OAKLAND -- The Oakland teachers union and the school district administration have a notoriously strained -- some would say, dysfunctional -- relationship. The two sides haven't agreed on much of anything lately, including a collective bargaining agreement, which expired way back in June 2008. In 2010, the school board imposed a contract on the group's roughly 2,500 members, which is still in effect.
This month Trish Gorham succeeded Betty Olson-Jones as the new president of the Oakland Education Association. The Oakland native and 30-year teaching veteran taught at Washington