Oakland teachers, school district resume labor talks; OUSD posts proposed $102M budget cuts

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — The Oakland Education Association (OEA) will meet with the Oakland Unified School District on Monday night to continue labor negotiations.

Friday night, Oakland teachers voted to strike Friday. Then on Saturday, they got to work making signs for a possible picket line.

“In my school alone, so many teachers leave because they can’t afford to be in the bay area. Or, they don’t have the supports they need in the classroom. So we fight for those things,” says Traci Grizzle, a first grade teacher.

Oakland teachers have been working without a contract since July. This weekend’s talk didn’t produce any results.

“We have not decided on a strike date. We will be providing the community with 48-72 hour notice of an impending strike,” says teacher Olivia Udovic, who is one of 60 members on OEA’s bargaining team.

Amidst a possible teachers’ strike, the school board just posted its new budget plan for the 2026-2027 school year. In it, $102 million in potential cuts, which includes more than 200 layoffs – mostly to central office staff. It also shifts $50 million to restricted funds to what the district says, “will free up the Unrestricted General Fund to address the structural deficit.”

But in an interview with ABC7 Eyewitness News in November, Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro says OUSD is burning though reserves at a rate of $4 million every month. And, relying on special project funding to cover basic operations.

“OUSD has a solid 20 years of reports and recommendations from both inside and outside experts. And the common theme is that they spread their resources extremely thinly,” explains Castro.

Castro issued a letter to the district on January 28. The letter states OUSD’s Unrestricted General Fund faces a $93 million deficit for the 26-27 school year. And, that the school board, “cannot authorize future compensation increases without corresponding tradeoffs.”

OUSD School Board Member Mike Hutchinson says that hasn’t happened.

“And we need to do that first, before we can negotiate with anyone, because we can’t negotiate dollars we don’t have,” Hutchinson told ABC7 Eyewitness News in an interview on Saturday.

In statement released Monday, Hutchinson adds, “Shifting funds is not a fiscal solvency plan.”

Oakland Unified Superintendent Dr. Denise Saddler wasn’t available for an interview. Instead, the district deferred to a statement, which reads in part: “The District continues to work toward a resolution that both honors OUSD educators for the work they do every day in service of our students, while at the same time staying within our means because of the very real financial challenges with which the District is currently contending.”