General election for Oakland Unified Board of Education District 4
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Mike Hutchinson in round 2 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.
Pecolia Manigo completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Manigo's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
I am the proud mother of three children, two who attend OUSD schools currently, and my oldest who graduated from Skyline High in 2021 and is now in college. My vision for all Oakland families is to have strong, stable school communities that we feel safe in, heard by decision makers, and integral to the future of our schools. That is not the case right now, but I am ready to work together with all stakeholders to get there. As a School Board Director, I will bring my 24 years of advocating and organizing for public schools to build transformative family engagement, transparent and responsible budgeting, and ensure deep investment in community schools. With community support, we can build the strong public school system that all our students deserve.
Equitable, fully funded community schools cocreated in partnership with students, parents, educators and community which meet the needs of students so that they can focus on learning and educators can focus on teaching.
Transparent, responsible budgets that allocate spending to classrooms and not central office.
Strong, Effective Governance of the district with accountability of leaders to school communities to implement adopted policies and state laws.
The primary responsibility of an OUSD school board member is to adopt a fiscally sound and responsible budget that reflects the important priorities of the district and ensures that dollars are maximized at the school sites and not in the central office. They must ensure that the Superintendent is fully implementing adopted policies and is focused on student success instead of national press. A board member must seek out community input and incorporate the expressed needs and desires of students, families and educators into district policy and decision making.
When I look back in 25 years, I want to be standing in community with students, parents, educators and leaders looking at a dynamically improved education system. I want to be able to celebrate deep impact on the success and holistic well-being of our students and our city.
I remember the first day that MLK Day was honored in San Francisco 1986. I went with my grandmother, and we walked down Army Street. It was a small march, but I remember feeling proud to honor someone who made it possible for me to have equal opportunity. Another historic moment was the NOW March in 1996. I attend with Illalo Kalika. Here's a little more information: NOW marched again on April 14, 1996, when over 30,000 women and men gathered in San Francisco to Fight the Radical Right. The march, organized by NOW, united activists from a range of causes and organizations to actively support affirmative action; economic justice; abortion rights and reproductive freedom; civil rights for people of color; lesbian, gay and bisexual rights and efforts to end violence against women.
I grew up on comic books and the transition of Marvel characters from comics to cartoons. So, my favorite fictional character of all time is Storm. I love her mutant power and her collaborative leadership. She is very wise and composed, and a great team member of the X-Men.
Absolutely, study after study makes clear that ALL students do better if they have diverse teachers and role models, and that children who see themselves in the adults in their schools are more likely to be engaged and successful. To achieve this, we will need a multi–pronged approach that starts with valuing and supporting our existing educators and staff of color to ensure that they stay. We should be using our academy system to engage student interest in a possible teaching career early on and offer them the opportunity to get community college credit to get them started. We must continue our partnership with local colleges to help grow a local teaching force. Provide more opportunities for our existing non-teaching staff to become credentialed. Finally, we need to train all of our staff to eliminate biases and empower diverse staff so that they want to come to Oakland.
The first thing I will do is push for an independent, external audit of our budget to determine where we spend our money and whether it can be tied to strategic initiatives that actually work to improve student outcomes. I will also seek to implement zero based budgeting where we do not simply roll over expenditures centrally but rather build a budget that centers students and focuses on the classroom needs. We must also tighten up our oversight of all spending including general education dollars, parcel tax implementation and bond spending on our facilities.
I have been building relationships with parents in Oakland for a decade and believe deeply that strengthening parent and caregiver partnership with our schools is one of the best ways to improve outcomes for students. As school board director, I will build on my 25 years of education organizing to engage parents at district 4 schools by holding regular town halls, listening sessions and targeted focus groups to find solutions to the complex issues in our district. I will use that input to co-create policy to advance solutions and monitor that implementation occurs in partnership with parents, our educators and site staff.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Ballotpedia features 618,575 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff or report an error. For media inquiries, contact us here. Please donate here to support our continued expansion.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
