The WCCUSD teachers union has ratified its contract, the district announced Tuesday, but the cheers that followed the end of the teachers’ four-day strike mask a harder truth: For many educators, the settlement doesn’t resolve deeper long-standing frustrations.
The new contract, which next must be approved by the school board, gives teachers an 8% pay increase over two years and adds incentives to retain and recruit teachers, such as stipends for special education teachers and other concessions that teachers had long demanded — a major step forward after 10 months of fruitless negotiations. Yet mistrust remains, teachers say, not only because of the negotiations process, but because of how the district responded to the strike.
The United Teachers of Richmond, which represents about 1,500 educators, recently announced its second vote of “no confidence” against a high-ranking district official. This time it was Associate Superintendent of Business Services and Chief Business Officer Kim Moses, who served as interim superintendent for about seven months after Chris Hurst resigned. (UTR recently cast a vote of “no confidence” against special education director Guthrie Fleischman in late November).
The vote against Moses was also approved by the union’s board in November, in a 114-1 vote, but was not made public until after the tentative contract was announced on Dec. 10.
“A near unanimous, thunderous declaration … and let’s be clear about why,” UTR president Francisco Ortiz told school board members at the Dec. 10 meeting. “For too long, this district executive leadership has treated our students’ needs as optional, and our educators as disposable.”
From the union’s perspective, the contract — which now awaits county approval and school board ratification — was made possible because of a push from a majority of the school board, which met in closed session during the strike to move the negotiations process forward, rather than the district, which has said it couldn’t afford the 10% raise teachers wanted, offering 3% at one point. Ortiz specifically thanked trustees Guadalupe Enllana, Cinthia Hernandez and Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy for their advocacy in closed session meetings and their presence on the picket lines. Richmondside reached out to all school board members for comment but did not hear back as of publication time.
“If they (district staff) had it their way, we would still be on strike. There would be no tentative agreement, there would be no investment in wages, no investment in healthcare, no path toward stabilization,” Ortiz continued. “Let the record show that district executive leadership did not end this strike. Our community did. Our educators did. And our board majority did.”
Moses did not respond to Richmondside’s requests for comment. She also did not attend the Dec. 10 school board meeting. However, Superintendent Cheryl Cotton has maintained an optimistic tone, noting that now is an opportunity for a new beginning.
“A beginning of healing, of reconnection, and redesigning the trust and shared purpose that our students need from us,” Cotton said. “Challenging times have a way of revealing an organization’s strengths and its vulnerabilities. Over these past months, we’ve seen both. And through it all, one thing has remained crystal clear: The passion every person in this district holds for our students and the future.”
Union accuses Moses of “fear-based budgeting”
For months, the district stood firm on offering no raises and didn’t make any substantial changes to the proposed contract until the state mediation process was underway in October. The district said it could not afford any raises, pointing to a multi-million dollar structural deficit and saying that cuts would be made in coming years to balance its budget.
In the district’s first interim budget report, presented at the Dec. 10 board meeting, the numbers show that district expenditures are expected to exceed revenues over the next three years by about $13.6 million this year, $19.2 million next year and $25.7 million the following year. The district is exhausting its Fund 17 reserve over the next two years to help offset the deficit. As a result, the report shows this year, the district is expected to have a balanced budget, however will face a $3.9 million deficit in 2026-27 and a $29.3 million deficit in 2027-28.
These numbers do not account for the newly-offered raises for both UTR and the Teamsters. Moses previously told Richmondside each 1% salary increase adds about $2 million to district costs, so it’s anticipated that the expenditures will increase by millions.
At the same time, projected revenue continues to decrease because enrollment continues to trend downward.
However, the union claims the district, under Moses’ leadership, is misrepresenting its financial picture.
“The projected income is false, it’s underreported by about $38 million,” UTR Executive Director Mark Mitchell said at the recent school board meeting. “We provided that information in the (state mediation) fact-finding hearing. It’s been widely documented and communicated to the district officials, including Dr. Moses.”
He also said the district could quickly resolve the deficit if it exhausted its Fund 71 dollars — about $62 million in unrestricted funds.
“That’s squirreled away from students and the public and could just be re-determined to be part of general revenues, and there would be no deficit in the outer years,” Mitchell continued.
He also added that the district has mismanaged its money by spending more on outside contractors, rather than hiring new permanent employees or nurturing talent in its ranks.
“Last year, under Dr. Moses (as interim superintendent), there was a $30 million overrun in contractors beyond board approved expenditures,” Mitchell said. “This year already, under Superintendent Cotton, they’ve spent $15.7 million in unapproved expenditures on contractors. The addiction to contracting is the issue.”
Special education costs skyrocket
Most of the contracted work has been used to provide special education services. The district’s contributions to special education have increased dramatically since the pandemic, when it spent $38.8 million in 2020-21 to $97.1 million in 2025-26.
Special Education Director Guthrie Fleischman told the school board this is because students’ need for support, such as assessments or instructional aides, increased after the pandemic and the state and federal government dollars that subsidized those services are now expiring.
According to state enrollment data, WCCUSD served 3,830 students with disabilities in 2020-21. By 2023-14, the population increased by roughly 500 students, up to 4,311 students.
“When we’re unable to fill those positions, we rely upon contractors,” Fleischman said. “Those have been the primary increases (because) more (special ed) students means more need for individual supports.”
He added that transportation is another high cost in special education, which is also contracted out.
However, several community members who spoke at the meeting rejected the district’s justification for contractors, particularly in special education.
Jean Kintscher, a kindergarten teacher at Verde Elementary, said she knows paraeducators who want to be hired but the district has dragged its feet.
“We have one that works for these third-party contractors that costs like double (for the district) and he’s been trying since September to be hired by the district,” Kintscher told the board. “Let’s save some money. Let’s hire these people into our district and get them away from those third parties.”
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.
Community argues district mishandled the strike
The union also says that Cotton and Fleishman failed to do their jobs by not attending any of the contract negotiation meetings. They also criticized district leadership for sending messages to parents through ParentSquare that they said villainized the teachers for striking and deepened the divide. Teachers also criticized the district’s decision to lock educators out of ParentSquare and take away their keys and computers.
Leah Chang, a school psychologist at Valley View and Cameron elementary schools, said it was unfair to blame the union for the strike, when it was the district’s refusal to bargain in good faith that forced the union’s hand.
“How can we be expected to work with these so-called leaders who made us the enemy? How can I trust a special education director who can’t even show up for my department?,” Chang said. “We need new leaders who will prioritize and respect students and educators.”
Christina Hermens, a parent of a WCCUSD special education student, said had she not talked to teachers, she would’ve had a very different picture of what happened during the negotiations.
“I would think that the board was putting forth their best efforts and that they were trying to get the teachers a fair contract, when in reality, the UTR was locked out of a building for 30 minutes after an agreed-upon meeting time — that was not presented to the parents at all in the emails that you sent,” Hermens told the school board. “You also, on the first day, had said that many children attended school — they did not. There was also a message sent to parents of special education students making it sound as though the teachers were fully to blame for the strike that happened, when in reality … it wasn’t the teachers who just randomly decided to go on strike. You had months to fix this, and you chose not to.”
Superintendents are not tasked with negotiating union contracts. However they do typically attend and observe negotiation meetings.
Some community members gave Cotton more grace, such as Hercules Middle School science teacher Bill Hodges, noting that Cotton only started her job a few months ago and inherited a very difficult situation. But he maintained that this was an opportunity for her to bridge the gap.
“We didn’t see that. We saw a lot of doubling down,” Hodges said.
Student urges district and teachers to come together
Hercules High School Student Devin Witten told the school board he was disheartened by the district’s messaging during the strike but he wants to see both the leadership and teachers find middle ground for the sake of his education.
“During the strike period, a lot of my peers felt like we were a pawn in a game played by adults who are unable to have a regular adult conversation within the negotiation period. And we ended up suffering by us having to miss school,” said Witten, who is part of leadership and yearbook clubs.. “And then now that we do have this negotiation here, um…a lot of our things may get cut, which is unfortunate, as a lot of our children in the district really only have school to rely on and is our only means of making it out.”
He suggested the district hold community engagement sessions.
During her superintendent report, Cotton said she intends to start that work.
“As we move forward, we remain focused on restoring routine, strengthening relationships and ensuring every child receives the high-quality learning experience they deserve,” Cotton said. “I have deep respect for the democratic right of individuals and groups to speak up, to advocate, and to express their perspectives with conviction — that is part of who we are as a public school system and as a community.”
“But there is also tremendous power in listening. Truly listening and in working together towards solutions that serve our students,” Cotton continued.
UTR’s Mitchell said he can’t imagine what the district can do to rebuild relationships with its staff.
“I can’t say how disappointed all of (the staff) have been with the behavior of our highest level of district administrators who are extremely highly paid professionals, extremely competent, who’ve chosen to absent themselves when our district was at its biggest point of crisis,” Mitchell told the board. “What happened during this strike is unconscionable, and I don’t know how our district staff leaders recover from the reputational damage they have wrought.”
This feels so one-sided. As a parent of kids in the district, I went out to join the teachers in the strike. The teachers were abusive and violent against the families who brought their kids to school, saying that they were crossing the picket line and that they were prolonging the strike. Children going to school should not be blamed for this, not should families who chose to bring their kids to school be yelled at and circled by angry teachers. Many of the families who joined the teachers to strike were so upset by this behavior that we left. And now, because of this adversarial behavior of the union and teachers, we are scared to say anything except anonymously. But we, along with other families, will be looking to enroll elsewhere. I am ashamed of the union behavior and pettiness.
This was my experience too. The whole thing actually left me feeling very angry at UTR and about the strike. All my sympathy for the teachers got burned up by the incredibly unprofessional behavior and the way so many of them villainized anyone who didn’t toe their line.
Please continue reporting this story, as more information comes out about how many school sites behaved during the strike. I understand several Principals used contract employees to babysit and held them up as loyalists, while permanent staff were traitors. So backwards!
There are also reports that some Principals went so far as to spend significant monies during the strike buying food for substitute teachers and contractors to further the allegiance to admin and alienate permanent staff.
The contractor issue is out of control and must end immediately. The public deserves to know how misused their tax dollars are, and how flagrantly this leadership is selling out education to random people who aren’t educators, yet treated better.