The Hidden Crisis: How Hayward’s $9 Million Special Education Staffing Disaster Is Failing Our Most Vulnerable Students
A deep dive into HUSD’s reliance on expensive contractors while critical positions remain unfilled
The numbers don’t lie, and they paint a disturbing picture of mismanagement at Hayward Unified School District. While administrators collect six-figure salaries, the district is hemorrhaging over $9 million annually on outside contractors to fill basic special education positions that should be staffed internally.
The Staggering Cost of Failure
HUSD’s June 2025 board meeting revealed the shocking scope of this crisis. The district approved contracts with 16 different non-public agencies totaling $9,090,600 just for the 2025-2026 school year. This astronomical figure represents a fundamental failure of leadership to recruit, hire, and retain qualified special education staff.
Let’s break down where your tax dollars are going:
Top Contractor Costs:
- Rising Star SPED Academy: $2,220,000 (19 students)
- Lincoln Families: $1,840,000 (behavior intervention)
- The Stepping Stones Group: $870,000 (staffing vacancies)
- Blazerworks: $860,000 (staffing support)
- Ed Sped Solutions: $800,000 (assessments and tutoring)
These contracts aren’t for specialized services that require unique expertise. They’re filling basic positions like paraprofessionals, speech pathologists, and special education teachers — positions that every competent school district should be able to staff internally.
The Real Impact on Students
While HUSD administrators pat themselves on the back for “meeting student needs,” the reality is far different. Students with disabilities are being shuffled between contractors, denied continuity of care, and subjected to a revolving door of temporary staff who have no long-term investment in their success.
Consider this: HUSD is paying $2,220,000 to Rising Star SPED Academy for just 19 students. That’s nearly $117,000 per student — enough to hire multiple full-time special education teachers with benefits and still have money left over.
The district’s own documents admit these contracts are necessary “due to staffing shortages” and “vacancies in special education teacher positions.” This isn’t a temporary emergency response — it’s become the district’s permanent operating model.
Administrative Bloat While Classrooms Suffer
While HUSD struggles to fill classroom positions, the district continues to maintain a bloated administrative structure. The June 2025 meeting included approval for a new Assistant Superintendent of Student and Family Services contract through June 2027, adding another six-figure salary to the payroll.
Superintendent Chien Wu-Fernandez, whose salary and benefits package likely exceeds $300,000 annually, oversees a system that can’t perform the basic function of staffing special education classrooms. Yet there’s always money for more administrators and consultants.
The Contractor Carousel
The list of contractors reads like a who’s who of companies profiting from HUSD’s incompetence:
Communication and Assessment Contractors:
- Communication Works: $410,000 (independent evaluations)
- Sped Consulting: $600,000 (more evaluations)
- Professional Tutors of America: $10,000 (compensatory services)
Staffing Contractors:
- 360 Degree Customer: $720,000 (healthcare paraprofessionals)
- Ascend Rehab Services: $500,000 (speech and language providers)
- Point Quest Pediatric Therapies: $520,000 (behavior intervention)
Each contract represents HUSD’s admission that it cannot attract and retain qualified staff. While other districts successfully hire special education professionals, HUSD has created a dependency on expensive outside agencies.
The Non-Public School Shuffle
The crisis extends beyond staffing to student placements. HUSD approved contracts with 14 non-public schools totaling $3,955,000 for the 2025-2026 school year. These placements, while sometimes necessary, often result from the district’s inability to provide appropriate services internally.
Some of these per-student costs are staggering:
- Creative Learning Center: $200,000 for one student
- Morgan Autism Center: $155,000 for one student
- Second Start-Pine Hill: $170,000 for one student
Why This Matters Beyond Special Education
This staffing crisis isn’t just about special education — it’s a symptom of broader mismanagement that affects every HUSD student. When a district can’t perform basic functions like hiring teachers, it raises serious questions about leadership competence across all areas.
The $9 million being funneled to contractors could have funded:
- 60+ full-time special education teachers (at $150,000 total compensation each)
- Comprehensive professional development programs
- Improved facilities and resources for special needs students
- Reduced class sizes across the district
The Accountability Gap
HUSD’s board meetings reveal a troubling pattern: administrators present these massive contractor expenditures as routine “consent items” with minimal discussion. Board members rubber-stamp millions in spending without demanding explanations for why these positions can’t be filled internally.
The district’s own strategic goals claim to “maximize resources to strengthen working conditions in support of recruiting and retaining diverse staff.” Yet the evidence shows exactly the opposite — a system that has given up on internal hiring in favor of expensive outsourcing.
What Needs to Happen
HUSD taxpayers deserve answers to fundamental questions:
- Why can’t the district recruit and retain special education staff when other districts can?
- What specific steps is administration taking to reduce contractor dependency?
- How much has been spent on contractors over the past five years?
- What accountability measures exist for this ongoing failure?
The board should demand a comprehensive plan to bring these services in-house, with specific timelines and metrics for success. Continuing to throw millions at contractors while claiming budget constraints elsewhere is fiscally irresponsible and educationally harmful.
The Bottom Line
HUSD’s special education staffing crisis represents everything wrong with modern public education administration: bloated bureaucracy, lack of accountability, and a willingness to waste taxpayer money rather than solve fundamental problems.
Our most vulnerable students deserve better than a revolving door of contractors. They deserve qualified, committed teachers who will be there for the long term. Until HUSD’s leadership takes this crisis seriously, families will continue to suffer while contractors get rich off the district’s dysfunction.
The question isn’t whether HUSD can afford to fix this problem — it’s whether taxpayers can afford to let this mismanagement continue.
Sources: HUSD 06_11_25 Board of Education Meeting.pdf, HUSD 06_25_25 Board of Education Meeting.pdf
