Both strikes yielded gains for teachers, but larger structural issues, such as declining enrollments, unaffordable housing, and pension costs eroding what can be spent on children, were not addressed.
District increased salary hike offer, but teachers' union and supporters are holding out. Demands include higher raises, smaller classes and student resources.
As teachers are joined by parents, students and community members on picket lines, the school board faces pressure to settle with teachers and put students first when making budget cuts for next year.
Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, a former Oakland Unified teacher and principal, says district has to live within its "current financial reality" and end the "same repeated conversations that we have been having for decades."
For months the district warned it needed to cut $30 million from its 2019-20 budget. When a plan to cut a lower amount came before them, the board put off a vote amid complaints that members didn't know how the cuts would impact students and schools. About 100 staffers, most from the central office, are slated to lose their jobs.
Students and advocates are loudly protesting a plan to significantly cut staff from the popular initiative, which emphasizes alternatives to punitive discipline approaches like suspension and expulsion.
Oakland teachers voted overwhelmingly to support a strike if their union can't negotiate a new contract.
They rallied Tuesday outside Oakland city hall and won support from the city council which has no authority to settle the contract dispute with the Oakland Unified School District. A strike can not legally occur until after Feb. 15 when a neutral fact-finding report is expected to be issued.
Oakland Unified faces a budget deficit, in part because students are choosing charter and private schools. The district enrolls only 58 percent of the nearly 63,000 school-age children who live in Oakland.
