Want to have a say in the direction that Interim Superintendent Roberta Mayor will take when she officially starts her job next month?

The board is holding a special meeting at 5 p.m. tomorrow to discuss the district’s priorities for next year, and the goals for Mayor’s work.

Don’t let my rant last week about the board’s never-ending meetings scare you away. I hear this session might actually be reasonable in length.

She wasn’t born an auditor. 

Roberta Mayor’s path to the Oakland school district superintendency began back in the 1960s, when she was an English major at the University of Hawaii.

Curious about her career and credentials? Check out her resume, here.

That’s right. Tonight, just one day after State Superintendent Jack O’Connell gave the school board the OK to hire a superintendent, they named an interim leader: Roberta Mayor.

Mayor is a chief management analyst for FCMAT (you know, the agency that rates the district’s progress under state control?). A pretty shrewd move on the board’s part, since Mayor’s team has dissected and rated OUSD’s operations from the low point in 2003 until now.

With high FCMAT ratings this fall in fiscal management and academic policy, the state-run district could regain full local authority within a year.

Mayor officially starts July 1, and is expected to serve for up to one year. Meanwhile, State Administrator Vince Matthews will remain on Second Avenue, overseeing the budget and academic policy. (A more apt illustration would have two birds at the top post.) Read the rest of this entry »

State Superintendent Jack O’Connell and school board president David Kakishiba signed an agreement this afternoon at Oakland’s Grass Valley Elementary School that returned local authority over staffing and facilities.

This means that the Oakland school board now oversees three out of the five key departments. The state, however, still controls the purse strings and academic policy — areas of no small importance.

For a celebratory occasion, it was a relatively sober affair, with references to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts and Oakland’s upcoming employee contract negotiations (The budget projections recently presented by OUSD staff include no changes to the salary scale, a fact that concerns board members).

At 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday update: After talking to David Kakishiba, the board president, I have a new question for you all to consider:

Should the board…

a) choose an interim supe while searching for a permanent leader

b) immediately start a search for a permament superintendent, which could take four to six months, or

c) wait until the last two areas of control (finances and academic policies) are returned to the board, because the complicated, two-leader system might scare top candidates away.

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Tonight, the Oakland school board voted 5-2 to approve a power transfer agreement with Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of schools.

The agreement restores board authority over staffing and facilities, as O’Connell promised at a Nov. 30 press conference. And, of course, the ability to select a superintendent for the first time in about five years.

The state still controls Oakland Unified’s finances and its academic policies.

Noel Gallo and Greg Hodge voted against the agreement, as I understand it, mainly because of this clause, which includes language from the state takeover law: Read the rest of this entry »

In late November, at a press conference held at Crocker Highlands Elementary, the state superintendent of public instruction made a big announcement: The mostly state-run Oakland school board would regain control over the district’s facilities and personnel departments, likely within the next two months.

Perhaps more importantly, Jack O’Connell announced that the board would be able to choose a superintendent for the first time since before the 2003 state takeover.

Well, February has come and gone. Although O’Connell did make a stop in Oakland at the end of the month, it was to talk about budget cuts, not power transfers.

“Whatever excitement there was in December, it’s gone,” said board president David Kakishiba, who sent O’Connell the latest draft of the agreement about two weeks ago. “It should never have taken this long.”

Kakishiba said O’Connell initially called on the board to carry forward a number of “brand name” reforms begun during the 5-year state administration, such as Expect Success. Read the rest of this entry »

Always the eager recipient of good scuttlebutt, I was intrigued by rumors that school board member (and former teacher, assistant principal, principal and administrator in OUSD) Gary Yee plans to resign from his post in the hopes of becoming the district’s next superintendent.

As usual, the rumors were tinged with truth: Yee tells me he was on the verge of stepping down to make himself available as an interim superintendent. But in December, he learned that board rules require members to be out of office for a full year before they can be considered for the position.

“The cost was just too huge,” Yee said. “The board would have to overturn its own by-law. How would I explain it to anybody?”

Yee said the board is considering one of three approaches at the moment when the state supe allows the local officials to pick a leader (likely in a matter of weeks): Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, rumors and speculation are right on. This morning, state superintendent Jack O’Connell did, in fact, promise to return control over facilities and personnel management to the Oakland school board.

O’Connell also said the board could begin recruiting and hiring a superintendent as soon as the agreement is signed — most likely in January or early February. That might be the biggest news of all.

The upshot: In a month or so, the school board will oversee the district’s community relations, its buildings and grounds and its staffing, but not its finances or policies around student achievement.

I can only imagine the power struggles that are likely to unfold in the meantime.

Here is the release from OUSD: Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an important press conference at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at Crocker Highlands Elementary School. State superintendent Jack O’Connell is making some kind of announcement, and it might be about giving back two major areas of governance to the Oakland school board.

But don’t tell anyone about it. I think it might be a secret.

I’m a bit confused, since members of the press are usually informed about press conferences. (I actually learned about the event from a parent.) A spokeswoman from the California Department of Education confirmed that an announcement will be made tomorrow morning, but she wouldn’t say what it was.

I’m sure we’ll be invited, eventually.

The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance team today recommended that the state superintendent return two more operational areas  of the Oakland school district – personnel and facilities management – to local authority.

But the report noted that high turnover and steeply declining enrollment have threatened the district’s stability. Read the report here.

OUSD’s ratings went up in all five areas, although the financial department is still rated just a 5.3 out of 10 (Up from a 4 last year).

Some quotes from the executive summary:

“The lack of consistency in district leadership and management Read the rest of this entry »