By Katie Nielsen<\/p>\n
The Oakland Unified School District on Wednesday approved layoffs as it faces a budget deficit, but the decision and the time it took to get there were concerning, one parent said.<\/p>\n
Parent Arielle Fleisher has a daughter at Crocker Highlands Elementary School. She has been attending school board meeting after meeting, trying to ask the board to focus on what\u2019s best for students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be doing everything we can to improve student outcomes. I can\u2019t figure out why we are working so hard to protect the status quo,\u201d Fleishner said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0She said the board should have made a plan to balance the budget months ago instead of waiting until the last minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make hard choices. There are going to be trade-offs. The board didn\u2019t show that leadership. They didn\u2019t do any of that hard work. They kicked the can down the road, and now we\u2019re in this place of crisis,\u201d she told CBS News Bay Area.<\/p>\n
About 80% of the district\u2019s entire budget goes toward paying staff, administrators to teachers to support staff. So, layoffs were one of the options, and it was one they took on Wednesday night, voting 5-2 to layoff hundreds of staff members.<\/p>\n
And Wednesday was the last day to decide on which positions to cut because, according to state law, anyone being laid off needs a certain amount of advanced notice. So, any positions not cut tonight must be funded next school year<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not have the ability to pass a balanced budget for next school year, and most likely the only option is for the county superintendent to take over at least the district\u2019s finances,\u201d said Mike Hutchinson, an OUSD Board Member, ahead of the meeting.<\/p>\n
Hutchinson said he feels that the other board members need to consider budget solutions other than layoffs tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no dollar amount attached to it. There\u2019s no rhyme or reason to it, and it\u2019s not part of a comprehensive plan, so what we should be looking at is every option available to us as a district to achieve the budget savings that we need to find,\u201d Hutchinson said.<\/p>\n
For parents like Fleishner, she can\u2019t understand why the board is only looking at staff cuts and not at the bigger picture. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single school is going to be down to the bare bones, and to what end,\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Katie Nielsen The Oakland Unified School District on Wednesday approved layoffs as it faces a budget deficit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-194603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}