Controversies
OSA was historically plagued by notoriously high faculty and student turnover and other management problems. Upon the hiring of Donn Harris, OSA enjoyed 97% faculty/staff retention in the 2008-9 school year and 2009-10 year.
Some fallout hit the school after Jerry Brown made a novel arrangement to provide it with extra funding. Brown had a large, lighted electronic billboard with rotating ads installed at the busy toll plaza on the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge, with the proceeds benefiting OSA. The billboard became controversial in 2007 because it was so bright that motorists complained it impeded their vision at night, and some residents around the bay objected to its high visibility even from San Francisco and Marin.
In another minor controversy, Brown sent out letters to Oakland families recruiting them to apply to OSA in 2007—after he had become California state Attorney General, and using his title and the state seal. Some questioned the legality of the letters, but the designated official to rule on their legality would be the California state Attorney General. Brown deemed the letters legal.
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