Superintendent Castro,

We, the undersigned Oakland Unified parents, community members, and voters write to you today with concern. Like you, we are watching closely as OUSD struggles through a budget crisis. The board has asked the Superintendent and her team to create a budget that avoids school closures, protects school site funding, improves financial transparency, and invests in better enrollment and attendance. Given the district’s finances, it seems impossible to meet all of these goals.

Even as we write, the district teeters on the brink of its 4th strike since 2019. Teachers and other staff are demanding raises they desperately need. According to the recently released Fact Finding Report, the district hasn’t been able to provide the financial data necessary to know whether raises are even possible.

As our elected representative responsible for ensuring OUSD can meet its fiscal obligations, we turn to you with two big questions: What is happening in OUSD, and what is your plan to address it?

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OUSD?

We are confused and concerned about the current state of OUSD. We appreciated your January 26 letter, but many important questions remain unanswered.

1. In your letter, you mention a “structural deficit.” What are the primary causes of this deficit? Is our structural deficit driven by a high staff-to-student ratio? Too many schools? Too much spending at the central office, contracts, or outside consultants?

2. OUSD’s revenue has plummeted due to declining enrollment and the end of one-time COVID funding. Board and district leadership have suggested several ways to increase revenue, such as improving attendance, adding TK hubs, and opening a non-public school so we can reduce the cost of sending Special Education students outside the district. In your letter, you say that “counting on gains at this scale introduces significant risk.” If counting on gains is risky, what is the responsible way to include these revenue plans in our budget? Could this new revenue eventually offset the structural deficit?

3. You refer several times to the district’s history of “delayed decisions.” We have also seen “deadline” dates shift through your warning letters to the board. Which specific decisions does the board need to make now, by what date, and what happens if they don’t?

4. Is the district’s plan to move Supplemental & Concentration funds to cover ongoing costs that used to be paid from the general fund (including noon supervisors, attendance clerks, and even the full cost of operating 13 small schools) a legal use of those funds?

5. In the past school closures have been most disruptive to historically Black communities, compounding the generational impacts of institutionalized racism & redlining. At the same time, the status quo leaves thousands of high needs students in schools without librarians, reading specialists, case managers, or counselors. We ask: What is the most equitable way to solve our structural deficit?

WHAT IS YOUR PLAN TO ADDRESS THE SITUATION IN OUSD?

As you know, the interim Superintendent’s current proposal would reduce the current-year deficit to $50 million by shifting costs into the Supplemental & Concentration budget, cutting central office spending by 20%, and cutting school site budgets by 10%. These cuts already remove positions that are critical to schools and to the board’s stated goals. And even after these painful cuts, the district is only halfway there. OUSD still needs to find another $50 million in ongoing savings and another $10-50M to fund raises that teachers & staff urgently need.

The choices left are extremely difficult, and board leadership appears reluctant to make them. As you have said yourself, “each delay narrows the district’s options.” Our question: what is your plan to help OUSD?

In your January letter, you argued that since fiscal oversight has shifted from the state to the county office of education, there is no intervention short of receivership. We understand that county intervention is serious, but Education Code 42127.6 gives county offices many tools that are less extreme than receivership to help districts in financial trouble.

You have already required the district to submit a plan to address its financial risks. What other tools are you considering? When you issued a “qualified” certification, you decided that the stronger actions allowed under a “negative” certification were not needed. Would you make that same determination today? How are you advising, working with, and applying pressure to district leadership as they try to turn their “plan for a plan” into a real, workable budget?

AN INVITATION

As your constituents, we remain hopeful that you are doing everything you can to meet your responsibility to oversee OUSD’s finances. That requires leadership and support now, not intervention after our district has already gone back into debt and lost local control.

In that spirit, we invite you to speak directly with our community and respond to these questions. We would be glad to host you at Oakland High School at 6 PM on March 9, 10, or 12 or another date and time that works for you.

Respectfully,

Oakland community members & voters