OAKLAND — The city’s public school officials have quietly suspended the search for a new superintendent due to the district’s budget troubles, a move that caught several board members by surprise and has raised concerns about transparency.
Jennifer Brouhard, the school board president, confirmed Tuesday that she and other Oakland Unified School District leaders would hold off recruiting a permanent replacement for Kyla Johnson-Trammell, the ex-superintendent who was mysteriously fired a year ago.
The board decided to pause the search in a recent closed-session meeting, Brouhard said, but did not ultimately take a vote to formalize the move. Such discussions are held behind closed doors because they involve personnel. California law requires all voting decisions to be reported to the public.
Brouhard said in an interview that holding off the recruitment of a new administrator would allow the board to focus instead on resolving the district’s budget problems.
But the move immediately raised questions about the transparency around district decisions, with interim Superintendent Denise Saddler now likely to serve until at least the fall.
The decision to pause the search, effectively carried out in secret, may also worsen political divides between the board’s labor-backed majority and other members who believe Johnson-Trammell took a more cautious approach to district finances.
Several members in the latter contingent said they became aware of the change in plans only after a mention of it appeared in the notes of a recent teachers’ union meeting.
Brouhard and board Vice President Valarie Bachelor told officials of the Oakland Education Association, the district’s faculty union, that the search had been suspended. Bachelor said recruitment would “probably” resume in the fall, with a focus on community engagement.
Three members of the Oakland Unified School District board, Valarie Bachelor, left, VanCedric Williams, center, and Jennifer Brouhard, hold a press conference, where they urged other board members to authorize negotiations for “common good” proposals demanded by the teachers union, outside a district office in Oakland, Calif., on May 8, 2023. The Oakland Unified School District and Oakland Education Association, which represents teachers and staff, did not reach a bargaining agreement over the weekend, pushing a strike affecting 34,000 students into its third day Monday. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
“Nothing has been done to find a permanent superintendent,” said Mike Hutchinson, a fellow board member, referring to Brouhard and Bachelor. “Instead, the board leadership unilaterally began signaling to people that the search had been paused.”
The board has been rife with political conflict, especially in the wake of Johnson-Trammell’s firing and the subsequent departure of Oakland Unified’s top business official, Lisa Grant-Dawson, amid deepening budget woes.
Last week, Alameda County’s top education official warned that a tentative new labor contract with the teachers’ union could be a worrying sign for the district’s ability to balance its books by the summer.
Alysse Castro, the county superintendent of schools, issued a formal notice requiring school leaders to provide clear projections by June 1 that outline how the new contract would affect the city’s budget, which, by some estimates, is around $50 million.
The two-year labor deal, which awaits the board’s full approval, would provide most teachers at least an 11% pay raise backdated to last July.
In a letter sent to district leaders last week, Castro offered a “qualified” certification of the budget, which can be described as a middle ground between a “positive” or “negative” certification. But, she said, the district’s financial state is far from “normal.”
“What is not typical — and is driving current concern — is how incomplete OUSD’s financial picture remains at this stage,” she wrote.
Kyla Johnson-Trammell, who was hired in 2017 as superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District, speaks at a news conference at district headquarters on Thursday, May 29, 2025. (Shomik Mukherjee/Bay Area News Group)
The lack of a permanent superintendent, following the board’s removal of Johnson-Trammell, only further stoked longstanding political divides over the district’s embattled finances.
Declining enrollment due to the rise of charter schools led the ex-superintendent and some elected leaders to suggest closing some of the district’s 80 campuses, which serve a student population of 34,000.
Brouhard, who had opposed a disastrous effort to close some of the city’s schools in 2022, said such efforts have disproportionately targeted Oakland’s lower-income eastern and western neighborhoods, where smaller campuses struggle to retain students.
The board president argued — both in an interview and in a meeting with union officials — that the district’s financial woes are partially the result of financial mismanagement by previous administrators, even though recent audits of Oakland Unified determined that its accountants followed best legal practices.
“There are big inconsistencies in the information the board has had in making decisions about the budget,” she said.
Saddler, the interim superintendent, seemed to interpret Castro’s warning letter in a positive light because it did not issue a negative budget certification. “Our plan is working,” she wrote. “Oakland is on the right track.”
Others see the immediate financial future differently, including Hutchinson, the board member who has clashed most intensely with Brouhard and Bachelor and who has persistently warned the public that Oakland Unified may soon run out of money.
All three board members are up for re-election this November. For those on the sidelines, the board’s latest move to delay its superintendent hire shows the severity of the district’s troubles.
“If you’ve decided to suspend the search for X amount of time,” said former school board member Sam Davis, “you come out and say it publicly.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.