Oakland teachers picketed outside the construction site of OUSD’s new $57 million administrative center under construction on Union Street Thursday, arguing that the money should instead be going toward classroom repairs.
The district's wage proposal on the table includes a 10% retroactive raise and a $5,000 one-time bonus for union members. It also provides every teacher with a raise of at least 13% and as much as 22%.
The offer also cuts the time it takes teachers to reach the top of the pay scale to 20 years from 32 years.
District officials remain adamant, however, that the union's proposals addressing homelessness, use of vacant properties and drought-tolerant landscaping shouldn't be part of the bargaining process and are cost-prohibitive.
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Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said the teachers' union was "assigning the district with broad societal issues" that are outside its scope.
“While the district agrees that these issues should be addressed, and we are working on many of them, the issues cannot be tackled through school district budgets alone. They demand multi-agency government support," Johnson-Trammell said in a statement released by the district.
Meanwhile the teachers maintain that the district has failed to bargain with them for seven months, and that their common good demands include critical upgrades for "crumbling" school facilities that need immediate attention.
The district is spending millions on a new central administrative center instead of fixing urgent safety issues at schools, according to the teachers union.
"Educators intend to point out that OUSD is spending $57 million from Measure Y funding on a project that serves no immediate benefit to students or teachers at school sites," the union said in a statement Wednesday night.
Measure Y, approved by votes in 2020, allowed the district to issue $735 million in bonds to pay for the necessary school and facility improvements across the district.
"OUSD has been guilty of massive overspending on administration for decades - external audits and reports have continually verified this, but OUSD doesn't want to budge," said Marika Iyer, a high school English and Ethnic Studies teacher. "It's time to prioritize our students' education, not more high paid jobs and buildings that we don't need."
The teachers union says Measure Y funds could pay to address plumbing issues that are causing raw sewage to leak into classrooms, for heating and cooling upgrades, and removal of hazardous materials at campuses that have reported elevated levels of contaminants in water and soil.
It would cost more than $1 billion to implement "common good" proposals that Oakland's striking teachers are demanding, school district officials said Wednesday evening.
With 11 days remaining in the school year for 35,000 students in the district, the stalemate continues between the Oakland Unified School District and the Oakland Education Association, representing about 3,000 teachers and other employees.
