Oakland teachers' strike day 5: union cites progress in negotiations

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland's 3,000 teachers, librarians and counselors were back on the picket lines Wedesdanay at OUSD schools again for day five of the strike.

Oakland Education Association President Ismael Armendariz said negotiations between the union and the Oakland Unified School District went on until 12:30 p.m. and will continue through the afternoon. 

On Tuesday night, OEA submitted a counter offer to the district. Armendariz said both sides are close to an agreement on the issues of higher salaries, more special education aides and resources, and the hiring of more art and music teachers.

"We still have a couple sticking points around compensation and special education," Armendariz said. "But if we continue to have some conversations today, I'm optimistic we'll get there."

Noelle Winter, a special education teacher and OEA bargaining team member, said the union and district Tuesday reached tentative agreements on the school calendar for next year and a plan to give educators who teach ESL students more prep time for classes, and more decision-making power about the district resources ESL "newcomer" students and families receive.

Armendariz said a separate subcommittee is bargaining with the district on what the union calls its "Common Goods" list - things like reparations for black students, more teacher input on how schools are run through the "shared governance" of Community Schools, restrictions to school closures in the future, and a call to use vacant school buildings as shelters for unhoused students and families.

Previously, the district and board members had said those non-compensation issues were off the table. 

Board president Mike Hutchinson said in a news conference on Monday that "items outside of the scope of the contract - that are basically not compensation and working conditions - are not going to be negotiated."

Union leaders said that has changed in recent negotiations.

"I'm optimistic we'll come to an agreement on those things," Armendariz said. "They're [OUSD representatives] are signaling they're willing to move on those things."

Oakland teachers had planned to rally at a school board meeting later today before OUSD announced it was cancelling the meeting.

"I'm really sad we're on strike. I know it's a hardship for the families," said OUSD teacher Jennifer Formosa, who has taught at Thornhill Elementary for 18 years. "But the talking and waiting doesn’t fix it."

When asked about the changes she hopes to see when the strike ends, additional art and music teachers and a librarian at every school were on her list. 

So were basic facility and equipment issues: "If we get mice in the school - to make sure it doesn't continue to a point where it is just disgusting. To have things like falling ceiling tiles taken care of immediately. To have the district come and fix the copier immediately - instead of waiting a year," Formosa said. "It seems like we've had funding for those kinds of things since I've been here. Somehow the district is lacking in the follow-through."

On Wednesday morning, about a dozen students and parents crossed the picket line at Thornhill Elementary to attend school. With no teachers in the classroom, administrative staff is supervising students who come to all of the districts' 80 schools.

Crossing a picket line in Oakland can be a difficult and controversial decision. 

Two parents spoke to KTVU about that decision off-camera and said, "We support the teachers. We want them to get paid more, but we think these negotiations should continue while our children are in the classroom."

After more than a year of zoom school during the pandemic, and three strikes in the past four years, parents are worried about yet another interruption to their kids' education. 

Several parent organizations, the former PTA president of Chabot Elementary and the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP, have all said the strike shouldn't have happened and say comes at the expense of the district's more than 30,000 students.

"Just like during the pandemic year, parents suffer from having no organized representation to advocate for our views," former Chabot Elementary PTA President Jesse Antin said in a message to parents that has now been widely circulated on social media. "The union is holding our kids hostage over common-good principles that we all agree on but which have no place in a labor contract."

A teacher strike in 2019 lasted seven days. Last year OUSD teachers staged a one-day strike to protest school closures.

The OUSD school year is scheduled to end on May 25.

When teachers in Sacramento went on strike in 2022, their district extended the school year by nine days to make up for lost school time.

When asked if there were any plans to do something similar in Oakland, Armendariz said: "The district hasn't had that conversation with us... We would have to bargain to extend the school year. They have not brought that up."