The parents, teachers, and students at Edna Brewer Middle School are here tonight speaking with a united voice in opposition to the final school budget presented to our school, the evaluation process for the new school budgets and the poor if not misleading communication from the school superintendent’s office over the past year. Through careful stewardship of OUSD funding in past years, Edna Brewer has created a dynamic educational community for its students and families. Now, at a time of increased school funding, Edna Brewer has been presented with a one-year immediate budget reduction of $214,000, which will have devastating and long-term consequences.

At this meeting in December the Edna Brewer community acknowledged budgetary inequities due to the established OUSD budget process. We asked three things:

- That there not be a wrenching single year budget change for any school,

- That there be a thorough analysis of the new budget with a side-by-side presentation of the current and new proposed budget for each school in the Oakland Unified School District. The board explicitly endorsed this prerequisite at that meeting, and

- There not be a precipitous decision on this proposed budget revision until all understood the budget process and the consequences to each Oakland school.

At that same meeting, interim superintendent Yee presented to the board and to the assembled parents, teachers and principals the proposed new Edna Brewer budget with a $35,000 decrease for the 2014-15 school year. Other independent analyses even at that time had suggested a higher deficit. Presumably based upon these incorrect projections, the board did vote in January to adopt a new budget process. When this final budget is now presented to our school with an actual funding decrease of $214,000, how can we interpret this other than as a flawed process based upon incompetent or deliberately misleading information?

For the sake of our children and the students of Edna Brewer and the other affected schools in the OUSD, we petition the board to remediate the budget process for 2014-15 to prevent these significant changes over a single year. We ask that the implementation be adjusted to allow schools to adapt to a new budget process and to allow funding from new programs and a reduction in central office allocation to bridge this budget gap.

A “budget deficit” sounds like dollars, but it is really people and a people deficit that will affect dedicated teachers and aides and principals and librarians and, ultimately, the students of OUSD. There is wisdom in the old saying: “No matter how far you have gone down the wrong path, still turn back.” We understand that the OUSD is charting a new and better path for the future. We simply ask that we light that path with understanding, collaboration, and correct analysis rather than precipitous haste, mistrust and poor communication, and disruptive change. Please reevaluate and adjust the budget allocations for this and coming years for the sake of all students in the OUSD.