During the February 11th HUSD School Board meeting, Trustees traded barbs over whether or not they should make changes to the newest Fiscal Solvency Plan during the meeting or behind closed doors. The specific cuts in question involved $4-5,000,000 of one-time funding that was ending that supported Social-Emotional Counselors and Community School Specialists, among other grant-funded positions.

Trustee Austin Bruckner-Carrillo characterized the cuts as "not well-thought-out" and he and Trustee Sara Prada said they would not vote for the plan in its current form. President Peter Bufete accused them of "grandstanding" and worried about making decisions before receiving more information. It's likely that the plan will continue to develop between meetings based on comments made by Superintendent Chen Wu-Fernandez.

Hayward Promise Neighborhood Funding Ends

Though most students and families may notice the loss of Community School Specialists and Social-Emotional Counselors most quickly, the loss of Hayward Promise Neighborhood and ARSI Newcomer grants will also result in the loss of 15 Full-Time Equivalent staff. Many of these will directly impact the most vulnerable students in HUSD, English Language Learners, those in need of support services, and newly-arrived students—many of whom are refugees.

The grant funding for the ARSI Newcomer Grant was expected to expire, but the numerous positions reliant on Hayward Promise Neighborhood funding ended abruptly due to decisions made by the Trump Administration. Unfortunately, the District has no way to offset the funding loss, which prompted over an hour of public comment from members of the community.

Changes To Middle Schools

Another change that was rolled into the presentation, was a proposed reorganization of Middle Schools to include grades 6-8, as opposed to just grades 7 and 8. According to Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Amy Nichols, research suggests it could provide social-emotional benefits for 6th Graders as well as improve access to electives and better align with academic standards which group 6-8th graders together anyway.

Ms. Nichols also said that the move would free up 40 classrooms across the district for TK and Preschool programs, which are growing due to actions from the State Legislature. The plan is to form a committee on the matter in Academic Year 26/27 with implementation the following year.

Concern About Enrollment Processes

Trustees supported the change to Middle Schools, but took issue with how the extra workload would fall on the schools given other proposed cuts. One proposed change included eliminating centralized enrollment processes at the HUB, in favor of having each site process its own enrollment.

Trustee Sara Prada said that the Enrollment Team was already overloaded and worried about the workload being put on individual sites. "I feel like it's too much to put on the site teams and also decreasing our enrollment team will continue to cause harm with our enrollment at the beginning of the year," she said.

Trustee Austin Bruckner-Carrillo agreed, citing existing enrollment problems with Transitional-Kindergarten even before reductions. "I want to make sure we don't have a repeat of our TK enrollment where we end up losing students because parents need to get their kid enrolled," he said. Board President Peter Bufete agreed, saying that the Enrollment Team was the most efficient team. He expressed interest in further centralizing services as opposed to sending work back to individual sites.

Board Infighting Over Cuts

When it came to discussing the cuts from losing one-time funding, Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo was the only Trustee to suggest a plan to redirect funding. He recommended exploring furlough days for Cabinet-Level employees and Management-level District Office staff. Superintendent Chen Wu-Fernandez said she would need to chat with the Cabinet and Management about the proposal, but Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo pushed for a commitment to explore at least one furlough day from management. The idea was supported by the majority of the Board.

But Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo expressed concern about the proposed cuts in the form presented to the Board. "When this comes to us on the 25th, if it looks exactly the same, I will not be voting for it," he said. He again pointed to the Accountability Directors and positioned them against the loss of the LGBTQ+-focused TOSA and Social-Emotional Counselors, pushing the Board to actively suggest changes. "The state is not going to be here this time to tell us we have to work for this or we could lose local control," Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo said.

Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said, "There are no good cuts... We don't have the option to be qualified certified or negative certified." She stressed the need for fiscal stability. President Bufete worried about making decisions before hearing from public commenters. "I think it's irresponsible to rush to commit to things right now without having the time to further look into the things we've already discussed as a Board here, as well as the public," he said.

Trustee Prada, however, felt differently. "This Board is notorious for blindly making cuts," she said. "I haven't seen anything that says we've tried everything to save Faith Ringgold." She took issue with the timing of the engagement with Faith Ringgold stakeholders while also hinting that her concerns had been sidelined by the more united Trustees Bufete, Oquenda, and Rawdon. "There's a hard decision for HUSD almost every year," she said, "because of mismanagement of funding. We need to do better. As of now, I won't vote for this."

Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo asked for a Special Meeting to be called on the week of March 2nd. "There seems to be an unwillingness for our board to provide direction to make any changes," he said. Trustee Oquenda responded, "We do have budget cuts to make... and it's our job to make these hard decisions." However, she did not appear to offer any alternative ideas.

President Bufete agreed that there were no easy decisions. "I think it's really easy to come up here and grandstand," he said, "and try to appeal to everybody because honestly at the end of the day we don't want to make these cuts either. But for every position you take off of here, you're going to have to add something back on here." He continued, "To push this narrative that we somehow don't care about this stuff is offensive to me. It isn't fair."

Ultimately, there appeared to be a difference of understanding that went unresolved during the meeting. "I understand cuts need to be made," Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo said. "They are painful. But setting direction is our job... we need to set some direction because this is not a well-thought-out plan." President Bufete said, "Setting direction and locking ourselves into a decisions are two different things."

Changes Behind The Scenes

Comments from Trustees and Superintendent Wu-Fernandez hinted that discussions around changes for the Fiscal Solvency Plan would continue behind closed doors. While the Brown Act forbids members of a meeting body from conducting business behind closed doors, Superintendent Wu-Fernandez can share information to the Board and gather individual feedback from Trustees to inform changes to the Fiscal Solvency Plan before the February 25th meeting.

Almost No Comment On Parcel Tax

It was after midnight when HUSD Trustees heard the presentation on a proposed Parcel Tax to bolster District funding. As we covered before, multiple plans were tested by the consulting firm, revealing that a lower Flat-Rate Parcel Tax with shorter term was the only plan that polled above the 67% threshold to pass in the election. However, the consultants said that the survey was conducted on what appeared to be a random selection of likely voters, not a sample that was representative of the District as a whole.

The lone public commenter for the item pointed out that, at least at their school, most of the families were renters while the property tax would be levied on homeowners and landlords. They recommended that the District work with renter families to help canvas support for the Parcel Tax, regardless of what form it took.

After the presentation, there appeared to be no comment from the Board of Trustees until Superintendent Wu-Fernandez reminded them that some direction was needed on how to proceed. "Do we need to give direction on this item?" Trustee Oquenda asked. Once discussion began, the Board supported moving to get the Parcel Tax on the June ballot which would allow access to funding sooner.

Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo asked for two options to be brought forward on the 25th: a Flat-Rate tax and a Square Footage tax "It's 12:22 at night and I noticed our labor partners are not in the room, for example." He hoped to get more public feedback on the proposed ballot language before approving either one. The rest of the Board supported that option, as well.