The Oakland Unified School District board may consider whether to push out the district’s superintendent of nearly 10 years, according to a board member. The move could create instability and widespread consequences as the district struggles to repair a $95 million budget deficit and grapples with the possibility of school closures.

Two weeks ago during a closed session meeting, the politically divided board discussed terminating Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell’s contract two years early, board member Mike Hutchinson said in a social media post. He said the board was slated to discuss ending her contract early in closed session at Wednesday night’s board meeting — a move he worried could cause other senior-level district staff to depart.

“If we lose our superintendent and chief business officer at the end of June, with no replacements and no plan, Oakland Unified School District is doomed,” Hutchinson wrote on Facebook. “We can’t let the school board leadership undo the progress we’ve made, and I won’t let anyone push OUSD over the cliff.”

The debate comes as Oakland Unified faces a $95 million budget shortfall and the Alameda County superintendent of schools has expressed deep concerns about the district’s finances. The district is projected to run out of cash as early as next school year, which could lead to another yearslong state takeover like the district experienced in 2003 when it received a $100 million bailout loan due to insolvency.

“If the board does not make decisions now, it will rapidly lose the ability to make them at all,” Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro warned in a recent letter.

In February, the district announced nearly 100 layoffs in an attempt to keep Oakland Unified’s finances under control.

For years, the school board has been hesitant to broach the subject of layoffs and exacerbate existing tension between the teachers union and some board members. Hutchinson has often publicly fought with the faculty union and its endorsed candidates.

But board members have been determined to avoid school closures and talks to merge 10 schools and save costs have seemingly fizzled. A plan in 2021 to shutter campuses was so widely unpopular that it led to a near-total overhaul of the school board, widespread protests and even some hunger strikes.

The board reversed some of those planned closures in early 2023, risking a fight with California legislators who had made campus closures a condition of the $34.7 million bailout money the district received after it almost went bankrupt in 2017.

Born and raised in Oakland, Johnson-Trammell worked as a teacher and administration in the district for 19 years before she became superintendent in 2017. She quickly worked to bolster the district’s finances, cutting the district budget by $9 million in December 2017 and by an additional $5.5 million before the start of the 2018-19 school year.

The potential move to push out Johnson-Trammell — the district’s longest-serving superintendent in more than 50 years — comes less than a year after the board approved a final three-year contract extension through 2027. That contract included one final year leading the district’s day-to-day operations and two years to transfer her responsibilities and prepare the district for her successor.

The NAACP Oakland branch criticized the potential early removal of Johnson-Trammell in an open letter Tuesday and warned that the move could have severe consequences.

“This move, if allowed to proceed, will disproportionately impact the very students who already face systemic barriers — our Black and Brown children, English-language learners and students with special needs,” the organization said.

The group called on the board to halt any discussions of Johnson-Trammell’s termination and encouraged community members to come out to Wednesday’s board meeting in support of the superintendent.

There was no mention of the discussion to terminate Johnson-Trammell’s contract on the board agenda for Wednesday night — common with personnel matters and closed session items — but a public employee “discipline/dismissal/release” matter was included in the closed session agenda.

Johnson-Trammell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from this news organization. The district’s communications director, John Sasaki, said there is currently “no public discussion” underway about Johnson-Trammell’s contract and directed all questions to the board president, Jennifer Brouhard. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.