Oakland Unified School District it seems inappropriate for you to be posting about this proposed raise on a third party site while you are having confidential and purportedly good faith negotiations with OEA. Further, the information you posted is misleading and clearly intended not to inform but to turn support away from your teachers and toward your proposal. Isaac Kos-Read, public information officer for OUSD, explained some of the nearly $1 million in increased spending in the top tier of the Central Office this year alone by telling me that some of the positions were given an increased work load and therefore the increased salary was not a raise but merely compensating for the increased workload. In turn, Mr Kos-Read, you must agree that if a “raise” is for an increase in hours required under the contract, then it is not a raise but compensation for additional work and should not be counted as part of the “raise” you cite. In addition, the remaining 1.5% “raise” being touted here would result in a decrease in the overall benefits package, which you have repeatedly held up as being one of the best in the county (although GO Publlic Schools recently pointed out that it is below average when compared to Districts across the State with similar enrollment and complexity). So when you remove the compensation for additional work and net out the decrease in overall benefits from the “13.5%” contingent raise, it is still a 10.5% contingent raise being offered. In addition Oakland Unified School District, the reason that the raise is both the largest proposed in a decade and the largest (you say) being offered in Alameda County is because our teachers are and have been underpaid for many years, and in order to try to close the gap, you need to consistently outraise surrounding districts for some time to come. According to GO Public Schools, OUSD is between 7.6% and 15% below Alameda County average at this point in time (and 10 to 22% below similar districts across the state) which means that you need to offer that just to get even with other Districts and then keep pace with their offers year after year to stay even. I would appreciate if in future you wish to post on OUSD Parents United that you do so in a way that is truthful and not intended to mislead.