The Oakland Education Association and Oakland Unified School District bargained late into the night on Thursday and reached an agreement around 3 a.m. Friday morning, the union said.
OUSD’s most senior teachers will get a 13% pay increase over two years, while all other educators will see an 11% raise. The union’s initial ask was a 14% raise for everyone. Special education teachers, early childhood educators, nurses, and social workers will get additional salary increases.
“This contract reflects a newfound commitment by the OUSD superintendent and school board to prioritize resources toward classrooms,” Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, the president of OEA, said in a statement.
The agreement also includes smaller caseloads for school counselors, a book allowance for teacher librarians, and improved workloads for school nurses. OEA represents about 2,600 teachers, counselors, social workers, nurses, teacher librarians, and substitutes.
School board president Jennifer Brouhard said the agreement reflected the conclusions of a fact-finding report released last week, which recommended a 10% raise for the most experienced teachers and a 9% raise for all others, with an additional 2% raise for special education teachers.
“We’ve been doing community meetings for the last few weeks and what we’ve heard over and over again is that parents and the community want to support our teachers and want to avoid a strike,” Brouhard told The Oaklandside. “I think we were able to do both.”
Brouhard said she could not offer an exact estimate of how much the agreement will cost the district, but a district representative has previously said each 1% in raises costs the district around $5 million, which would put this package in the ballpark of $65 million. District officials and school board members have not said how the raises will be paid for.
The district was facing a projected $102 million deficit for the next school year even before this deal was reached. Recently the school board approved layoffs of more than 400 roles to help close that gap.
OEA’s previous contract expired in July 2025 and bargaining began last March. Last week, the union announced its members had voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.
That so many districts around the state are navigating budget cuts, layoffs, and potential teachers strikes is a sign that structural change is needed in how the state funds schools, Brouhard said. Urban districts would especially benefit if the state changed its model to enrollment-based funding — as is done in many states — rather than funding pegged to daily attendance, she added.
“Schools are really crying out for more funding,” she said. “As our students have more needs and we want to be able to keep teachers. We know that retaining our teachers is key to student success, and we all have to work together to get that money from the state.”
The tentative agreement will now go to the school board and the union’s membership for approval. County superintendent Alysse Castro will also review the agreement to ensure that OUSD can afford it.
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