash services and staff all across the district in whichever way they see fit. And they also even have the authority to roll back contracts that already exist. And the fact that now for five months um this board and this superintendent have decided to do nothing to address our financial situation is really unconscionable.

Um the fact that then they would double down and lie is even worse. And the fact that they're colluding with certain people to try to engineer certain outcomes for their own selfish benefit um is borderline criminal. There's real conflicts of interest going on. There are real people engaged in trying to engineer a strike in the tank our finances and action after action over the last 13 months has proven that to be the case where now we have an interim superintendent, no chief business officer, a chief of staff with no experience, and we're receiving advice from two consultants from Southern California who've only been under contract for a month. It's unbelievable, but I'm counting on the community to hold everyone responsible and accountable. And I plan to see a lot more people at the February 11th school board meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we move on to item W, which is new legislation.

Seeing no new legislation, we move to the final agenda item, which is adjournment. Thank you.