# Oakland Unified Board of Education, District 4 Compare records and positions simply between Mike Hutchinson and 2 more for Oakland Unified Board of Education, District 4 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your area's seat on the Oakland Unified school board. They vote on district policy, the budget, and hiring the superintendent. - Jurisdiction: School District - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/ousd-board-4 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 21, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 94 out of 100 (Very strong), across 4 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Mike Hutchinson** — Incumbent - **Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams** — Adult Educator - **Kathryn Camp** — Public Policy Professional A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Three candidates are on the ranked-choice ballot for the District 4 seat on the Oakland Unified school board: incumbent Mike Hutchinson, elected in 2020 and a former board president, against Kathryn Camp and Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams. The winner holds one of seven seats governing Oakland Unified. They vote on district policy, the budget, and hiring and overseeing the superintendent. Trustee areas share the city council's district lines by charter. The term is four years. The district's roughly $100 million budget gap frames this race too, and the incumbent has positioned himself against his own board's budget. The choice is between a dissenting veteran, a researcher-and-policy candidate running on transparency, and a career OUSD classroom aide running on where the money lands. Ranked-choice voting lets you rank the field in order of preference rather than picking one name. ## Mike Hutchinson The incumbent — his ballot designation is simply "Incumbent" — a former afterschool teacher elected to the board in 2020 who previously served as its president. He voted against OUSD's proposed budget this year, questioning whether it would truly produce a surplus, and abstained on a new teacher contract (per the Oaklandside). **Strengths:** Six years on the board including a term as president, and a documented willingness to vote against his colleagues' budget when he doubts its math. **Trade-offs:** The Oakland Public Ethics Commission is still weighing whether to fine him nearly $100,000 for repeatedly failing to file campaign-finance disclosures (per the Oaklandside). **Keep in mind:** That proceeding is pending, not decided — no finding has been made. But it concerns disclosure compliance in a race about financial stewardship, so its resolution is worth following past Election Day. ## Kathryn Camp On the ballot as a Public Policy Professional. A parent of a Glenview Elementary student, she recently worked as a graduate student researcher at UC Berkeley and before that as a government-affairs staffer for the technology company Block. Her campaign site names transparency in OUSD governance, community partnerships and student outcomes (per the Oaklandside). **Strengths:** Research training plus government-affairs experience, and an agenda built on governance transparency rather than a single issue. **Trade-offs:** No service on a school board or in the district; her closest institutional experience is corporate government affairs. **Keep in mind:** Transparency platforms are easy to state and hard to measure. Ask what specifically she would publish that OUSD does not publish now. ## Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams On the ballot as an Adult Educator. A bilingual adult-education teacher and special-education aide who has worked in OUSD for two decades, she says she is running to keep the budget focused on the classroom from preschool through adult education, to bring stability to Oakland schools, and to improve outcomes for all students (per the Oaklandside). **Strengths:** Two decades inside OUSD classrooms, including special education and adult education — the parts of the budget most often cut first. **Trade-offs:** No governance record; her experience is delivering the district's services rather than setting its policy or budget. **Keep in mind:** She is the only candidate here whose daily work is in the classrooms the budget decides about — a different kind of expertise than governance, and worth weighing as such. ## Financial info - **Kathryn Camp** — $14,290 raised (Small donors: $365; Individuals: $6,325; PACs & committees: $6,600; Businesses & other orgs: $1,000) Mike Hutchinson has no campaign committee with filings on record with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for this race. Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams has no campaign committee with filings on record with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for this race. Figures are CA Form 460 filings through 2026-06-30, per the Oakland Public Ethics Commission's e-filed transaction exports, retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Sources 1. [Oakland City Clerk — Nov 2026 Election Qualified Candidate List (final, in ballot order, with ballot designations)](https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/20/city-clerk/documents/elections/nov-2026-election-qualified-candidate-list.pdf) 2. [Oakland City Clerk qualified-candidate list for November 3, 2026, as published by The Oaklandside (2026-08-10)](https://oaklandside.org/2026/08/10/election-2026-oakland-candidate-list-mayor-council-school-board/) 3. [Ballotpedia — City elections in Oakland, California (2026)](https://ballotpedia.org/City_elections_in_Oakland,_California_(2026)) 4. [Oakland Public Ethics Commission — e-filed campaign-finance transactions (NetFile)](https://netfile.com/public/coak/campaign) ## The rest of the ballot Oakland Unified Board of Education, District 4 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Oakland Unified Board of Education, District 4 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/ousd-board-4 (sources last retrieved September 21, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.