Oakland schools pick superintendent amid budget mess

Kyla Johnson-Trammell was selected to be the new superintendent of Oakland public schools. Kyla Johnson-Trammell was selected to be the new superintendent of Oakland public schools. Photo: Oakland Unified Photo: Oakland Unified Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Oakland schools pick superintendent amid budget mess 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

After a national search, the Oakland school board picked a city native and longtime employee to serve as superintendent and steer the district through a budget crisis.

Kyla Johnson-Trammel, now the district’s interim deputy superintendent, was selected from among dozens of applicants and is the sole finalist for the job, President James Harris announced during Wednesday’s school board meeting.

Johnson-Trammel, who turns 41 on Monday, was born and raised in East Oakland and has worked in Oakland schools for 18 years as a teacher, principal and administrator, district officials said.

“If you don’t know Kyla, she is third-generation Oakland, she is a native,” Harris said. “I would offer that you have someone before you who knows what it means to be of this town, and somebody who I believe and this board believes can guide us forward.”

Teacher union officials applauded the selection.

“Kyla Johnson-Trammel has developed the relationships, she knows who is who and she knows what is what,” said Trish Gorham, president of the Oakland Education Association. “She has totally proven her commitment to Oakland and Oakland’s children.

“She is the candidate,” Gorham said, “who will begin the healing in Oakland.”

The new superintendent will likely have her hands full in that healing process. The board meeting Wednesday was raucous, with Harris calling a temporary recess after speakers insisted on exceeding public comment time limits to protest proposed cuts to special education and reading programs.

Johnson-Trammel was previously the director of talent development and the associate superintendent for leadership, curriculum and instruction as well as a network superintendent for elementary schools. She was appointed interim deputy superintendent after Devin Dillon was appointed interim superintendent in February.

Johnson-Trammel’s experience has been more on the academic side of school management than the financial. But the new superintendent, who is expected to take over by July 1, will step into fiscal upheaval, including a projected $10 million shortfall this academic year and up to $20 million in cuts needed next year.

Due to declining enrollment and skyrocketing special education and cafeteria costs, among other issues, Oakland Unified has struggled to balance the books this year. And the district is still paying off a $100 million state loan required to ward off fiscal insolvency in 2003.

Dillon, who also applied for the permanent position, implemented a comprehensive hiring and spending freeze in April to ensure the district can pay its bills through June.

The deficit this year is in part related to lower enrollment than expected, which has meant significantly less funding from the state.

Aside from immediate budget problems, Johnson-Trammel must confront over the long term what Harris and other district leaders have acknowledged is an unsustainable business model: The district has too many schools and too few students.

The district has 86 schools for 36,600 students, while San Jose Unified, with nearly as many students, operates 41 schools. Sacramento City Unified has 43,000 students at 77 schools.

Thousands of Oakland students have moved to the nearly 40 charter schools in the city. But while district officials have merged some existing schools, they avoided closing any in recent years, despite the costs of principals and support staffers at the schools, many of which are under-enrolled.

“We are excited by the announcement of Kyla Johnson-Trammell as the Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District. She represents the best of our aspirations for a home-grown, thoughtful, and values-driven leader, with experiences as an Oakland parent, teacher, school principal, and district administrator,” said Ash Solar, executive director of GO Public Schools, a nonprofit working on education issues in underserved communities, in a statement.

“Hard choices must be made,” Solar said, “and done right, they will include school leaders and community members in the conversations to ensure that the budget reflects our values and priorities for our students.”

Jo Bates, an Oakland parent and member of the community advisory committee in the superintendent search, said: “We wanted someone who can relate to us and I think we did a pretty good job.”

“We ask that you stand behind the new superintendent,” she said speaking to the public at large. “She has our support. I hope we can pull together.”

District officials said Johnson-Trammell knows Oakland and has the experience to lead its schools. She attended Montclair Elementary and Montera Middle School before attending the Branson School in Ross, a private college preparatory high school. She earned a doctorate in educational leadership from UC Berkeley.

The board is expected to approve her employment contract, including her salary, at an upcoming board meeting.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker