Oakland Faces Massive Budget Cuts

The budget presented by the governor in the May Revise cut approximately $14 million from the Child Development Centers and Early Childhood Education programs in Oakland Unified School District. Recently, Superintendent Tony Smith told Oakland Adult and Career Education (OACE) Director Brigitte Marshall of plans to cut an additional $5 million from the Adult Education allocation for 2010/11 to provide some partial backfilling of lost child care funds for low income working families.

This means that for 2010/11, out of the total state allocation of approximately $11.4 million, OACE will be allocated approximately $1.9 million as its base operating budget, with $9.5 million being cut. OACE will supplement this base with WIA Title II and Perkins grant funds, but its ongoing earning ability for these competitive, discretionary funds will be severely limited by its reduced capacity and program size.

Having already made $110 million in cuts to the overall OUSD budget for 2010/11, the superintendent and Board of Education are confronted with a choice between a program that provides subsidized childcare to some of the neediest families in Oakland, who rely on these critical services in order to stay employed and go to school, and a program that provides foundational literacy and workforce development training to some of the neediest, low-skilled, low-income Oakland residents, including ex offenders, adults with disabilities, aged out foster youth, refugees, and the thousands of job seekers who are a part of the 16 percent Oakland unemployment rate.

“At this point, district leaders have indicated that they must make Early Childhood Education the priority,” says Marshall. “The decision was not made lightly, and a great deal of respect has been expressed for the work of OACE in the process, which is small consolation, but appreciated none-the-less.”

Ms. Marshall noted that the superintendent clearly stated that he has no intention of eliminating the adult education program in Oakland. He wants to see a robust, if massively downsized infrastructure maintained so that OACE is positioned to grow again, subject to funds restoration or the development of a new funding mechanism. He also said that if the child care funds are reinstated when the state budget is passed, he intends to restore funds to Oakland Adult and Career Education; however in the meantime, the school has to proceed under the assumption that its base operating budget for 2010/11 will be $1.9 million, which means completely closing four adult education facilities, (Edward Shands Adult School, Bond Street Annex, Neighborhood Centers Adult School and the Clinton Park Annex); laying off approximately 40 more contract, tenured teachers, 4 more administrators, and all but a handful of its classified staff. The school is confronting the possibility of ending collaborative partnerships with and withdrawing services from approximately 25 agencies and community-based organizations across Oakland, although it will continue conversations with all of its current community partners to explore alternative partnership and funding options.

OACE’s instructional program offerings for 2010/11 will be limited to multi-level ESL Family Literacy at 20 OUSD school sites, GED and Credit Recovery. OACE convened an all staff, Open Forum meeting to share the news with all members of the OACE community. A written communication was subsequently sent to students the next day. The resolution identifying the OACE positions to be eliminated was presented at a special meeting of the OUSD Board of Education on Monday, June 14. It was a sad day for the Oakland Unified School District, as it is compelled to reduce its financial support for the second oldest adult education program in the state of California, established 139 years ago in 1871.