The California AG has concluded that Oakland Unified’s school closures have disproportionately harmed Black and Disabled students, and issued very specific guidance to OUSD about how to avoid repeating that harm in the future. Will OUSD listen to that advice as they push forward with mergers, consolidations and closures in future?

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Justice for Oakland Students Graphic regarding School closures from 2004 to 2017

OUSD has a long history of school closures in Black communities that have accelerated gentrification and resulted in disproportionate harm to Black students.

Oakland Unified School District (“OUSD”) has closed many schools over the past twenty years, following a pattern of using so called “Sustainability” metrics: utilization and enrollment data. In a 2004 discussion about school closures, former school board member Gary Yee articulated that “[t]he primary concern for any school site reutilization was that the school is effective and relatively inexpensive to run.”1 That philosophy reinforced racist and ableist patterns and behaviors and resulted in the devastation of the Black student population in OUSD over time.

In February of 2022, the OUSD board voted to close schools over two years, again using the same kind of “Sustainability” metrics as the selection criteria, and once again disproportionately harming Black, low-income and Disabled students.

AB 1912 and the AG investigation grew out of the February 2022 closure decision, and led to the currently proposed Equity Impact Metrics to be presented to the board this week for adoption.

In response to the closure decision, the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) filed a complaint2 with the California Attorney General (“AG”) alleging that the school closures violated the constitutional and statutory civil rights of Black students in OUSD. The AG opened an investigation into the closures sometime in 2022, and Assemblymember Mia Bonta authored a law (“AB 1912”) requiring an equitable process before deciding to close schools.3 In January, 2023, a newly elected OUSD Board majority rescinded the closure decision for those schools set to be closed in June, 2023 and then voted to “merge” 10+ schools at the end of the 2023-24 school year as part of their budget development, which triggered the need for the AB 1912 equitable process.

OUSD staff presented the Equity Impact Metrics to the Board January 10, 2024 including the same racist and discriminatory “Sustainability” metrics that have been used since 2004, which resulted in a letter from the AG’s office dated January 29, 20244 outlining the AG’s concerns with those metrics. After failing to adopt the identical metrics on March 27, 2024, the OUSD State appointed Trustee warned the board that because they failed to take the steps necessary to “merge” 10+ schools as promised in the 2023 budget resolution, the Trustee would not allow them to negotiate compensation increases for OUSD union employees. In response, Board President Sam Davis has scheduled a vote on a revised set of metrics this Wednesday, April 10th.

What guidance did the AG provide to OUSD? We summarized it so you don’t have to.

So what does the AG have to say about the SPECIFIC metrics that OUSD is proposing?

We are grateful to staff and the Board for removing the four “Sustainability” metrics from the proposal that the AG made clear would repeat the same disproportionate harm as in past years. But the proposed metrics also include other metrics that the AG found problematic or incomplete. The Board should heed the following advice from the AG.

The AG will continue to monitor OUSD as they plan for mergers next year, and any closures or consolidations in the future. OUSD MUST ensure that they take actions that are constitutional, legally compliant, and repair harm to Black and Disabled students rather than replicate it.

We urge the board to make additional changes to the metrics necessary to ensure that they comply with the constitution, the law and the guidance of the California Attorney General. We also urge them to mandate a robust and transparent community input process throughout any decision-making or implementation process.

  1. OUSD board minutes 1/4/2004 ↩︎
  2. https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/2022.04.11_J4OS_Complaint_to_AG%20Bonta_re_OUSD_Closures.pdf ↩︎
  3. https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/letter-school-districts-school-closures-04112023.pdf ↩︎
  4. https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/CalDOJ.LettertoOaklandUnifedRePotentialClosures.1.29.24.final_.pdf ↩︎

Lighthouse Charter School wants to increase its enrollment despite its long history of failing to serve Black students. Why is OUSD letting them do it?

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Charter Schools must serve all students in a way that is reflective of the population of the district as a whole

Under California law1 charter schools must serve a representative population of students, and the plan to do that is a required element of its charter petition as described here: “The means by which the charter school will achieve a balance of racial and ethnic pupils, special education pupils, and English learner pupils, including redesignated fluent English proficient pupils, as defined by the evaluation rubrics in Section 52064.5, that is reflective of the general population residing within the territorial jurisdiction of the school district to which the charter petition is submitted.”2. Although OUSD has not historically used this as a ground for denying a charter renewal or material revision, former Executive Director of the OUSD Charter Office Sonali Murarka made clear in June, 20203 that OUSD would expect charter schools to fulfill that promise moving forward, and that the failure to increase enrollment of identified groups could in fact result in the denial of renewal petitions, and by extension, material revisions, based on the fact that the plan identified in the charter hasn’t resulted in a balance of students and that therefore “the plan is not reasonably comprehensive” under Ed Code section 47605(c)(5). A charter school that is subject to denial on this basis is also subject to denial under section 47605(c)(2) because the charter school is “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition” given that the plan to balance student groups is a required element of the charter petition. If the plan is not reasonably comprehensive, the required element is not met. Each of these sections could therefore be the basis of the denial of a renewal petition or material revision.

Lighthouse Charter School has consistently failed to enroll Black students over the last several charter terms. That finding is sufficient to deny the material revision sought here

According to the OUSD Staff presentation on the board’s agenda tomorrow night, Lighthouse Charter School K-8 (“Lighthouse”) serves the following student populations:

Shockingly, although OUSD as a whole serves nearly 3 times more Black students (as a percentage of overall enrollment) than Lighthouse, OUSD staff did not even note this discrepancy in its findings, focusing instead on low-income students, English Learners and students with disabilities:

This failure to even mention Lighthouse’s underenrollment of Black students is particularly problematic given the acknowledgment in 2020 by Lighthouse staff that OUSD had pushed them “to increase their enrollment of Black students” over the last several charter terms and asserted that their new enrollment priorities would address this disparity. Lighthouse staff stated that they were “certain” that their plan to achieve that balance would result in an increase in Black student enrollment during their charter term.4 That has not happened. In fact, enrollment of Black students, who have been consistently underrepresented at Lighthouse, has continue to decrease since the last renewal. The plan that Lighthouse identified in its renewal charter has not resulted in the required balance of students, and therefore the plan is not reasonably comprehensive under the charter law. That finding alone is sufficient for OUSD to deny the material revision.

OUSD should not reward Lighthouse with additional opportunities to NOT enroll Black students

There has been much discussion about whether Lighthouse needs to seek this material revision to add Transitional kindergarten (“TK”) classes, but that is not relevant. TK is not a separate grade level from kindergarten, and so Lighthouse does not need a material revision to add TK classes. Lighthouse must seek a material revision because they are seeking to increase enrollment by 65 students over the maximum enrollment set forth in their charter petition. Language in that petition makes clear that any enrollment exceeding either 5% or 20 students above the maximum enrollment requires this action:

OUSD previously denied a Material Revision to add enrollment filed by Aspire ERES in 2021, choosing there to use Ed Code sections 47605(c)(7) and (c)(8)5, but for some reason the OUSD staff failed to do this analysis here. It should have, and staff should explain why they failed to use those sections of the charter law in considering this material revision.6 But the OUSD board can still deny this material revision based on sections 47605(c)(2) and 47605(c)(5)(G) as set forth above.

Lighthouse, by its own admission, is not serving Black students in a way that is reflective of the community as a whole. OUSD has made a commitment to ensure that OUSD authorized charter schools serve all student groups in the community. If OUSD were to grant this increase in enrollment for Lighthouse, with the same inadequate plan to balance student groups in place, we can expect more of the inequitable exclusion by Lighthouse of Black students. The OUSD board must not reward Lighthouse for bad enrollment behavior by giving them the opportunity to further fail to enroll Black students. The OUSD board must be consistent in its commitment to ensuring that charter schools are serving a representative population of Oakland. We call on the OUSD board to deny the Lighthouse Material Revision and require that Lighthouse return to its maximum enrollment of 515 in the fall.

  1. California Education Code section 47605 et seq ↩︎
  2. Ed Code section 47605(c)(5)(G) ↩︎
  3. See presentation and video of that discussion here: https://ousd.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4650883&GUID=4A0928BE-69F2-4295-926C-92377C356E76&Options=ID|Text|&Search=1505 ↩︎
  4. https://ousd.granicus.com/player/clip/1779?meta_id=631170 ↩︎
  5. These two sections were added in 2020 as part of newly passed AB 1505 and provide additional reasons to deny new petitions and material revisions (but not charter renewals). 47605(c)(7) would be a finding that the “charter school is demonstrably unlikely to serve the interests of the entire community in which the school is proposing to locate” and 47605(c)(8) relates to the fiscal impact on OUSD: “The school district is not positioned to absorb the fiscal impact of the proposed charter school.” ↩︎
  6. There has been some discussion that OUSD has been threatened with a lawsuit by the charter industry if OUSD denies this material revision on this basis. We should not be blackmailed into approvals, and it is unlikely that the threat would be carried out. Aspire is a large charter chain, and they chose not to sue OUSD when OUSD used C7 and C8 to deny in 2021. It is highly unlikely that if OUSD denies this material revision based on the failure of Lighthouse to serve Black students as required by their charter and the law that any entity would argue that they should not be held accountable for that discriminatory action. ↩︎

OUSD is planning “across the board” school site budget cuts that disproportionately harm Black and Brown schools while also using Learning Loss funds to give most of our affluent, whiter elementary schools extra staffing that other schools have to pay for out of their limited (and reduced) site budgets. That is NOT #BudgetEquity!

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School budgeting is complicated. Right now, site principals are trying to create budgets for their schools from a “one pager” – the budget document created every January for each school showing how much money and staff that they will receive in the following year1. We know, because the board approved budget “adjustments” for 2024-25 as part of last year’s long-term budget planning2, that school sites will lose $10 – 20 per student (dependent on grade level) in “base” funds, and also $110 per student in “Supplemental” funds received based on their Unduplicated Pupil Percentage (“UPP”)3. UPP is measured by counting the number of low-income students, English learners and Foster Youth in a school community and converting that to a percentage4. It is easy to understand how cutting the Supplemental funds across the board disproportionately harms the primarily Black and Brown students who generate the Supplemental funds in the first place – the more wealth in a school community, the smaller the cut.

But it is also true that “across the board” cuts in Base (per pupil) funding disproportionately impacts lower income communities who do not have other means to make up the difference.

see citation below

In 2017 when faced with drastic budget cuts, some board members asked for a more “equitable” process than the “across the board” strategy, and staff responded that it was just too difficult:

“Sondra Aguilera, deputy chief of student services for OUSD, told board members Wednesday that this is the “best option.” She said a more tailored approach for cutting the budget at each school would be difficult, in part because some parent-teacher associations raise their own grants but are not required to report those funds to the district. “We began to see this rabbit hole that we were going to go down mapping all the different sources,” Aguilera said. “You can’t possibly map all the different sources that school sites receive.””

https://www.kqed.org/news/11635537/oakland-unified-proposing-9-million-in-midyear-budget-cuts-to-schools

OUSD is willing to implement “across the board” budget cuts which they know disproportionately impact low-income Black and Brown families because it’s harder to figure out how much money PTAs pull in for their schools.5 That is NOT #BudgetEquity.

Given that OUSD understands that “across the board cuts” disproportionately harm Black and Brown schools, why is OUSD giving even MORE of our students’ precious resources to higher income, whiter schools?

According to the OUSD School Site Funding Profile (“Proposed Budget”) the following wealthy, primarily white elementary schools are receiving “additional centrally provided” Community School Managers (“CSM”) (and a few are also receiving additional centrally provided Literacy Teachers on Special Assignment “TSAs”):

These schools are getting “free to them” Community School Managers despite the fact that they are not community schools6, and do not qualify as community schools per the California Community School Partnership Program (“CCSPP”) grant because their UPP is below the 50% threshold7. In fact, most of the schools on this list fall far short of that UPP and represent 9 of the 10 schools with the highest percentage of white students in OUSD.8 These schools collectively reported nearly $3.7 million in PTA revenue in their most recent disclosures.9

Some OUSD Community Schools receive partial funding for their CSM (about half of the cost) as part of their “enrollment based” staffing, but 10 schools receive no CSM allocation, and so must pay for their CSM out of their discretionary funds – thereby decreasing the amount left for important student services. It is hard to understand why OUSD, when considering which schools to “centrally provide additional” staff to in the most equitable way – a value which OUSD claims to hold at the center of everything they do – decided to provide “free to them” Community School Managers to elementary schools which are not Community Schools (and cannot qualify under CCSPP) instead of providing them to the 10 elementary schools which received NO allocation (not even partial) for their CSM. Given the history of anti-Blackness in OUSD, it is not surprising that 7 of the 10 elementary schools which received no CSM allocation are 7 of the Blackest elementary schools in OUSD10.

OUSD must redo the one pagers to reflect #BudgetEquity by eliminating “across the board” cuts and reallocating “centrally provided staffing” from affluent, white elementary schools to the primarily Black elementary schools which have NO allocation for Community School Managers.

Equity is not just a buzzword, it is enshrined in OUSD Board Policy 503211 which states: “we hold the powerful belief that equity is providing students with what they need to achieve at the highest possible level” and “to interrupt patterns of institutional bias at all levels of the organization”. Continuing to offer disparate and inequitable funding levels to majority Black schools is not interrupting that pattern. The OUSD board must direct staff to revise these and other areas of inequity in the budget to make the changes that are necessary to create #BudgetEquity.

  1. There are three general categories included in the One Pagers: (1) dollar allocations which schools can decide how they want to spend; (2) staff allocations based on enrollment and student population; and (3) centrally provided additional staff placed at the discretion of OUSD staff (which are “free” to the school and in addition to the staffing generally provided to other schools). ↩︎
  2. From a staff presentation to the Budget and Finance Committee on October 12, 2023. https://ousd.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12354388&GUID=E0330B30-D391-4BA3-BB28-C142E0CD19A5 ↩︎
  3. This is part of the “Local Control Funding Formula” (“LCFF”) adopted by California in order to provide more funding to school districts with higher proportions of higher need students. Beginning in 2013-14, school districts would receive equal “Base” funding per pupil, but also would receive “Supplemental” funding for higher need students, and “Concentration” dollars for the highest need students. OUSD, which has a UPP of 77.96% according to 2023-24 adopted budget, receives significant additional Supplemental and Concentration funding generated by its high need populations. For information about LCFF see https://publicadvocates.org/our-work/education/public-school-funding/lcff/ ↩︎
  4. The count is “unduplicated” because each student is only counted once, even if they fall into multiple categories. So if a student is a Foster Youth AND an English Learner, they are only counted one time. ↩︎
  5. That is not quite true. PTAs and similar “tax exempt” parent organizations are required to file federal forms called 990s that identify how much revenue is raised, and how that money is spent. You can find them on public websites like ProPublica: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ ↩︎
  6. There are two other Elementary schools which received this centrally provided additional staff member, Cleveland Elementary and Piedmont Avenue. Each of those schools meets the CCSPP threshold and are not included in this analysis as a result. ↩︎
  7. 50% is the base threshold, but the competitive grant threshold (in practice) was 80% UPP (https://cslx.org/assets/g-files/CCSPP-Grant-QA-V1.pdf). ↩︎
  8. The only affluent, white elementary school not on this list is Montclair Elementary which is 34% white and has an UPP of 29.49%. We are not clear on why only this “Hills” school was not included. ↩︎
  9. See the ProPublica website, ibid. ↩︎
  10. The elementary schools which did not receive a CSM allocation are, including percentage of African-American (AA) or Black students: Burckhalter (50%), Grass Valley (53%), Laurel (31%), Lincoln (9%), Montclair (12%), Carl Munck (43%), OAK (formerly Howard) (44%), Manzanita SEED (11%), Prescott (51%) and Sankofa (36%) ↩︎
  11. https://boepublic.ousd.org/Policies.aspx  ↩︎

It’s just 10 Days out from the Election. We have a clearer (but still incomplete) picture of each District 5 candidate’s finances. Here’s what we know.

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The most recent financial disclosures are in1, and although we have a good idea who is supporting each candidate, there are still some serious problems with Mr Lerma’s disclosures. In short, Mr Lerma continues to commingle funds in his 2020 and 2023 campaigns (which we discussed at length in an earlier post) and is not fully disclosing expenses (more below). We assume that the contributor list is finally complete and up to date, allowing us to understand who is behind each candidate, so we can take a look at that.

Knowing who is supporting each candidate is important information to help voters determine where the candidates stand on issues that are important them, which is why we #Followthemoney in every school board election. Since 2012, there has been a LOT of billionaire money coming into school board elections from outside of Oakland to support privatization, school closures and charter schools. In response to all that big PAC money, the unions that represent the educators, classified staff and district workers in OUSD have created their own Independent Expenditure committees funded by their workers to support candidates who support the public schools that they work in, and the unions that they belong to.

In 2016, GO Public Schools and the California Charter School Association (“CCSA”) spent an astonishing $785,000 in 4 races (while OEA spent less than $25,000), and the charter backing GO/CCSA slate won all 4 seats. By 2020, the charter alliance spending (flush with $500,000 from former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and more from CCSA) of $678,500 still dwarfed the teacher spending ($250,000), but 3 of 4 teacher backed candidates won seats on the board. It was clear that voters trust their teachers and workers, and do not want out-of-town billionaires deciding what happens in our schools. The charter alliance clearly understood that their super PAC strategy no longer worked in Oakland, and so they have changed tactics. There may still be billionaire backed PAC spending to come late (so as to hide it as long as possible) but in the meantime, the local charter industry supporters have thrown their money directly to Mr Lerma’s campaign.

So looking at the numbers, who is supporting each candidate? Mr Lerma has received contributions from 70 plus individuals, $21,150 in enumerated contributions of over $100, with an average contribution amount of $302 per contributor. Mr Lerma also received $1,446 in small dollar donations – those less than $100 which do not need to be itemized. Although Mr Lerma has claimed to be running a “grassroots” campaign2, his contributor list tells a different story.

Mr Lerma has 19 Contributors who donated the maximum allowed amount and 24 who contributed $500 or more (as compared to Ms Ritzie-Hernandez who had 2). One of the new strategies being used by the billionaire backed GO/CCSA crowd is to have its donors contribute DIRECTLY to candidates instead of spending large amounts of money through a PAC, and it is clear that thus far this is the case. It is also possible that in the last ten days leading up to this election these billionaire backed PACs could dwarf all spending that has happened to now. In 2022, $121,000 came in just in the ten days before the election to support the privatization candidates.

Ms Ritzie-Hernandez raised $13,542 total, $3,600 from 3 unions (plumbers, laborers and SEIU classified staff) and 57 individual contributions averaging $174 per contribution, plus $1,558 in small donations. Most of her contributions come from teachers and just 9% of total funds raised came from contributions of $500 or more. Ms Ritzie-Hernandez does benefit from spending by the unions of OUSD teachers and staff as well as the Oakland Rising Action PAC which is “a community-led political organization focused on supporting candidates and issues that drive a progressive agenda for Oakland’s working-class, immigrant and communities of color living in the flatlands of Oakland.3” There is a significant difference between spending by PACs which are fully funded by out of town billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Stacy Schusterman who know nothing about Oakland’s kids, and spending by local unions and progressive groups who work every day with Oakland students and families.

It is clear that both Ms Ritzie-Hernandez and Mr Lerma have roots in the District 5 community. Mr Lerma ran for school board in 2020 (when he was not the chosen charter industry candidate), and ran a much more “grassroots” campaign with just 7 contributions over $500 and just 2 GO major donors. Interestingly, just 5 contributors from his 2020 campaign chose to contribute this time around. This time, it is clear that the billionaire-backed charter industry believes that Mr Lerma is aligned with them on school closures and charter schools, and that is alarming. That is why it is so important to know who is funding his campaign, and why his delay in reporting was so troubling.

We appreciate that Mr Lerma’s campaign filed his 460s in a timely manner in this second reporting period, but there are still some very concerning ethical problems with his filing. As we have previously reported, Mr Lerma continues to use his 2020 campaign to raise funds, despite (finally) having a bank account for the 2023 campaign to collect them. To this day, his campaign “donate” button still uses the 2020 campaign FPPC number, contrary to law. Commingling of funds is absolutely prohibited and makes it impossible to accurately track campaign spending. We are concerned that Mr Lerma is not able to manage his campaign finances, which does not bode well for his ability to manage an $800 million district budget.

Even more concerning, however, is his continued failure to fully disclose his expenditures. We don’t know everything that Mr Lerma has spent money on, but we do know that he failed to disclose the expenditures for at least two mailers that went out to voters in the relevant period. This is not a small oversight, a forgotten receipt, this is likely thousands of dollars for printing and postage that do not show up on his reports, either as a payment, or an amount due. This is truly astonishing and reinforces our concerns about Mr Lerma’s ability to lead District 5 in a way that is competent, ethical, transparent and accountable to students.

If you live in District 5, please vote. You should have received a ballot in the mail, with just this one item on it, which you can fill out and return in the mail (no postage needed) by November 7th. You can also drop your completed ballot at one of two drop boxes (Peralta Hacienda and Cesar Chavez Library4). Finally, starting October 28th, you can vote in person in just one location: Think College Now Elementary School, 2825 International Boulevard. In person voting ends at 8 pm November 7, 2023. #vote

  1. All campaign expense data is taken from the Oakland Public Ethics Commission site found online at https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/Default.aspx?focus=SearchName ↩︎
  2. See for example https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20231025-Wed1430.mp3 ↩︎
  3. https://oaklandrisingaction.org/about/ ↩︎
  4. 2496 Coolidge Avenue, 3301 E. 12th Street ↩︎

Here is everything we now know about OUSD District 5 candidate Jorge Lerma’s campaign finance violations, and why it matters.

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Spoiler alert: Mr. Lerma illegally used his failed 2020 campaign to solicit contributions and make expenditures for his 2023 campaign in an attempt to hide who is financing his campaign.

TIMELINE

  • 7/25/2023: Mr. Lerma filed his Candidate Intention Statement (form 501) for the 2023 special election for Oakland School Board, district 51
  • 8/11/2023: Date that the qualification threshold of $2,000 in campaign activity is met, starting the clock on the ten-day window to file a Statement of Information (form 410) for the 2023 campaign (but the form 410 wasn’t filed until 10/12/2023 – two months late)2
  • 9/7/2023: Mr. Lerma hosts a campaign mixer fundraising event with a link to donate and a note that says “Paid for by Jorge Lerma for Oakland School Board 2023 FPPC#1427022“, which is the Fair Political Practices Commission (“FPPC”) number from the 2020 campaign. This event was attended by former board members Gary Yee and Jumoke Hinton as well as charter industry leaders Kimi Kean and Hae-Sin Thomas, who were affiliated with the Bloomberg/Schusterman funded super PAC that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on past school board campaigns3 4
  • 9/19/2023: Libby Schaaf hosts a fundraiser for the 2023 Campaign, attended by various former politicos and charter industry leaders5
  • 9/21/2023: Mr. Lerma or his experienced treasurer (a tax accounting professional who acted as treasurer for the 2020 campaign, as well as the 2016 re-election campaign of Oakland City Council Member Noel Gallo) transferred $12,927.15 in 2023 Campaign funds illegally collected using the 2020 Campaign committee from the 2020 account into the 2023 Campaign account (which demonstrates that Mr. Lerma knew that he could not just use his 2020 Campaign for the 2023 Election)6
  • 9/28/2023: Date that every candidate for office in November must file a form 460 identifying all contributions and expenditures made between July 1 and September 23 – Candidate Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez files as required, Mr. Lerma does not file for either the 2020 OR the 2023 Campaign. If he had a good faith belief that he could use his 2020 campaign for the 2023 election, he would have filed the 460 for the 2020 campaign (showing all of the expenditures and contributors to the campaign) on time. Mr Lerma had filed every previous required disclosure for his 2020 campaign on time without issue.7
  • 10/10/2023: Parents United initial twitter post about the election finances, raising concerns about Mr Lerma’s failure to file his form 460
  • 10/12/2023: Mr. Lerma finally files (52 days late) his Statement of Organization for his 2023 Committee entitled “Jorge Lerma for Oakland School Board 2023” (form 410) which was due not later than 8/21/20238
  • 10/13/2023: 2023 campaign is issued an FPPC number 14635209
  • 10/14/2023: Approximate date that Mr Lerma uses the United States Postal Service to mail a two page flier to voters, with the notification that the mailing was “paid for by Jorge Lerma for Oakland School Board 2023 FPPC#1427022” – again illegally using the FPPC number for the 2020 campaign in what may be a federal violation of law in addition to state and local laws10
  • 10/17/2023: Mr Lerma files his form 460 for the 2023 campaign (19 days late) which indicates NO CONTRIBUTIONS (despite having attended at least 2 fundraisers) and NO EXPENDITURES (despite having created lawn signs, mailers, door hangers and other expenses)11
  • 10/19/2023: Mr Lerma files a form 460 for the 2020 campaign (21 days late) which finally lists WHO has contributed to his campaign and what he has spent money on.12
  • 10/20/2023: Voters receive another mailer from the 2023 campaign committee, using the 2020 campaign FPPC# 1427022 rather than the 2023 Campaign FPPC number 1463520 issued a week earlier13
  • 10/22/2023: Website continues to illegally list the 2020 campaign FPPC number on its “donate” page.14

On October 10, 2023 we posted (on the platform formerly known as twitter) what we planned to be the first in our regular “Follow the Money” series for the Oakland Unified school board races15. Since 2016, billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, Stacy Schusterman and Arthur Rock have flooded our school board elections with millions in out-of-town dollars to buy a school board that supports charter schools and privatization,16 and Parents United has shared that important information with voters to ensure that we elect candidates who support our Oakland public schools.17

Tweeted on 11/02/2020 by @parentsuniteoak

As of October 10, 2023, only one of the two District 5 candidates in this special election had filed the disclosures that are required to be filed by all candidates not later than September 28, 2023: first time candidate Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez. We were surprised and concerned that candidate Jorge Lerma – who knows better given his long history of involvement in Oakland politics and failed 2020 campaign for this same seat – had not yet filed. We knew from social media posts that he had held at least two campaign fundraising events, and that he had purchased lawn signs and other campaign materials, so why did he not file his form 460 as required?

https://x.com/ParentsUniteOak/status/1711781089243718096?s=20

Now we have a much fuller picture of what happened. Mr. Lerma, contrary to state and local law, was using his 2020 campaign to raise and spend funds instead of using his 2023 campaign as is required. It is important to understand that each election is completely separate, and the fact that an individual ran a campaign in the past does not mean that they can just use that same campaign account to run in the future, as clearly laid out by the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission.18

The Oakland Public Ethics Commission is an extremely helpful resource to candidates (as well as to the public), and every candidate is given information about resources that they have created to help first time (and repeat) candidates comply with the campaign rules which maintain the integrity of our electoral system. They even have an entire page entitled “Starting your Campaign” which walks candidates through the process, step by step.

Mr Lerma is not a first-time candidate, he ran (unsuccessfully) for the district 5 seat in 2020, so he knows the rules. During his 2020 campaign, Mr Lerma filed all of his disclosures on time without a problem. Mr Lerma also has an experienced Treasurer working on both his 2020 and 2023 campaigns. Jose Dorado is a tax accounting specialist who is listed as the campaign treasurer not just for Mr Lerma’s 2 campaigns, but also the campaign treasurer for the “Re-elect Noel Gallo for Oakland City Council 2016” campaign,19 It is impossible to believe (and highly disturbing if it were believed) that they did not know the rules for campaign finance.

Had Mr Lerma and his treasurer been truly confused about whether they could raise and spend money for 2023 through the 2020 campaign with the old FPPC, they would have simply filed the form 460 for that 2020 campaign ON TIME when due on 9/28/2023 as he had done for every 460 filed by the 2020 campaign in the past. Mr Lerma cannot claim ignorance of the law now when he had previously complied appropriately.

In addition, Mr Lerma (prior to anyone having any idea of what was happening) transferred funds from the 2020 campaign account to a different account presumably set up for the 2023 campaign on September 21, 2023. The ONLY reason for the campaign to do that was because they knew that it was illegal to use the 2020 campaign account for the 2023 campaign. At that point, given there was campaign activity in the 2023 campaign account, Mr Lerma should have filed the 2023 campaign form 460 on September 28, 2023 when it was due. The fact that he did not do so makes clear that this was not his ignorance but his desire to keep his contributors hidden as long as possible so that voters were not aware that his campaign was financed largely by those connected to the charter school and privatization industry.

Mr Lerma, when he ran in 2020, was not the “charter industry” candidate. He was not supported by the various Bloomberg and charter founder Jerry Brown funded PACs – that candidate was Leroy Gaines, who also lost the election. Mr Lerma knows that being supported by charter leaders and polticos who support charter schools and closing schools (which has proven to be very unpopular with voters) is not likely to help him win this seat the second time around. He could have just declined the support of those charter supporters, but he apparently decided instead to hide his financial backers by funneling contributions through his old campaign. The only campaigns required to file the 9/28/2023 disclosure are those vying for the November election, so absent all of this illegal campaign activity, the 2020 Lerma campaign would not have had to disclose all of these contributors. Once they were caught, they had no choice but to file the disclosures, and so we now can see clearly what the intent of this shell game of campaign finance was all about: ensuring that voters did not have the important information about who was financing his campaign until it was too late to make a difference. Unfortunately, we noticed, and the Oakland Ethics Department will notice. Mr Lerma must not be rewarded for his unethical behavior.

  1. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208542770 ↩︎
  2. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208660150 ↩︎
  3. https://www.eventcreate.com/e/jorgelermamixer ↩︎
  4. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jorge-lerma-014ab189_ousd-community-schools-activity-7105903190688112640-bN8k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop ↩︎
  5. https://www.facebook.com/samdavis99/posts/pfbid02VDkgpEJg7dz2MFf4W4MoscgPz3y66vsxDxYaQdJPXkHXgr5kbdLtFQvXtzdtx73al ↩︎
  6. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208674687 ↩︎
  7. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/AllFilingsByFiler.aspx?id=189891640 ↩︎
  8. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208660150 ↩︎
  9. https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1463520; date confirmed by Secretary of State’s office by phone ↩︎
  10. https://ousdparentsunited.com/2023/10/17/ousd-district-5-candidate-continues-to-spend-campaign-funds-without-disclosing-its-source-that-is-against-the-law-and-should-disqualify-him-from-the-office/ ↩︎
  11. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208674687 ↩︎
  12. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=208681958 ↩︎
  13. see image posted below ↩︎
  14. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jorge-lerma-for-school-board-2023 accessed 10/22/2023 at 3:15pm, see image posted below ↩︎
  15. https://x.com/ParentsUniteOak/status/1711781089243718096?s=20 ↩︎
  16. https://time.com/5792383/michael-bloomberg-charter-schools-donations/ ↩︎
  17. https://ousdparentsunited.com/2020/10/09/show-me-the-money/ ↩︎
  18. https://cao-94612.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/documents/OCRA-Guide-2022-FINAL-REVISED-4-20-22.pdf ↩︎
  19. https://public.netfile.com/Pub2/RequestPDF.aspx?id=161825762 ↩︎

Candidate Jorge Lerma finally filed his Form 460, but disclosed no contributors and no expenditures. So where are all those mailers, door hangers and lawn signs coming from?

~ kzt123 ~ Leave a comment

In our last post, we called on Mr Lerma to finally file the form 460 for his campaign committee “Jorge Lerma for Oakland School Board 2023” that was due on September 28, 2023 so that the public could see who was supporting his campaign and paying for all of the campaign materials, including a USPS mailer, that we knew that the campaign had created. Shortly after that post came out, Mr Lerma’s campaign did file a Form 460, and we learned that, according to that form, he had NO contributors and NO expenditures to report. Wait, what? How can that be true when we know that he has spent significant amounts of money and held several fundraising campaign events?

Well, it seems that Mr Lerma has been hiding all of his contributions and his expenditures by using the account for his failed 2020 campaign to raise and spend money for his 2023 campaign, which is a serious violation of campaign finance law. Before Mr Lerma declared he would run in the 2023 special election, the 2020 campaign balance was $5,391.99. On September 21, 2023, the 2020 Campaign transferred $12,927.15 to the 2023 campaign, meaning that the 2020 campaign had $7,535 more than 3 months earlier. That $7,535 likely represents the difference between the contributions received for the 2023 campaign less the expenditures for the 2023 campaign such as lawn signs, door hangers, lit pieces, fundraising costs and of course the mailer that was sent via US mail. That $7,535 in transferred funds was improperly raised using an old campaign account, and those contributions and expenditures lack transparency because an old campaign account is not subject to the same reporting laws as a campaign for an upcoming election would be.

So what does all this mean? It means that we are 2 1/2 weeks away from this special election and Mr Lerma’s 2023 campaign has not disclosed a single contributor to his campaign. That is important information that voters need to properly cast their ballots, and the fact that Mr Lerma is trying so hard to hide it tells us that he likely has supporters he doesn’t want voters to know about.

It also means that Mr Lerma has certainly committed multiple violations of electoral reporting and disclosure laws, by:

  • Failing to timely file a Form 410 “Statement of Organization Recipient Committee” within 10 days of reaching the qualification threshold – due 8/21/2023 but not filed until 10/12/2023 (two days after Parents United first commented on the campaign disclosure violations)
  • Failing to timely file a Form 460 “Recipient Committee Campaign Statement” for 7/1/2023 through 9/23/2023 – due 9/28/2023 but not filed until 10/17/2023, and without including any of the 2023 campaign contributors or expenditures
  • Failing to disclose ANY campaign contributions towards his 2023 campaign
  • Failing to disclose ANY expenditures of his 2023 campaign
  • Sending a mailer through the United States Postal Service without a proper California Fair Political Practices Act (“FPPC”) number for the 2023 campaign
  • Using an improper FPPC number on his website, donation site, and possibly other materials in order to induce campaign contributions to his 2023 campaign that he thereafter failed to disclose as required by law
  • Using an improper FPPC number on a campaign mailer sent through the United States Postal Service, intended to induce voters to believe that he had a valid political campaign and induce support for that campaign

But perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates that Mr Lerma is not fit to be elected to the Oakland Unified School Board on November 7, 2023. Mr Lerma has shown us that he does not feel bound to follow the laws that all others, including his opponent, are bound by. He shows a total lack of concern for the transparency, fairness and accountability that we should expect from our elected leaders. Mr Lerma has demonstrated that he does not feel obligated to exercise the fiscal responsibility that is a key component of a school board member’s job. Given these clear and serious ethical violations, Mr Lerma should immediately suspend his campaign for school board in District 5, apologize to the voters and begin to clean up the ethical mess he has created.

OUSD District 5 candidate continues to spend campaign funds without disclosing its source. That is against the law and should disqualify him from the office.

~ kzt123 ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday we reported concerns that veteran candidate Jorge Lerma, running again for the vacant OUSD District 5 seat, has failed to disclose who is funding his campaign, despite seemingly having reached the $2,000 requirement to do so. Well, now it is clear that Mr Lerma has reached the threshold. Yesterday, district 5 voters received a two page mailer from the candidate through the US Postal Service, which clearly cost more than $2,000 to send. All doubt is now removed – Mr Lerma has reached the threshold to file campaign donor and expenditure disclosure reports and has failed to do so in violation of law.

This is not just the error of a first-time candidate, Mr Lerma has previously run for this same seat and properly filed the same forms in question. In his unsuccessful 2020 campaign, Mr Lerma properly disclosed in his final 2020 Form 460 an expenditure of $4,217.10 for a mailer to district 5 voters – we would expect that this current mailer which was sent on or before October 14, 2023 had a similar cost, well over the $2,000 floor.

This is also not just a technical compliance issue – these disclosures are absolutely critical to ensure transparency, fairness and integrity in our electoral system. As stated on the City of Oakland Elections website: “Campaign finance statements can help answer questions about who is contributing money to Oakland candidates and political campaigns as well as how that money is being spent.1” This is critical information to allow voters to freely exercise their fundamental right to vote for candidates who represent their views.

As voters in District 5 have already received their ballots in the mail and voting is underway, this is a truly shocking failure by Mr Lerma to follow the law and disclose who is contributing to his campaign and how he is spending those funds. We know he knows better, because he has done this before, and managed to file the appropriate disclosures (with the same treasurer in 2020 as in 2023). So what will the disclosures, assuming they are finally filed, tell us about who is behind his campaign? We know he has close ties with some current and former members of the school board, including Dr Gary Yee and Jumoke Hinton, as well as the former mayor (who we know is a big charter school proponent). We also know that he is supported by charter industry leaders (both publicly and behind the scenes), and based on several messages received by Parents United leadership yesterday, those charter leaders are close enough to the campaign to have insider information about whether/when Mr Lerma will file his disclosures and to intervene on his behalf.2 We believe it is also very clear that Mr Lerma has not demonstrated the integrity, transparency and accountability that would qualify him for a seat on the Oakland Unified School Board. We need OUSD board members committed to following the law and interacting transparently with and accountably to the students, families and staff of OUSD. Mr Lerma has demonstrated that he is not that candidate.

  1. https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/campaign-finance-disclosure
  2. Parents United leaders received messages yesterday stating that the leader of an Oakland charter school chain had “heard” that Mr Lerma had filed his disclosures “late” and that as of last night “his forms are up” which was and is not true. Mr Lerma did file his form 410 on October 12, 2023 (as laid out in our previous post) in which he said he “qualified” by having raised/spent $2000 as of 8/11/2023. That Form 410 should have been filed much earlier, and it then triggered the need to file a form 460 on September 28, 2023 identifying donors and expenditures. That has not been filed as of 10/17/2023 at 9:27am.

OUSD District 5 candidate Lerma seems to have a problem with transparently managing his campaign finances. That’s concerning.

~ kzt123 ~ Leave a comment

Every candidate for office in Oakland, including the School Board, is required to comply with various transparency and ethical reporting requirements in order to ensure “fairness, openness, honesty and integrity in Oakland City government.”1 At a time when even local school board elections have become a magnet for out-of-town billionaire spending to push privatization agendas – see this article for more information: https://time.com/5792383/michael-bloomberg-charter-schools-donations/ – these reporting requirements have become critical to allow voters to make informed decisions about which candidates reflect their values. So it is extremely concerning that District 5 school board candidate Jorge Lerma (who ran in 2020 and so should know better) failed to file his form 460 identifying his campaign contributors and expenditures by the September 30 deadline.

Now, more than two weeks later, Mr Lerma still hasn’t filed his form 460 as required by law, but even more concerning is that he only recently filed his form 410 which must be filed within 10 days of reaching $2,000 in campaign activity (contributions or expenditures).2 According to the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission website, filing the form 410 is one of the very first steps that should be taken when running for public office (https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/candidate-checklist-starting-a-campaign-2) and the website contains detailed instructions on how to do it. A candidate is unable to comply with other reporting requirements (like filing the form 460) until that is done, and candidates are not allowed to raise money or make expenditures (over that $2,000 minimum) until it happens, which is no doubt why Mr Lerma did not file a form 460 by EITHER of the filing deadlines of July 31st or September 30th (unlike his opponent first time candidate Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez who has met all of those filing deadlines).

But it is not just about filing, a candidate CANNOT RAISE OR SPEND MONEY for the campaign until that form 410 is on file, something that it seems very clear that Mr Lerma has continued to do in flagrant violation of Federal, state and local campaign law. Since at least early August (per public social media postings) Mr Lerma has created window signs, t-shirts and lawn signs, he tabled at Oktoberfest and hosted a campaign mixer, all of which are significant expenditures. We also know that former Mayor Libby Schaaf held at least one fundraiser for Mr Lerma which was attended by a variety of politicos and charter school industry supporters, including former school board member including Gary Yee and the CEO of a local charter chain.

If Mr Lerma has a combined $2,000 in campaign activity, his failure to file his 410 AND his form 460 listing the expenditures is a serious violation. Even if Mr Lerma has loaned his own campaign the funds (as he did in his 2020 campaign) he is required to file those disclosures. His failure to do so should be a red flag for all of us.

Every single elected school board member is required to comply with Federal, state and local election laws, and their failure to do so subjects them to penalties and even legal action3. Mistakes can happen, but should be quickly remedied, and the fact that Mr Lerma previously ran for school board and previously filed the required disclosures suggests that this is not just a simple mistake. We hope that Mr Lerma will finally file his form 460 to accurately disclose his contributors and expenditures so that we know who is behind his campaign. But even without that disclosure, Oakland should think twice before electing a candidate who ignores electoral transparency requirements and apparently raises and spends funds in violation of federal, state and local laws.

  1. https://www.oaklandca.gov/boards-commissions/public-ethics-commission
  2. The only other qualified candidate Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez filed their Form 410 with Oakland on July 7, 2023 as required.
  3. See the Oakland Public Ethics Commission website for more information including statistics and information on how to file a complaint. https://data.oaklandca.gov/stories/s/hpdg-bimb

Josh Daniels is leaving – it is time to “reimagine” OUSD’s legal needs

~ kzt123 ~ Leave a comment

Chief Governance Officer Joshua Daniels is leaving OUSD in August, 2023, and OUSD is “planning” to do a central office reorganization this year as well. OUSD should use this opportunity to eliminate the Chief Governance Officer position and reimagine our legal strategy as a District to ensure we are using our student dollars efficiently and in alignment with their needs.

OUSD needs to eliminate the “Chief Governance Officer” position

Oakland Unified School District is the only California school district that has a “Chief Governance Officer” (or anything like it)1. The Board created the position for Josh Daniels in 2021 and extended his contract with a 17% raise in 2022. This Chief Governance Officer position puts Mr Daniels at the center of all policy making and district/board operations, and then uses the “attorney-client privilege” to shield it all from public view.  The first thing that the OUSD board needs to do is eliminate this position. 

The Board will be voting on an “interim general counsel” contract this week at the final board meeting of the academic year, and they are offering the position to OUSD Executive Director of Labor Relations & Alternative Dispute Resolution Jenine Lindsey, who was OUSD’s chief negotiator during BOTH of the recent OUSD teachers’ strikes. Ms Lindsey has been in the OUSD Labor Relations department since 2013, became the Executive Director in 2018 but was admitted to the California State Bar (i.e. became an attorney) in September 2022, just nine months ago. The salary plus benefits for the agreement total $294,686.

Most California School Districts do not have an in-house General Counsel

A few months ago as part of our review of Central Office Salaries, we discovered that most California School Districts do not have a General Counsel at all, instead relying on outside legal counsel on contract. 

Of the 939 k-12 school districts in California,2 we could only find 13 (or 1.38%) that had a “General Counsel” or “Legal Counsel” on staff3. The two largest school districts have a legal department, as does San Francisco Unified, but the vast majority of other districts, including every district in Alameda County, chooses not to use an in house general/legal counsel.

These in-house General Counsel are responsible for the wide variety of legal issues that confront a school district, from contracts and policy, government and ed code, construction, facilities, special Education, safety and of course Labor relations. As a result, General Counsel are generally, and in fact must be, seasoned attorneys with a broad expertise and understanding of the complicated legal issues they must address. Of those 13 districts with in house legal counsel, the lead attorney has between 10 and 41 years of legal experience4. 

While Ms Lindsey clearly has experience in the Labor Relations department, as an attorney of less than a year, she has not had the time needed to gain the broad expertise that the General Counsel position requires to do their job. Ms Lindsey is not the right person for this role at this time.

Instead of hiring a new general counsel right now, OUSD should take the time to do a deep dive into how we manage the legal needs of OUSD. Right now, we have about 5 attorneys in our legal office5 and we also have retention agreements with 28 different law firms at an astonishing “not to exceed” amount of $5,088,500 in possible legal costs for this year alone6.

OUSD needs to use this opportunity to examine exactly how much we are spending in legal costs, and whether our current “General Counsel along with large outside counsel contracts” model is the best way to serve our students, families and staff. In the meantime, we can use some of those outside counsel to provide legal advice as needed. Ask the board to vote “NO” to the interim general counsel contract and instead push for an in depth assessment of alternatives that serve students and staff while efficiently using the tax dollars generated by our students.

An FAQ for Parents, FROM Parents, about a possible Oakland Teacher Strike

~ kzt123 ~ Leave a comment
  • Why is the Oakland Education Association (“OEA”) possibly taking this action? OEA has been operating without a contract since October – but the Oakland Unified School District (“OUSD”) has not until recently prioritized serious negotiations with teachers. Settling a contract now is key to retaining teachers for next year. This is why OEA has filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) with the Public Employee Relations Board – because OUSD has not been bargaining in good faith.
  • Is a possible strike legal? Yes. OUSD can’t delay, delay, delay then complain when teachers vote to strike because of that bad faith delay – and the Public Employee Relations Board just agreed that OUSD has a right to strike by refusing to grant a stay to OUSD of this potential ULP strike.
  • I support our teachers, but why should I support this union action? OEA teachers ARE the union – you can’t support teachers while attacking the Union – and teachers overwhelmingly support this potential strike. 
  • I think teachers should be paid more, but why are they asking for all of these other things? Teachers need a living wage, but they must also have the supports needed to adequately teach our kids. These are not “extras” and are critical to student success. Teachers created their contract proposal, including these “common good” demands, in partnership with parents and students over the past several years to address issues that our students experience that interfere with their ability to learn.
  • Won’t striking now hurt the kids they teach? Parents overwhelmingly trust their childrens’ teachers to care for their kids everyday. Why would we imagine that those same teachers are putting students at risk and/or not fighting hard for our kids’ needs by preparing to strike to ensure our students have what they need to thrive? Teachers need to be able to afford to stay in Oakland and secure the long-term conditions for that will help students succeed.
  • I’m hearing from the District that they are offering a “historic raise” – what’s up with that? OUSD is not being transparent or completely honest about what they are/are not offering and what it means. This is causing a lot of confusion and is part of a PR campaign to convince parents (via that ParentSquare App ALL parents see) to blame teachers for OUSD’s own failure to bargain with urgency and fairness.
  • OUSD says part of what it is offering teachers is a 4.5% raise but teachers say that is not true, what is the deal? One of those confusing points is about the 4.5% that OUSD claims as part of its “historic raise” but is tied to an additional 2 hours per week of extra work (5.6-6% more work for educators). We all know that teachers work way more hours than their contract requires. This extra 4.5% would not cover that. Instead, it would add additional work time on top of the unpaid work that they already do and is not even enough to compensate for the required extra time. That is NOT a raise. In addition, the 4.5% is also only for K-12 classroom teachers, not early childhood educators, counselors, nurses, school psychologists, or the many other OEA educators who support Oakland students. 
  • Isn’t OUSD prioritizing its spending to pay our teachers what they deserve? OUSD has consistently NOT prioritized our students or our teachers. For years, our teachers have been the lowest paid educators in Alameda County while OUSD overspent in central office, consultants and education reforms that bring press coverage but not student progress. We way overspend on our central office – our central Supervisory/Administrative costs are close to 600% above the state average and despite promises to downsize the central office, it remains far higher than any other district. Just changing that one thing could save almost $30 million per year. Yet despite promising to do so for, OUSD has failed to do so.

OUSD has the Power to avoid a strike, let them know that you expect that is exactly what they will do!

No one wants a strike, especially not teachers who are so tired near the end of the year and will not be paid for that time. Teachers have authorized an Unfair Labor Practices Strike, but OUSD has the power to avoid a strike by coming to the bargaining table with fair contract proposals that address teacher concerns AND support students. The best thing we can do as parents is to tell OUSD to settle this contract NOW! Email school board members, Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell and Labor Relations head Jenine Lindsey today!