Future Of Arts Uncertain At HUSD
In Which: We explain the VAPA program and what it does, Trustee Rawdon pounds the table over Art funding cuts, and Staff pushes back on Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo's desire for quick contract cuts
Arts On The Chopping Block At HUSD
The Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees received a report from the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) program outlining their strategic plan for the next year. But the specter of budget cuts loomed over the presentation, as many of the programs that supported arts integration are slated to be cut due to the still-looming budget deficit.
What Is VAPA?
The VAPA Program has been around in some form within HUSD for several years. It’s created multiple programs aimed at integrating arts education into the school curriculum at all levels. In a perfect world, every grade level—from TK to 12th Grade—would have access to visual arts, drama, and music education.
Since there hasn’t been budget to pay for specific arts, drama, or music teachers—even in Middle Schools—the idea has been to train as many teachers as possible on methods to integrate visual and performing arts into their existing classes. While this may be more cost-effective than hiring new teachers, relying on professional development means that implementation is uneven and a greater burden on teachers to learn all these things.
What Has This Program Done So Far?
The presentation outlined a bunch of different things that the VAPA team has done over the last several years. You can check out their presentation yourself for the full details, but here are some of the noteworthy programs:
Music Pull-Out Program for 5th and 6th Graders
Instrumental and Choir options
Full-Time Arts Integration Teacher at Cherryland
Student Arts Exhibitions
Art Integration Working Group
Arts In Education Saturday Workshops
Art Teacher Leaders
CREATE! Learning Community
All of this effort—and there seems to be a lot of it—seems to exist to make up for a lack of dedicated art teachers in the District. Most of this is a full-court press on arts professional development so that existing teachers can become competent enough in the arts to teach it to students.
One of the issues is that most elementary schools don’t have art teachers, and none have dance or drama teachers. According to a presenter, the program is “a way to infuse all of these different art forms into classrooms that wouldn’t otherwise have them because a lot of these schools do not have art programs.”
The total of these programs ensures that almost all of the Elementary schools (18/19 are in the CREATE! Learning Community) have at least one person doing Arts Integration professional development, getting materials and ideas for the classroom from the group. The CREATE! program specifically focuses on Middle Schools and Special Education programs, which are particularly vulnerable because of low resources.
But the program, at least anecdotally, appears to be working. At least one Special Education teacher had been attending the CREATE! programs for 5 years and feels comfortable enough teaching it in her classroom that her students are joining mainstream art classes. The Saturday Workshops were popular with teachers and administrators across the State who asked the teachers how to start something similar. “No other school districts were doing work like this,” one teacher said.
But The Budget
Unfortunately, much of the program is getting cut. The teachers presenting started the whole thing by recognizing that reality. “The majority of that is being pulled due to the budget cuts,” she said. “The work that I’ve been so passionate about and to know that I cant do it and it’ll be gone,” another teacher said.
Due to a $50,000,000 budget shortfall, many Teachers on Special Assignment (TOSAS) are being cut so they can go back into the classroom—the Board specifically said that cuts should come as far from the classroom as possible. But one saving grace was supposed to come from Proposition 28, which was overwhelmingly passed in 2022.
Unfortunately, the money that was supposed to be used to expand arts programming in schools is now—in a time of budget cuts—being used to maintain the programs that already exist. The plan essentially recognized that any additional growth would be unrealistic and urged the Board to accept lower expected outcomes from the program.
An Uncertain Future
Although Trustee Prada was absent for this meeting, most of the rest of the Board tried to get an idea of what to actually expect for the coming year. Trustee Oquenda asked what their goal or target for VAPA enrollment was for the next year. “Our main goal is just to increase,” one teacher said. “No one should be proud of 48% [enrollment in VAPA courses], that means 52% of the kids are not getting it.”
Trustee Oquenda then asked what Prop 28 money was being spent on, and this is where the Business Office and Arts Teachers butted heads. “All Prop 28 dollars are being used to supports arts education,” Assistant Superintendent Amy Nichols said. She explained that guidance from the County and State allows HUSD to use Prop 28 funding to plug gaps in funding to stop reductions.
“Some of the positions that were included in the VAPA Master Plan or Strategic Plan expansion were funding using dollars that are no longer available for VAPA education,” Ms. Nichols said. She said that costs have increased and the money is now needed other places.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo tried to understand what programs are staying and which are being cut, but the VAPA teachers were unsure. “We’ve all had the rug pulled out from under us,” one said. She said she hasn’t had time to build a team and a plan, but will do so over the summer. Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo seemed much more sympathetic than he was with District Administrators in a previous meeting for not developing an entirely new budget for the District on a shorter timeline.
But the Teachers expressed concern that they’ll be asked to keep doing the same work without the additional funding. “We’ll still be asked to do huge growth in VAPA,” she said. “We’ll still be asked to do these things.”
Trustee Rawdon’s Pet Project
Trustee Rawdon opened by apologizing to the VAPA teachers—he was also one at one point. “The reason I ran for this seat was to expand VAPA,” he said, “and I feel completely helpless. It makes me question what the hell am I doing here.” He outlined four requests for the district, though he recognized that they’re likely unrealistic.
Keep the expanded offerings
Create a standard VAPA Course offering
Keep VAPA TOSAs
Create a Measure A Oversight Committee
He allegedly asked for the oversight committee back in January and angrily exclaimed that it hadn’t come to fruition yet. And while he seemed dismissive of guitar and piano classes as not being a performing art, he highlighted the uneven implementation across different school sites and grades and complained that it was voluntary.
Trustee Rawdon even alleged that a lack of VAPA programming was a reason students left HUSD for James Logan High School in New Haven Unified. However, he also seemed to abdicate responsibility for keeping an eye on the program—or making sure someone did. “Who is watching the store?” he asked. It’s not the first time HUSD Trustees have acted as though they aren’t charged with governing the District.
One of the issues with Middle Schools is that there are fewer students since it only handles 7th and 8th grades. The smaller schools mean less is offered and, as electives, they compete with programs like AVID and Puente for students’ attention. Trustee Rawdon said that perhaps a switch to a 3-year middle school could improve things, but ultimately recognized that it’s not all in their control. “There’s lots of bigger systemic issues,” he said.
Where’s My Money?
During public comment, teachers from across the district complained about how the District planned to use the Prop 28 funds. One comment summed up the argument. “These funds are not to replace existing positions or programs, but to enhance our offerings,” they said.
There was also concern around Measure A money and how it was being spent. It appeared that some of Measure A had been used for VAPA programming, but it suddenly wasn’t available anymore. Many pushed for more oversight and transparency around how the funds are being used.
As we’ll see in the following section, the District appears to juggle a lot of different Measure and Prop and Bond dollars that are all competing for allocation, while their unrestricted General Fund is a little more than half of their revenue. All those different pots of money get shuffled around and reallocated to different things all the time. It’s unclear if an oversight committee is the most efficient way to keep track of these different pots of money, but the lack of transparency is a vocal concern among teachers and parents.
Finally, the argument boiled down to the same argument that happens whenever there’s a budget reduction: My program is the most important. One teacher, a part of the VAPA presentation, said as much. “There are other areas that can be cut,” he said. “There are other programs that can be cut.” However, he did not say what those programs should be.
HUSD Budget Still Facing Cuts
Despite cutting $50,000,000 from their Unrestricted General Fund, the recent budget update revealed that the District is hardly out of the woods. The total revenue (restricted and unrestricted) for the General Fund is $363,000,000. That’s about $5,000,000 higher than expected, which is good.
There’s also a chance for several million more from the State, but because of how the State government is funded, it’s not guaranteed that the District will get any more money until the end of June. The guarantees so far are that the District will get a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) and that all kids will keep free meals at school. With any luck, HUSD may get around $7,000,000 more, but we’ll see.
Expenses are also up, however, at $402,000,000. That means the District is still deficit spending in the neighborhood of around $39,000,000. The increase is only $6,000,000 more than expected, but that’s also more than the revenue increased. Most of this came from the increased cost of Special Education.
Cost of Special Education
Let’s start by saying that Special Education is both a good thing and also required by Federal Law. Unfortunately, as costs have increased, the Federal Government has dropped their funding so individual districts are left to foot the bill. And over the last 4 years, Special Education costs at HUSD have increased by $30,000,000.
The only good news is that costs are increasing slower now than they have been. “Although costs are rising we are stabilizing that cost,” Ms. Nichols said. And HUSD’s costs aren’t unusual, either. According to a Special Education working group, the District’s costs are in the middle of the pack across the County. And all districts are seeing an increase in the percentage of students who qualify for Special Education.
And while spending on Special Education is important and good, it’s also an increased cost in a time of shrinking budgets. “Because of these increases, it is a real thing that we will need to make tradeoffs,” Ms. Nichols said. “We will need to give up on certain things that we have historically done in this district in order to support this growing need.”
HUSD Is Also Worried About Reserves
The City is worried about keeping a 20% reserve, but HUSD is struggling to keep a 3% reserve—and that’s mandated by Ed Code. Because of unexpected cost increases, they already need to find $500,000 to plug a gap for this Fiscal Year. And going forward, that gap only grows to $1,300,000 next year and $4,000,000 for the two years after that.
Any additional gaps are likely going to have to be filled with cuts. “We do expect that there will need to be additional reductions or additional revenues brought in in order to maintain fiscal solvency for the long term,” Ms. Nichols said. If the District isn’t able to maintain a 3% reserve every year, it may mean that the Fiscal Solvency Plan was for nothing and they could lose local control.
Board On The Budget
Trustee Rawdon asked if the extra solutions available to the District would make it possible to get the 3% reserves. Ms. Nichols said she was hopeful, but expressed caution. “But these solutions are trade-offs,” she said. “Bringing in new revenue is ideal, but not always possible.” She said that making cuts was the easiest and most readily available lever that the District had to balance the budget.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo once again asked about contracts and if any additional ones had been eliminated since the Fiscal Solvency Plan was presented. Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said, “We have not eliminated any additional contracts above what we included in the Fiscal Solvency Plan.” Though she said that they are exploring cuts and reductions, including things like the AT&T bill for landlines.
Still Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo pushed for a list of contracts that could be cut. “We can go to past recordings,” he said, “I’ve asked for it at nearly every meeting but a list of contracts that we have identified for reduction, elimination, and deferral.” He pressed on the use of Measure I money, “It is not a piggy bank to pay for contracts,” he said.
This time, Ms. Nichols explained that the contracts can’t just be cut from the top down. She said that she had talked to multiple departments and helped them identify things that could be cut, but that it’s a long process that needs to be done carefully. “Realistically this is ongoing work that we’re going to be doing over the next several months,” she said. “It’s hard for people to identify reductions.”
Ms. Nichols stressed that contracts aren’t drawn up for fun and that the prioritization is difficult work because those contracts fill a need. Earlier in her presentation she did say that they were prioritizing local hiring so they could stop contracting out work, which was going to save money—it always does—but that takes time. And replacing or eliminating software contracts or service contracts may not always be possible.
President Bufete recognized that the issues of spending was systemic and required a cultural change. “I really want to focus in on the culture of spending and how we approach finances in the district,” he said. He was concerned about surprise costs and invoices and pushed the administration to implement healthy practices to avoid surprises in the future.
There won’t be an easy or quick fix for an organization that couldn’t even be sure about how much money it was spending. Thankfully the District is moving in the right direction, it’s just a shame that it took fiscal oversight to force them to address issues that have been going on for years.
Editor’s Note: Clarified that some events occurred in a previous meeting. 6/4/25