The eminently competent Lisa Grant-Dawson, Chief Business Officer of OUSD, was not fired like the Chief of Staff, or Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammel, but Grant-Dawson has now reached her limit of OUSD board fiscal bs.
Grant-Dawson kept the School District out of insolvency as long as she could while getting OUSD out of state/county fiscal oversight.
"While Bellino confirmed he’d not been given cause for the termination, Grant-Dawson said her decision to leave came after she and Bellino, with other colleagues, led a weekslong budget planning effort to right a $102 million budget deficit projected next year, and planned to present last Wednesday.
But two days before the presentation, she said, Saddler (the interim Superintendent) revealed a different plan, crafted without the budget chief’s knowledge.
“I learned on Monday morning that the superintendent sought to lead in a different direction with the budget scenarios that were ultimately presented to the board. And opted to not inform me and other colleagues in advance of her decision,” Grant-Dawson told KQED.
“What I don’t participate in is side-swiping.”"
Time to think about recalling all of our school board except for Mike Hutchinson and Patrice Berry. But doubt if any wealthy civic-minded people are willing to fund those recalls.
Well that KQED article certainly makes the school board sound incompetent and refusing to face reality. Alas you can only avoid facing it for so long.
My friend's kids left OUSD and put their kids in private and charter schools but as a property owner, after that resignation, they were pissed and are contemplating for running for D6 School Board. I told them I'm not sure they would win with their kids in a charter and I wouldn't wish that role on my worst enemy but they're seriously thinking about it just to flip the vote back to sanity. Would love to hear anyone from D6 chime in.
D6 resident. I would beg anyone not wholly bought body and soul by either OEA/ CTA or the charter advocacy group FIA to run for the seat. Super hard to raise money outside of either of those two groups, but we desperately need a 3rd way in local education politics (nit unlike national politics).
I’m donating if there’s a campaign to recall. These board members have failed to do their jobs.
I don't think there's reason to recall Clifford Thompson either. He's basically on Hutchinson and Berry's side.
The rest? Yes.
I don't follow OUSD board politicts, only finances and educational policy
But yes, Thompson's vote surprised me too.
Will we need a oard when we are in bankruptcy or will it be run by a court appointee?
What makes this complex, is the Chief Business Office was advocating for declaring insolvency and taking a state loan, making no further efforts to resolve the budget issues nor maintain local control. The scenario she is upset about was a proposal to rectify the budget imbalance and maintain local decision-making. As an OUSD parent, I lack any confidence in the current Board majority, but that doesn’t mean I have confidence in state or county agencies to necessarily make better or more accountable decisions. I don’t think you hi that route until or unless you are absolutely 100% done. While we’re close, we’re not there.
If accurate, I'd need to see at least the broad outlines of the alternative plans the board has yet to release, and the state's plan, to determine whether a state takeover could create long-term stability. Most likely, those plans exist in draft form.
OUSD's general fund (as compared to the restricted fund) is probably insolvent now. ie, unable to pay its bills on time.
I don't know if Chapter 9 is an option for OUSD, but think it would have to be filed after a state/county takeover.
How do you know this?
There were two scenarios presented on the 12/10 board meeting. One outlined pursuing a state loan (scenario #4). The other is the one the CBO has decried in her post resignation interviews (scenario #3). So clearly, she was in support of #4, the one she didn’t criticize and didn’t resign over.
My understanding from oaklandside is that CBO staff prepared two options, and the board chose a third option from the Super. Is there any way to access these scenarios?
Go back and read the KQED article again and the board docs from 12/10. Scenario #4 requires a loan and loans mean receivership
It is unspecified where the loan would come from, the state or a private loan.
There’s no such thing as a private equity loan for basic operations. It refers to a state bailout which leads to receivership.
I think you might be getting your financial terms confused. Private equity (like an investment firm) ≠ private loan
Private loans exist. It would certainly be a poor choice for the district. But to my previous point, it is all unspecified. It’s so confusing and to me, it looks like a cover up. Lisa Grant Dawson was working on a plan to cut $80M and suddenly there’s some vague language about a loan. How can we evaluate the scenario when there is no detail about the loan type, terms, duration, etc.
Would you buy an OUSD bond?
Or rather what tax free interest rate would be high enough for you to buy them?
City of Oakland had to offer almost a full percentage point more than SF the other week.
Superintendent chose to leave when she couldn't pick her own replacement.
It's actually good for elected officials to do their job instead of just rubber-stamp whatever administratiors/OPD want.
Between these 2, that's $1.1M of the budget fixed, coincidentally they were the 2 most expensive employees for OUSD https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2024/school-districts/alameda/oakland-unified/
Not surprising to see you side with millionaires over teachers though.
Or for your "we shouldn't recall" list to be the supervisor with ethics violations.
The people are just leaving the positions. The positions are not going away, I don’t think. There is not a cost savings associated with people leaving positions which are funded, and the positions themselves are not slated for closure in any proposed budget reduction scenarios. OUSD will still like have a CBO.
Curious, was that inside info about Johnson-Trammel's departure? The only public information was a cryptic quote of her saying she was "not on the same page" as the board.
As to Lisa Grant-Dawson's 350k annual pay, she was worth every penny. You are not familiar with controller/cfo pay in the Bay Area.
I had some interactions with a predecessor. I'll leave it at that.
Now, if you want to talk about excessive OUSD HQ pay, I'd look at the new chief in house attorney. Reportedly she only passed the bar recently and is getting paid +250k?
Not understanding your list sentence about supervisors with ethics violations.
Not only did Jenine Lindsey pass the bar a year before being promoted to General Counsel, but she graduated law school approximately 10 years before passing the bar. Having interacted with her on many occasions, she was consistently late by multiple hours, never took notes, and required multiple retellings of the same information.
It's unofficial, but the basic idea is that the teachers' union (OEA) pressured their endorsed members on the board to force Kyla out and they did so. Why? Because she was going to advocate for school closures as a way to balance the budget.
Yeah sure, it's some weird conspiracy, not the very clear and obvious explanation, Jesus "moderates" on this sub are so cooked.
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. The OEA leader herself said to a principal “We got the superintendent fired.” Not too hard to connect the dots here.
EDIT: Link to this comment:
https://www.kqed.org/news/12039972/oakland-schools-hostility-spirals-between-teachers-union-principals
just 50 more top people to force to quit and not replace then problem solved
as the old grade school joke went:
Q: How do you keep a fish from smelling"
A: Cut off its nose
Opd?
OUSD. Completely independent public entity from the City of Oakland.
https://youtu.be/xGn55BRyDSk?si=ElYVcPb0dgREs3qg
Oakland city council only exists to rubber stamp transferring our tax dollars into OPD's pockets.
As was seen with the Flock vote
Gotta smile when people insist that the 4 out of the 5 progressive Council members who voted to renew Flock: Janani, Brown, Wang, and Unger have gone to the Dark Side. (ok, we can quibble about Wang being a progressive)
(havent looked at the prior vote to buy a new Bearcat and now assault weapons),
Wang was bought and paid for Empower, she's not at all progressive.
Janani, Brown & Unger might have run as progressives but they've assumed their role as rubber stampers none the less.