“I believe my obligation, my responsibility, is to serve out my term,” he said.

Kakishiba’s original announcement, that he would resign from the board at the end of October, came in response to a conflict-of-interest opinion by Oakland’s general counsel, Jackie Minor. Kakishiba is also executive director of the East Bay Asian Youth Center, which does lots of work in Oakland schools.

But Kakishiba said most of his board colleagues — who rejected the legal department’s recommendation in a 5-1 vote last week – and others in his district have since urged him to change his mind.

Board member Jody London said Kakishiba’s ability to “cut to the chase” when analyzing complex financial data will be critical for the district, which emerged from a six-year state takeover during the worst state budget crisis in years (or maybe ever).

Replacing him, she said, would have diverted time and attention from a more serious challenge facing OUSD: a projected deficit of at least $27 million for the 2010-11 school year.

The back story: Minor and an outside firm concluded that Kakishiba’s roles as board member and as executive director of a local nonprofit didn’t look good for the district — even though Kakishiba abstains from votes involving the organization’s contracts.

The attorneys said they found no ethical breach or evidence of wrongdoing, but that Kakishiba’s two roles created an opportunity for a conflict of interest to occur. They said public perceptions were especially important for the board now, as the board re-assumes its governing role.  

The recommendation: Minor did not ask Kakishiba to resign, per se, but she recommended that the district stop doing business with EBAYC if Kakishiba stayed on the board. (A 2007 inquiry by a previous general counsel resulted in a different conclusion: that there was no problem as long as Kakishiba disclosed his relationship with EBAYC and didn’t vote on contracts.)

Last week, the school board sent a strong signal to Kakishiba by rejecting Minor’s recommendation, with only Board President Noel Gallo voting to accept it. (Kakishiba was not at the meeting.)

Kakishiba said he understood, philosophically, the lawyers’ explanation earlier this month that “the law doesn’t care” how noble or honest an individual public servant may be. In practice, he said, “I think it matters a whole hell of a lot.”

The Alameda County community college district, however, has so far kept secret the details of the $4,000-plus in personal expenses charged to Trustee Marcie Hodge’s district credit card.

These issues, and others, were uncovered by reporters Matt Krupnick and Thomas Peele. In case you missed the stories, you can find them here.

Through public records requests, my colleagues Matt Krupnick and Thomas Peele uncovered these spending practices at the local, four-college district – a destination for many Oakland public high school grads. Those findings and others were reported in Sunday’s Tribune and Contra Costa Times.

Interestingly enough, the Peralta trustees willing to be interviewed on the subject claimed ignorance, though they signed off on some of these expenditures. (Oh, and Hodge – whose brother, Jason, served on the Oakland school board – ran for Oakland City Council and the community college board on a stop-wasteful-spending, “clean house” platform.)

So many school districts and agencies have trouble with credit card spending and oversight, I wonder why it’s still a relatively common practice. Oakland school district spokesman Troy Flint said that former State Administrator Randy Ward did away with district credit cards at the outset of the 2003 state takeover, but that they weren’t widely used even before then.

David Kakishiba said Oakland school board members didn’t have credit cards, but that they each used to have about $20,000 to give to schools or use for travel, similar to (but much smaller than) the Oakland City Council’s discretionary “pay-go” accounts. Those have not been re-established.

Sobrante Park Elementary School in East Oakland has been plagued by suspicious fires in the last couple of years. This time, a 10-year-old boy – a student who was suspended from the school — was arrested on suspicion of arson.

What a way to end the school year.

I didn’t stay until after 2 a.m., when the meeting finally wrapped up, but one of the things that struck me from the first five hours of the meeting was the principal theme that emerged.

Dozens of people — parents, teachers, neighbors, and even City Councilwoman Desley Brooks — urged the board to keep Al Sye, the popular new Skyline High School principal who received a layoff notice this month after an investigation into the complaints of several staff members. There was also a supportive contingent from Maxwell Park, a newly redesigned/reopened elementary school whose principal, Mary-Louise Newling, got the same dreaded release letter, to staff’s dismay.

And then there was something you don’t see too often: a whole crew of teachers speaking out publicly against their principal. Teachers from CBIT, the Castlemont Business Information & Technology School, gave the board a letter –  apparently signed by 80 percent of the school’s staff — with a litany of academic, safety and management problems they say they have experienced under the leadership of Susan Ryan, the new principal.

In all, five Oakland principals learned this month that they had likely lost their jobs (as of June 30), said Jo Anna Lougin, executive director of the Oakland principals union, United Administrators of Oakland Schools. That includes Sye, Newling, Rachelle Sallee (Tilden), Michael Rothhammer (Garfield), and Ifeoma Obodozie (Joaquin Miller).

Lougin said this was the first year she could remember in which principals received final release notices in March, rather than in May. Typically at this time of year they get warnings of potential layoffs, or pink slips, like other district employees, she said. But this year, Lougin said, these principals have already been told that they’re out — but not until June 30, three months (and an entire high-stakes testing cycle) from now.

That doesn’t make sense, Lougin said. “They still have to run a school.”

What do you think?

I’m still at a loss for words about what happened on Saturday. What do you say to young children and teenagers about the tragedy — or about their safety, in light of the proliferation of weapons in the community? How has the death of four Oakland police officers affected your students, or your own children?

What questions are they asking? 

photo by LAURA A. ODA/Bay Area News Group

Well, indirectly.

It’ll be in the paper tomorrow, but you can read it here.

photo courtesy of The Skyline Oracle

Juan Sanchez Barrozo was walking to the school library with his fifth-grade class yesterday morning when he fell to the ground. An autopsy today found that he died of heart failure. 

I don’t have a photo of Juan, otherwise I’d post it. What a sad day for the kids at Achieve Academy, and for the boy’s family and friends.

Recently, however, Sye became the subject of a central office investigation, and it remains to be seen how long he’ll stay at Skyline, or whether he’ll return for a second year. Chris Dobbins, a school board member who represents the high school, said Sye is off for two weeks, but didn’t say why.

What happened? According to unnamed sources cited in OakBook, an Oakland news Web site, four people anonymously accused Sye of making racially inappropriate comments and touching female colleagues in a way that made them feel uncomfortable.

Dobbins (who faced an inquiry of his own in 2007), told me last week that he supports the principal. He said he couldn’t comment on the details of the investigation, but that he hoped that Sye would remain at the helm of the school, which is undergoing a major academic overhaul under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

If Sye does leave as a result of this controversy, the school will have to hire its third principal in less than three years. Sye replaced Heidi Green, who left the district last June after being re-assigned to another Oakland school. Green’s predecessor, Amy Hansen, quit in August 2006, shortly before the start of the school year, leaving Skyline without a principal for weeks, if not months.

I used to get all kinds of complaints about the leadership (or the lack of a principal) at Skyline. This year, by contrast, it seems that Skyline’s African-American parent group, its PTSA, its teachers, its neighbors, and its students generally back the new principal and his vision for improving the school.

Wandra Boyd, of the group Concerned Parents of African American Students, says Skyline is not perfect, but it’s the first time in 14 years that she has experienced such unity of purpose there. Boyd told me she hoped the rumor — that Sye is being driven out of Skyline — was just that: a rumor.

What would happen to the school, and the students, if Skyline’s leadership were to change, yet again?

photo courtesy of The Skyline Oracle

I’m at the OUSD school board meeting now, and interim superintendent Roberta Mayor has told the audience that the district will discontinue its $1 million annual contract with OPD to save money. (It still has about $29 million in cuts to go, based on Arnold’s latest budget proposal.)

I caught Mayor during a break and asked for a few more details. She said about 8-10 OPD officers work at the schools right now, and that the district could no longer afford OPD’s services as well as its own police force.

You might recall that OUSD re-started its separate police force about two years ago, after illegally shutting it down in 2001. Mayor said the department should have nine or 10 officers by the end of the school year. And, hopefully, a new police chief.

Do you think OUSDPD ready to take over?

image from NeitherFanboy’s photostream at flickr.com/creativecommons