Is the Oakland School Board Ousting the Superintendent? Depends on Which Board Member You Ask

Oakland’s school district leadership looks headed for a shake up — though it’s unclear whether the move is par for the course or a backdoor effort to push the longtime superintendent out early.

After Oakland Unified’s school board discussed Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell’s transition out of the district during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, President Jennifer Brouhard reported to the public that no action had been taken.

However, Board member Mike Hutchinson quickly posted on social media that the longtime superintendent was being ousted. Hutchinson said the board took two votes related to the matter: one to begin an immediate search for a new superintendent and another to start negotiations on a payout for Johnson-Trammell, who did not respond to request for comment.

“Last night, [the board] did not vote to give the Superintendent a 90-day notice, but they did take the other actions that clearly show it is violating her contract,” Hutchinson told KQED. “It’s a slight detail that I don’t think matters, and I am very disappointed that as of now, it has still not been reported out like it was supposed to be.”

He said that the possibility of hiring a new superintendent who would begin this summer was first floated in a closed-door meeting two weeks ago. That talk wasn’t agendized, but Hutchinson said the board members took a straw vote.

Hutchinson believes that searching for a new superintendent would violate Johnson-Trammell’s contract, which extends another two years.

The superintendent had originally planned to step down this year, according to former board president Sam Davis, but agreed to stay on in a somewhat limited capacity as the district weathered financial crisis and interpersonal strife.

Last fall, Johnson-Trammell signed a three-year contract extension that included one more year leading OUSD’s day-to-day operations, followed by two years in a more hands-off role.

The contract said that before August 2025, she would present an “interim operations plan” to the school board, delegating most internal duties to senior staff. She would stay on through June 2027, focused on “special projects” and external work like networking with philanthropic and city and state partners, according to Davis.

While the contract language doesn’t mention a deputy or interim superintendent, Davis, who was board president at the time, said that in discussions between Johnson-Trammell and board leadership, it was assumed that when that interim operation plan was laid out this summer, one senior staff member might step into a temporary leadership role.

“My theory on that was assuming that you’re shuffling around senior staff and promoting one of the senior staff to be the deputy [superintendent], because right now we have five network superintendents,” Davis told KQED. “One of those people could kind of bump into another senior role. And then you would actually not be increasing the number of human beings in the central office. You would just be creating a deputy and reducing one of the network [superintendent] positions.”

Whether that’s the situation the board is discussing, though, he isn’t sure.

“The reality is that [Johnson-Trammell] was always planning to leave over the next couple of years, and the board does need to be involved in that planning process,” Davis said. “But I know [she] wasn’t there last night, and that’s not a good sign.”

In a statement through the district on Thursday, Brouhard called reports that Johnson-Trammell was being ousted “premature” and said that there had been no final action on the agenda item regarding a public employee removal or dismissal.

Still, “Why aren’t these discussions happening in a way that’s more collaborative, and why isn’t there a discussion in an open session?” Davis asked.