He was elected to the Oakland School Board in District 5 in 2020 but the family home He’s lived in for over 40 years has been redistricted so he is now running to represent the new District 4. He is an Oakland native and proud graduate of Oakland Public Schools. He worked in Oakland’s schools and directly with youth for over 20 years until he experienced the trauma of his two schools being closed in 2012. Since then he has worked as a public education organizer and advocate. Although we’ve made progress during his first two years on the school board, he is still deeply concerned about the state of public education in Oakland. We have a chance with November’s elections to chart a new course for OUSD. He will continue the work to end school closures and financial mismanagement, facilitate authentic community engagement where the community is included as partners and decision makers, and ensure that we create sustainable community schools in every neighborhood.  Mike strongly believe that every child in Oakland has the right to a high quality public education.  Vote Mike Hutchinson for quality, public, neighborhood schools.

Mike attended Crocker Highlands, McChesney Jr High (renamed Edna Brewer) and graduated from Skyline High before going on to UC Berkeley.

Mike worked in a number of roles including spending eight years as a site coordinator for Sports4Kids and running a number of after school programs. It was only when Mike’s two schools, Santa Fe and Maxwell Park were closed in 2012 that Mike shifted his work to advocating and organizing around public education issues. In 2013 he co-founded OPEN and became a founding member of the Journey for Justice National Alliance. After testifying at the Department of Education in 2013 Mike has spoken at numerous conferences and has and has done organizing and advocacy work locally, state-wide, and nationally. Mike Has been the Oakland School Board Director for District 5 since 2020.

Member of the Budget and Finance Committee and Chair of the Charter Matters Committee.

Appointed by the Superintendent as the Board Liason to the Strategic Plan.

Authored and passed more resolutions than any other Director including authoring and passing the resolution that brought weekly Covid test to every school site, co-authoring and passing the resolution to pay off the state loan early to leave state receivership, and co-sponsoring and passing the historic Resolution for Reparations for Black Students.

Co-author or co-sponsored and passed resolutions with five different directors.

Used every tool to publicly push for the safe and equitable reopening of our schools during the pandemic.

Lead the fight against school closures.

Rescind the planned closure of six schools at the end of this school year.

Continue to stabilize OUSD’s finances and reprioritize the budget.

Implement School Design using the Sustainable Community Schools Model.

Leave state receivership and regain for local control in 2023.

Fulfill the promise of a quality public school in every neighborhood.

The School Board has two main roles, They set the policies for OUSD which the Superintendent implements and they have fiduciary responsibility over the district and are required to approve all budgets and spending.

Over the last four years all seven of the previous board directors left office. This election will finish the job of electing a new board that through policy and budget decisions will determine how OUSD operates going forward. The buck stops at the School Board.