Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell, OUSD superintendent for the past 8 years, was kicked out by the OUSD School Board yesterday, April 23, 2025. After signing a three-year transitional contract with the board, she was terminated for unknown reasons, leaving the why to Johnson’s termination unanswered.
Her accomplishments in the OUSD has been listed as the following:
- Increased OUSD graduation rate by 8.8% points district-wide since 2027 and from 70.7% to 79.5%, which is a historic high achievement for Oakland and the goal to accelerate to 90%
- Improved Literacy with Kindergarteners
- Exited ACOE Differentiated Assistance for 7 of 8 student groups.
- Improved attendance to 92%, which is up 1.6% from 2023 and reduced absenteeism by 7.7% which is now at 24.2%. This is a great improvement to our schools post-pandemic
- Exemplary Covid Pandemic leadership shifting OUSD into a period of digital learning and implementing high impact tutoring
- Historic pay raises for our educators
- Improved OUSD’s facilities bond program
- Ensured strong fiscal systems and budgeting to pull OUSD back from a financial cliff in 2017 to the current moment on the verge of existing state receivership
“Johnson-Trammel will remain in the role of superintendent Emeritus from July 1, 2025 through January 15, 2026,” wrote Jennifer Brouhard, OUSD School Board President, in a letter sent out to all of OUSD staff and families.
An anonymous source says that a possible reason for Johnson-Trammell’s ejection by the board is due to her wanting to reduce the number of schools in order to address the massive budget loss of federal funding and the decreasing number of students in the schools. However, the school board is on the side of the teacher’s union which is basically saying “Don’t close the schools down!”, so this could be a reason for Johnson-Trammell’s forced departure.
This all happened at OUSD Headquarters located at 1011 Union Street, Oakland on April 23, 2025.
Potential consequences to this immediate removal could be the new power gap in the OUSD, possibly allowing the voices of haste to overwhelm the voices of reason. It could also allow decisions to be made that could halt any further progress in attempting to provide a strong foundation, not just financially, but student-wise as well. It is clear to see the progress Johnson-Trammell made was very important for the OUSD and what might happen next could stop that train of success.
In addition, the new presidential administration is cutting off federal funding and the Department of Education as a whole, which could lead to catastrophic repercussions for the Oakland Unified School District.