The WCCUSD teachers union has delivered a sharp rebuke to the district’s special education leadership, recently issuing a vote of “no confidence” in Director Guthrie Fleischman and accusing the district of pouring money into private contractors while reducing services for vulnerable students.
WCCUSD has more than doubled its spending on outside special education contractors in the past five years, according to budget data cited by a report the union commissioned. Yet families say services have become less frequent and lower in quality — an irony the union attributes to chronic understaffing, poor communication and destabilizing policy decisions under Fleischman’s leadership.
The union has been sounding the alarm on special education for years. The report issued Nov. 18 by The Private Equity Stakeholder Project says that in the last year WCCUSD spent more than $14 million on three private equity-owned special education contracts. If the work had been done by WCCUSD staff, the school district would’ve saved about $6 million — enough money to hire more than 200 permanent special education employees. That would have provided more instructional hours and more stability for students, the report said.
The unanimous no confidence vote was announced by UTR president Francisco Ortiz at the Nov. 19 school board meeting during the public comment period. Ortiz emphasized the vote was not personal, but rather was asking for “professional accountability for a pattern of harm that has affected students with disabilities, the educators who serve them, and the legal and ethical obligations the district holds.” (It was not on the agenda so there was no discussion of it by the school board.)
Fleischman was present at Wednesday’s school board meeting but did not publicly address the report. He also did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Richmondside.
Fleischman has served as the director of special education, overseeing services for 4,000 students, for two and a half years and previously was assistant special education director for one and a half years. Before that, he was a WCCUSD principal and teacher.
Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said at the Nov. 19 meeting that she understands the union’s concerns and emphasized that the district is trying to solve the problems.
“I get it, I hear it. And while many, many urban districts face similar challenges, we have to get creative to solve these,” Cotton said in response to Ortiz’s announcement. “These are systemic problems requiring collective solutions, and again, I’m committed to accelerating efforts in that area.”
Those efforts include, she said: Working with unions on salary negotiations, investing in credentialing pathways for classified staff and improving resources for educators.
Despite Cotton’s hopeful tenor, due to the district’s ongoing contract impasse with teachers, there hasn’t been any progress. Both UTR and the Teamsters are threatening to strike, and unless a deal is struck soon, the unions could set up picket lines as early as Dec. 2.
The district sent an email Monday night letting the community know that discussions with a state-appointed fact-finding hearing chairperson have been ongoing and the district is “committed to continuing these discussions into next week and through the break — whatever it takes — to try to reach a fair resolution and avert a strike that would only hurt our students.”
Teachers, parents say that quality of special education services has declined
In fact, the no confidence vote is, in part, a response to stalled contract negotiations. Beyond salary increases, both unions included proposals aimed at fixing long-standing issues in special education, such as hiring more staff, reducing caseloads, and adjusting assessment procedures. Union representatives say even low-cost or no-cost proposals have been rejected.
“We raised concerns, participated in meetings and sought resolution through internal channels. Yet, despite repeated attempts to engage constructively, conditions have worsened,” reads the vote of no confidence letter sent by Ortiz to the school district. “Educators now find themselves unable to fulfill their duties effectively under current leadership.”
A vote of no confidence shows union members have lost trust in leadership and believe the usual oversight isn’t enough. It’s also a tool, often used in negotiations, to spotlight unresolved issues. While it can’t force the district to remove Fleischman, it’s intended to put pressure on leadership to act.
“This vote of no confidence represents our collective professional judgment that new leadership is urgently required to rebuild trust, restore stability and fulfill our district’s legal and moral obligations to students with disabilities,” Ortiz wrote in the letter.
The biggest unresolved issue, teachers say, is the district’s heavy reliance on private contractors instead of hiring full-time educators.
WCCUSD is legally required to provide services such as speech therapy, counseling, and occupational therapy. Leaving a position open is not an option.
District officials say contractors are necessary to fill immediate needs.
“Like districts across the Bay Area and state, WCCUSD is facing a significant shortage of special education educators, specialists, and paraprofessionals,” district spokesperson Raechelle Forrest told Richmondside via email. “This challenge has intensified with the post-COVID increase in students requiring these legally mandated services. When we cannot fill positions with permanent staff despite ongoing recruitment efforts.”
But the union argues the district isn’t doing enough to attract and retain special education teachers. For educators applying, the process takes longer, so they often take another job before WCCUSD makes an offer. The salaries are not competitive compared to other Contra Costa County and neighboring districts, forcing them to look elsewhere for higher-paying jobs.
Jean Kintscher, a kindergarten teacher at Verde Elementary, said for the past two years, her students have only received online speech therapy, which hasn’t been as effective. Speech therapists, especially for young students, work to help improve articulation, focusing on how they say words or sounds.
Students learn from listening and watching the shape of a therapist’s mouth, and the therapist can help identify issues by watching the mouths of students when they make those sounds.
But, when three or four of her students receive speech therapy online through one Chromebook screen, it’s ineffective, Kintscher said.
“Sure, this allows the district to check off a box and say that they’re providing services, but does it really help make the gains and progress in their speech needs?” Kintscher told the board. “I saw a student and his brother regress during these two years (and) the parents agreed…There were no progress reports, there were no new assessments of children I referred. It’s crazy.”
Sara Talcott, a school psychologist at Lincoln Elementary, told the school board in the past three years, she has seen a drastic decline of the availability of special education services and programs. For example, during her first year of teaching four years ago, she was able to easily request three different aides for students.
“As a result, our classes were able to function more smoothly, and our students began to grow and thrive with the support and meet their academic goals for the first time,” Talcott said.
Since then, policies have seemingly changed, she said.
“Even after we fill out a 30-page-plus application, compiling many sources of data over weeks to justify the need for an aide, these applications … have to go across 10 desks before being approved,” Talcott said. “My own program specialist told me that at the beginning of the year, he submitted five applications for aides, but only one of those applications had been approved.”
Educators told the board that the dysfunction in the special education department has resulted in a lack of proper services for students and confusion among teachers. It has also put the district at risk of legal violations/lawsuits and has eroded trust with families.
Marie Anyiam, who has two children receiving special education services, has come to the past seven board meetings furious about the lack of resources for her kids.
One of the most glaring concerns is her 4-year old daughter Lydia’s transportation to and from school through a company contracted with the district. Anyiam said the driver often showed up without a car seat and once there was vomit on the seat. Some of the drivers also did not wear their uniform when picking up Lydia, making teachers unsure if they should send Lydia with the driver.
Anyiam called and emailed the district for weeks. It wasn’t until she raised her voice at a board meeting during the public comment session that her issues were addressed, she told Richmondside. Still, she has remaining concerns around transportation, noting that parents were promised and are still waiting for GPS trackers and cameras to be added to school buses.
Parent Tashiana Edgley-Johnson told the board she had to un-enroll her daughter from WCCUSD after noticing she was not improving. The 12-year old now attends a private school in Livermore.
“She has recently met her second-grade IEP (individual education plan) goals that were set forth many years ago,” Edgley-Johnson said. “She is reading, she is learning, she is thriving, and she is excelling at everything that our special education program didn’t have confidence that she could do.”
Edgley-Johnson said the district needs to reexamine the special education program and pay teachers more, especially because many parents don’t have the capacity to advocate for or afford private education.
“It shouldn’t have to be survival of the fittest,” Edgley-Johnson said. “Happy teachers make happy classrooms. I thoroughly believe that, and I’ve seen it with my daughter now.”
District overspends on contractors, report says
WCCUSD officials have maintained that the district cannot afford to meet the union’s demands, especially as it faces a structural deficit. In January, the district will have to present a plan to make $7.7 million in cuts this year and discuss how it will exhaust one of its reserve funds (Fund 17) over the next three years to balance its budgets.
Kim Moses, associate superintendent for business services, said to meet UTR’s demands for a 10% raise over two years, it would cost $20.8 million.
But the unions believe the district can afford the raises, especially if it changes the way it spends its dollars.
Over the last five years, WCCUSD has doubled its spending on outside contractors from $59 million in 2019-2020 to $117 million in 2024-2025, according to the private equity report. Not all of that cost has gone toward special education programs.
Last year, $14 million was spent on three private equity-owned special education contracts: the Stepping Stones Group, owned by Leonard Green & Partners; ProCare; and Sunbelt Staffing, both owned by Vistria Group and operated under parent group Soliant Healthcare. However, had the district hired its own employees, it would’ve saved $6 million, the report says.
“This choice by the school district deprived the nearly 4,000 WCCUSD students
with disabilities of 40 hours per student of support from Special Education teachers, specialists and aides last year, and moved some critical services online,” the report reads.
The report focuses on three contracts, but the costs for all special education contracts are likely much higher, the report’s author Azani Creeks told Richmondside Monday. She said she focused on those contracts because they are some of the most popular companies used by public schools. They also represent some of the larger contracts that WCCUSD approved for special education outsourcing.
“The trends that we identified in WCCUSD are happening across the country. It’s definitely not a unique problem,” Creeks said. “I don’t know if outsourcing has doubled in other school districts, but we’ve definitely been seeing consistent increases across the board…And this is just a case study of a much bigger issue.”
Creeks said the union reached out to The Private Equity Stakeholder Project after it published a July 2025 report that explored how private equity firms are profiting from public school districts outsourcing jobs such as transportation, food service and special education.
This year, WCCUSD is spending at least $30 million on special education contractors, according to data shared by Moses at her October budget town halls. ProCare is receiving the most, with $12.1 million. Other contracts include Spectrum Center with $2.3 million, Interpreting Services at $1.6 million and Stepping Stones with $1.2 million. Not included in the $30 million is a $13 million contract with First Student, which provides transportation services, including for special education students.
The report also highlights that Soliant Healthcare has links to the Trump Administration and its efforts to gut the Department of Education, particularly the federal Office of Special Education Programs. Soliant, and other contractors, stand to profit from the privatization and outsourcing of these services, the report said.
Penny Schwinn, a former operating partner at Vistria with vested interest in Soliant, serves as senior advisor and chief strategist to the U.S. Secretary of Education. She was also nominated by the administration to be deputy secretary in January of 2025, but she withdrew her bid.
Union leaders say paying equitable salaries reduces vacancies
Veronica Diaz, a bargaining chair for the WCCUSD’s Teamsters, said the 1,500-member union supports the vote of no confidence because change is needed. The teamsters represent a number of staff who work within special education such as paraprofessionals, occupational therapists and instructional aides.
“Teachers and teamsters have taken one-time bonuses in recent years, or really minor cost-of-living adjustments, sort of trusting that the district is going to do things to try to rectify their priority spending,” Diaz told Richmondside. “But that hasn’t really resulted in any significant change in the district budget.”
Diaz said for years, these positions have been paid far below market value. It’s led to a wide range of vacancies. While a lot of staff have stayed, despite knowing they could be paid more elsewhere, out of love for their students and the promise that things would improve at WCCUSD, many have also left.
Currently, there are 200 to 300 special education vacancies within the district, according to Diaz. She said one of the biggest reasons is salaries.
For example, paraprofessionals and instructional aides at WCCUSD make 16% less than their counterparts in nearby districts, according to Teamsters data.
Occupational therapists also used to make 13% less than those in surrounding school districts so attracting and retaining them was a struggle. So, the district raised pay to the market rate (an increase of $10 an hour) in the 2022-2024 contract, and now there are no vacancies, Diaz said.
The Teamsters call the district’s financial crisis a manufactured crisis because it’s overly reliant on contractors. An in-house analysis by the union found that the district could’ve saved $5.6 million in 2024-2025 if it did not contract out union jobs such as paraprofessionals and grounds, operations and maintenance work.
Ortiz, who heads the union representing roughly 1,500 teachers, said the onus is now on the district to make these much-needed changes.
“Educators have done our part. We’ve identified the harm, we’ve offered solutions, we’ve brought forward evidence, testimony, and clear vision for rebuilding stability,” Ortiz told the school board. “Now, we call on the board to take action to realign leadership with the values of transparency, legality, and student-centered service. And to ensure that public dollars support public education.”
Spokesperson Forrest said the district is “actively reviewing our providers to ensure we deliver the most effective services aligned with our students’ needs” and prioritizing hiring permanent staff.
“We want to hire district employees and are working to improve those efforts,” Forrest said. “Still, the practical reality facing WCCUSD and other districts is that qualified candidates are not applying in sufficient numbers to meet the demand.”
It’s really important to call out what this article never quite says directly: districts like WCCUSD are legally required to provide services, even when they cannot hire enough in-house staff, and that’s why contracted providers exist in the first place. Under IDEA, you can’t just leave speech, OT, psych, or classroom support positions vacant for a year because local candidates don’t apply. At that point the choice isn’t “internal staff vs contractors,” it’s “contractors vs students going without legally mandated services.”
The piece also leans heavily on a report that says the district could have saved millions and hired 200+ staff instead of using certain vendors. That sounds good on paper, but it assumes those 200+ people actually exist in the labor market and would accept WCCUSD roles at current pay and workload. Given the vacancies and pay gaps the article itself describes, that feels more theoretical than realistic.
The stories about poor service quality and big online groups are genuinely concerning, but those are problems of implementation and oversight, not proof that all contracted services are inherently bad. Many districts use contractors and teletherapy effectively when group sizes, expectations, and accountability are handled well.
Blaming “contracting” in the abstract risks distracting from the real work of setting clear standards, monitoring quality, and fixing broken service models.
Contracted staff are not some fringe experiment. Most districts in the country rely on them in hard-to-staff areas like special education, speech, OT, and psych. A more honest conversation is not “contractors vs no contractors,” but how to get the right mix: better pay and conditions to attract more permanent staff, plus high-quality, well-managed contracted support to fill the gaps. Students and families need both realism and solutions, not just a villain.
True, but perhaps if “downtown” administrators were not paid so much, compared to people at actual schools, there would be more money available to help attract good paraprofessionals and speech teachers to the district instead of spending so much on contracting companies.
While this article highlights real challenges districts face, one important perspective often missing in the conversation is why so many school districts rely on staffing contractors in the first place and why, in many cases, they have no other viable option.
Special education roles are among the hardest positions to recruit for nationwide, and the shortages have only intensified post-COVID. Districts aren’t choosing contractors instead of hiring staff; they are turning to contractors because they cannot legally leave essential services unfilled. When no SLP, OT, PT, school psychologist, or paraeducator applies for an open district job for months, the district is still federally required to provide those services. Contractors are often the only way to ensure students receive support instead of going without.
It’s understandable that parents and educators want more permanent staff because everyone agrees that stability benefits students. But the reality is that the applicant pool for many special education roles is far smaller than the demand, especially in urban and high-need districts. Even competitive salaries don’t guarantee applicants when there are simply not enough licensed professionals in the workforce.
Until the nationwide shortage is meaningfully addressed, staffing contractors fill a critical gap by ensuring students are not left waiting months for the services they are legally entitled to receive.