Oakland teachers return to work after reaching tentative contract

Teachers in Oakland, California, were teaching again Tuesday after reaching a tentative deal with the school district, ending a two-week strike.

The conditional deal between Oakland United School District and the Oakland Education Association was reached Monday afternoon.

The Oakland teachers secured major concessions from the district. Most notably, they landed a 15% raise over three years and an increase of nearly $10,000 to the starting salary of new teachers. Previously, newly hired teachers started at $52,905. If the new contract is approved, they would make $62,696 a year.

“It’s always been important to me to move OUSD … toward a culture of stability and achieving quality for every student, family and employee in our district. We have moved the needle significantly in that direction today,” Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell told reporters Monday.

The deal included clauses not directly tied to teacher pay: requiring the district to hire more full-time counselors and librarians, using school funds to provide assistance to homeless students, providing free bus passes to students and creating a “Black reparations task force.” The task force will work on allocating more services to schools where 40% or more of the students are Black.