As they telegraphed they were going to two weeks ago, the Oakland Board of Education went and fired Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell Wednesday night, behind closed doors and with no explanation. But it seems the teachers’ union may have played a role.

It sure seemed surprising two weeks ago when the Oakland Unified School District school board moved to fire popular Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell with no explanation at all why. Johnson-Trammell was a homegrown superintendent with 18 years in the district as a teacher or an administrator, the board had just signed her to a three-year contract extension eight months ago, and she’s steered the district through some tough financial times.

But on their second and final move on the matter, the Chronicle reports that the board did indeed remove Johnson-Trammell Wednesday night with a 4-3 vote, in discussions that once again happened behind closed doors, and with no explanation provided to the public as to why.

As far as firings go, this is a pretty sweetheart deal. Johnson-Trammell will get a payout to leave, which KTVU estimates will be around $248,000. And she will get the title “superintendent emeritus” for a six-month period after she’s let go at the end of this school year, though it’s unclear whether that title even means anything or comes with any authority.

But it’s a raw deal in the eyes of many parents who support Johnson-Trammell. The Chronicle reports that the board’s decision “was met with loud boos” when announced Wednesday night at announced at the La Escuelita Education Center auditorium.

“I’m outraged because we were given no forward warning, no reasons, no anything,” district parent Vivica Ycoy-Walton told the Chronicle. “Somebody who was born, raised, went to school and went through every level of leadership to get to the position she is right now — that is somebody the city trusts.”

The decision is even more curious because, as KTVU points out, Johnson-Trammell had just gotten the district out of state financial receivership it had been under for more than 20 years. A recent independent audit declared the district was in its  “Best fiscal condition in 22 years,” largely thanks to “Stable leadership with the same Superintendent, Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell, since 2017.”

But reading the tea leaves, it sounds like the teachers’ union had something to do with this move. And by “tea leaves,” we mean the very explicit comments of one dissenting board member.    

"We have a school board colluding with our teachers' union leadership attacking our district,” board member Mike Hutchinson told KTVU. “There hasn't been one public discussion, not one person has given any justification for it or explain why they would want to do it and this is a superintendent where we just extended her contract less than eight months ago.”

The speculation is that the union was at odds with Johnson-Trammell because she was going to resurrect a plan to close some Oakland schools. The district likely has more schools than their declining enrollment justifies, and it is still facing a budget deficit.

So if it’s true that school closure plans are behind Johnson-Trammell’s firing, that means that both the Oakland and San Francisco schools superintendents have been booted out of office because of school closure plans in the last six months.

Related: Oakland Unified School District Abruptly Fires Superintendent With No Explanation [SFist]

Image: OUSD.org