HUSD Meeting Falls Apart
In Which: Mayor Salinas is corrected on the Rental Registry funding, HUSD starts planning to form a committee on chronic absenteeism, and the Board falls apart while discussing fiscal plans
Sparks Fly Over Rental Registry
During the prioritization section of last week’s City Council meeting, discussion around the Preserve, Protect, and Produce Housing For All projects was contentious. The subject in question was the Rental Registry, which is already scheduled for a Council Work Session in June. We previously covered the Housing Policy and Resource Committee (HPRC) discussion on the subject on April 1st.
Councilmember Roche said she wanted to see action ensuring safety around the St. Regis Project. “That is something I think everyone should be really focused on given its location to Downtown,” she said. She then confirmed that the Rental Registry was slated for a full discussion in June. “I would want more information,” she said.
Councilmember Syrop questioned the entire framing of this section and wondered if it should be renamed to include renter protections. “How are we looking forward,” he said, “and addressing half of our residents [who are renters]? A quarter of which are rent burdened.” Councilmember Bonilla agreed. “[We need] to ensure that we are also prioritizing protections for renters,” he said.
However Councilmember Goldstein was still hesitant to fund a Rental Registry, citing the need for more data about its effectiveness. “I think there’s more effective, less expensive ways to do that,” he said. However, Councilmember Goldstein provided no alternatives.
Mayor Mark Salinas spoke against the Registry on the basis of funding. “I did not support it primarily because it was a lot of money,” he said. “If we were to do this, we’re going to have to take money from somewhere else.” The Mayor suggested the money could best be used elsewhere. “The investment that it would take to get this off the ground… we could put it in MIHU,” he said.
Councilmember Syrop interjected to set the record straight on how the Rental Registry is actually funded. City Staff reported during the HPRC meeting that the Rental Registry would be funded entirely by fees on rental units and would have no impact on the General Fund.
Councilmember Syrop also said that homelessness prevention, which could be informed and enabled by the Rental Registry, could make MIHU irrelevant. “A dream for us is to have nobody for MIHU services,” he said. “That’s us doing our job—that’s the vision. Everybody’s in a home, nobody needs MIHU to answer it.”
Councilmember Syrop then held the $3,000,000 price tag—funded entirely by fees—against the $250,000,000 cost of a new Police HQ. “When we’re saying ‘We can’t spend $3,000,000 for the number one issue in our city, which is the cost of living,’ I’m puzzled,” he said. “I really encourage us to wrestle with what that means.”
HUSD To Form Committee To Start Developing Plan Addressing Chronic Absenteeism
The Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees heard a presentation on chronic absenteeism in the District. Staff defined chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of the school year for any reason—excused or unexcused. Notably that includes vacations, sickness, and suspensions.
The chronic absenteeism rate is at 28.8% for academic year 23/24—up from a pre-pandemic 15.5%. However, students with disabilities, students who are housing insecure—so-called McKinney Vento students, and Foster Youth are chronically absent at a much higher rate. There are also disproportionate rates depending on the race and ethnicity of a student, with Pacific Islander and Black students having a rate of about 40% each.
Not only does this reduce the funding for the district—which is already suffering under massive budget cuts—but also has a huge impact on student achievement and their social/emotional well-being. There are many different reasons for students to be chronically absent, which are outlined in the graphic below.
The presentation outlined a number of different interventions for chronically absent students, with additional interventions for McKinney Vento students and special education students. The presentation then shifted to highlight Palma Ceia Elementary, which had dropped their chronic absenteeism rate to 25%—though it is still far above the pre-pandemic 9%.
Many of the strategies used at Palma Ceia involved positive reinforcements—prizes, shout outs, and a 5-minute warning bell before class actually begins. Staff then said that the plan moving forward is to form an Attendance Committee—including labor partners, school leaders, community partners, parents, staff, and students—to develop additional strategies to address attendance.
Research on how to address Chronic Absenteeism is frequently limited to single-district or single-site case studies which may not be generalizable. However, two studies in the journal Phi Delta Kappan suggest that increased communication to parents should be the first—and most cost-effective—step. Dee (2024) says that “all forms of messaging to families about attendance significantly reduced chronic absenteeism.”
Starting To Build Toward A Plan
Trustee Oquenda asked if there was a plan to do a targeted approach to addressing chronically absent students. Staff said that there it is on the plan for the committee, once it begins to meet. “There are so many factors that intersect with this,” Trustee Oquenda said. She also said she is looking forward to voting on a plan when the time comes.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo called out the lack of baseline policy for chronically absent students. “Our district lacks a set policy for [when] a student is chronically absent,” he said. “And it triggers this, followed by this, followed by this… Does that exist?” He asked if every site has different policies and procedures for this. “Every site is different,” Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said.
Staff said they are thinking of coming up with a baseline strategy, but that there is no district-driven plan for how to address chronic absenteeism. Trustee Rawdon seemed surprised that this discussion hadn’t happened sooner. “Now that I’m looking at this,” he said, “I’m thinking this should have come to us a long time ago.” He supported a district-wide policy.
Trustee Prada asked for an analysis of the impacts of the budget cuts on students before doing anything else. She suggested having an evaluation on every site and the impact of the cuts on that site in approximately a month’s time. She had no comments beyond that on chronic absenteeism.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo pushed for a consistent, data-driven policy that is implemented across the District. “Our current policy is made up by our site-level administrators who we are already asking so much of,” he said. He highlighted numerous issues with how information is given and stressed the long-term importance of addressing chronic absenteeism.
Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said that the committee will be filled in about a month and would not meet until Fall.
During public comment, the Presidents of both the Hayward Education Association (HEA) and The Association of Office and Educational Technology Employees (AEOTE) said that they had been asking for action on chronic absenteeism for between one and a half and two years.
Managing The Fiscal Crisis
The Board of Trustees heard another report on how the District is managing its fiscal crisis. They opened by saying that the District is still at high risk of fiscal insolvency, and that the interviews conducted by the Fiscal Crisis Management Team (FCMT) with labor groups haven’t changed anything. “The conversations with labor partners were very consistent with the findings that they had reached,” Assistant Superintendent of Business, Amy Nichols said.
The rest of the report outlined how the Business Office is prioritizing the many different changes that need to occur to become more fiscally sound. As a reminder, the FCMT report revealed huge failures in administrative processes, including a surprise $30,000,000 in expenditures for the Special Education program. All of this resulted in the very real risk of HUSD running completely out of money before the end of the fiscal year. “The findings were significant,” Ms. Nichols said, “It was worrisome.”
Ms. Nichols said that their highest priority is maintaining cash flow. “We are continuing to be low on cash,” Ms. Nichols said. The District currently has a mere 3% reserve and, due to how funding is distributed by the state, will need to borrow money in order to ensure bills can be paid before the first State payment at the end of 2025.
The District will also need enough money to pay back the loans, which means sticking to the Fiscal Solvency Plan is important to avoid default. “It’s critical that we maintain the controls we established,” Ms. Nichols said. So the primary goal of the Business Department right now is to ensure that the District has enough money to pay its bills—without that, everything else falls apart.
But longer-term, Ms. Nichols highlighted that the District has been overly-reliant on consultants for staffing shortages in the Business Department. So they are hiring two new Finance Directors to take the lead on budgeting, accounting, payroll, and risk management. Ms. Nichols also highlighted that some priorities are driven by the payment cycle, but that there are many areas that need to be addressed—some are merely more urgent than others.
Meeting Goes Off The Rails
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo asked if there was a communication plan for the different sites, and Ms. Nichols said that there would be listening sessions throughout the year to cover process changes. “I also think that our administrators are looking for—what I’ve heard from them—is direction,” Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo said.
Trustee Rawdon felt that some of the financial information has been a surprise to him. “There have been some surprises for me,” he said, “that I wish I would have known from you before and had been worked out.” He then veered into talking about Proposition 98, but Trustee Oquenda interjected and asked if that was off-topic for the item. “Okay, fine,” Trustee Rawdon responded, “No questions, then.”
Vice President Prada, who was acting Chair since President Bufete was not present, pushed to allow it. However, Trustee Oquenda said she was concerned about how changing the scope of the item could affect public comment—the meeting had been going for over 4 hours at this point. “I just think this is a dangerous precedent to be setting,” Trustee Oquenda said, “because the Brown Act exists for this very reason.”
For those who don’t know, The Brown Act—among other things—says that the meeting body cannot speak on items that are not on the agenda. This prevents surprise discussions from happening that could avoid any input from the public.
Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said that the scope of the item is ultimately up to the Board, after multiple Trustees asked for her advice on the matter.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo pushed to expand the conversation to include the budget, despite it not necessarily being a part of the FCMT report. “This is our one opportunity as a board to talk about the budget or to talk about the future of our district to maintain solvency,” he said. “I do not feel our board is talking about this enough.”
Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said that talking about the budget was different from discussing the FCMT. Trustee Prada said, “The public can decide,” essentially abdicating her duty as Chair of the meeting. Trustee Oquenda pushed back on Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo. “We get budget updates quarterly,” she said, “so this is definitely not our only time. We talk four times per year, plus everything else.”
Trustee Prada insisted that the Board was not doing it often enough. Trustee Rawdon agreed. “Never is it affecting lives and jobs and all of that like it is at this moment,” he said. Finally, Trustee Prada pushed forward and allowed discussion of the budget during the item.
Back On Process Issues
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo asked for specific direction about what someone should do with an invoice at a school site. Ms. Nichols outlined the procedure, but noted that there has been deviation from the process, which includes a budget check before anything is actually purchased.
“What has happened is a challenge,” Ms. Nichols said, “that where many of the purchase orders are not submitted until we actually have the invoice for something.” Meaning, people are buying something without checking if there is money to pay for it yet. “That has absolutely been a challenge,” she said.
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo pushed Ms. Nichols on the prioritization of changes. “I’m confused about how some of these priorities were selected,” he said, adding that things like invoice procedures feel like they should be a top priority. “As of now,” Ms. Nichols said, “our number one priority has been cash management. Our number two priority has been budget management, budget development, and maintaining the budget.”
Ms. Nichols reassured him that invoice recognition was a part of that, and that she spends 2-4 hours per day responding to vendor requests. She stressed that there are capacity issues and that there are too many problems to be addressed at once. “[We have been] prioritizing based on what the immediate needs are,” she said.
Trustee Rawdon stressed the need for flexibility in the invoicing process, since some things—like event registrations—need to be paid in advance. “I think there needs to be some flexibility.”
“Lots Of Things Are Disappointing”
Trustee Prada then paused the discussion to move to extend the meeting for another hour—it was then 10:30 pm. After some back-and-forth discussion between Trustees Oquenda and Prada, Trustee Oquenda said, “I will only stay ‘till 11:00.” Trustee Prada responded, “Okay, you can leave. You’re hardly here anyway.”
There were inaudible comments—the microphones were turned off—before Trustee Prada said, “Lots of things are disappointing.”
Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo asked the Superintendent what needed to be done at this meeting. “What needs to happen today?” he asked. “We had 5 special features or ceremonial items and we’re not getting to public comment until 11:00” Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said, “You had two special features.”
“If the tone of the board is we’re not able to be our best selves in this very moment, it no longer feels like a safe place for folks to ask questions,” Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo said. He said he was against extending the meeting for a full hour. “I’m tired of we get to the final 30 minutes and we do speed governance.”
In the end, the meeting was extended and Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo sped through multiple things he wanted to see addressed, including transfers from bond funding, special education, charter school financial oversight, the option of extending time with the fiscal advisor, and pushing the board to have 1:1 meetings with the fiscal advisor. “I just needed it known that there were things that were not talked about. We’re not going to get through anything in an hour.”
During public comment, the Presidents of AEOTE and HEA called out the Board’s problematic behavior on the dais. “You need to be here and you need to be attentive because we voted for you,” Deisy Bates, the President of AEOTE said, “This is not the business of just looking cute here. It’s about getting down to business.”
President of HEA, Mercedes Faraj, said that any issues with time fell on the Board itself. “Please re-evaluate your agendas and the way you speak to each other,” she said. “It’s disappointing.”