A new petition to remove Fresno City College tenured communication instructor Tom Boroujeni from his role as president of the school’s academic senate is circulating among senate members.
It’s the third petition calling for Boroujeni’s removal as president after an EdSource report revealed in November that he was found to have committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague at nearby Fresno State in 2015.
Theater design instructor Christina McCollam-Martinez started the current petition on Feb. 12 and has pushed her colleagues to support Boroujeni’s removal.
“I think they’re hoping it all gets swept under the rug and disappears,” McCollam-Martinez said. “It’s not going to happen.”
The academic senate president works with the college’s administration in setting academic policy and hiring faculty and represents the senate and faculty at college, districtwide and public meetings.
Boroujeni is not able to fulfill the duties of president because he is on administrative leave, McCollam-Martinez said in her petition. State Center Community College District, parent agency to Fresno City College, placed Boroujeni on involuntary administrative leave on Nov. 30, a day after EdSource’s report and in response to professors canceling class.
“As there is no set date for his return, the Academic Senate as a body has been severely handicapped, as has the Academic Senate’s voice,” McCollam-Martinez’s petition reads.
McCollam-Martinez urged her colleagues to sign the petition at a February academic senate meeting; she also reminded them to do so via email twice. She’s even sought signatures by displaying the petition alongside other senate documents at meetings, including Wednesday’s.
“I’m just going to keep at it,” she said, adding that she hopes senators recognize the need for Boroujeni’s removal.
According to the senate bylaws, removing an officer requires a written petition detailing the rationale for removal with at least 25% of the senators signing the petition to trigger a vote. If enough senators sign the petition, 50% must be present and 75% of those present must vote to remove Boroujeni as president. The Fresno City College Academic Senate averages around 70 members.
So far, 12 of the required 17 senators have signed the petition to remove Boroujeni in order to “move forward from these current challenges and continue (the Academic Senate’s) valuable work without further disruption.”
Obtaining signatures proves difficult
Since the senate bylaws address the resignation or removal of an officer, but not what to do when an officer is on leave, a petition is the outlined process to remove Boroujeni as president.
Anthropology professor German Loffler submitted the first petition in December, but during a January meeting, Jackie Williams, the senate’s president-elect and acting president, said Loffler withdrew the petition, a statement she has since corrected. According to Williams, Loffler clarified during another academic senate meeting that his petition was not withdrawn but that he stopped collecting signatures because the senate was able to conduct its business.
McCollam-Martinez technically started the second and third petition.
Williams originally told EdSource that the current petition by McCollam-Martinez was the second; however, Williams clarified Thursday that McCollam-Martinez revised the rationale of her first petition. It would have been more accurate to say that she was the second petition writer, Williams said.
Obtaining signatures has been the greatest challenge.
The second petition by McCollam-Martinez argued that Boroujeni be removed because of the allegations against him as well as his inability to demonstrate professionalism and ethics, among other reasons.
“Everything that’s been happening has been affecting the respectability of the Academic Senate as a whole,” McCollam-Martinez said about the rationale in the second petition.
She learned that many senators didn’t — and wouldn’t — get on board with the language, in part because the sexual misconduct investigation reported by EdSource wasn’t public knowledge.
The Nov. 29 EdSource story included Fresno State’s justification for releasing a redacted copy of the act-of-sexual-violence report under the state’s Public Records Act. The report said, “Given that Mr. Boroujeni remains active in the educational community and is teaching at a local community college, there is strong public interest in knowing that a college instructor has been previously found to have committed an act of sexual violence at another university.”
Still, some faculty remain hesitant to sign, McCollam-Martinez said.
She likened resistance from some faculty members to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand to avoid facing problems or the truth.
“For whatever reason, they don’t want to cause any turmoil, so instead of doing anything, they shove their heads in the sand,” she said.
Another explanation for the lack of support, McCollam-Martinez said, is that some senators may not want to sign the petition if their department faculty do not agree.
Meanwhile, Fresno City investigations continue
Three other women at Fresno City College filed complaints against Boroujeni, who characterized them as allegations of “gender discrimination.” When the community college district put Boroujeni on paid administrative leave following EdSource’s report, the district launched an investigation as well.
The investigations continue, according to district spokesperson Jill Wagner in mid-February. She said she couldn’t discuss the complaints or Boroujeni’s administrative leave because they are personnel matters.
“Investigations take time,” Wagner said. “When they are resolved, we don’t necessarily talk about it because it’s still a human resources matter.”
Boroujeni has taught at City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State as a graduate student and adjunct instructor. The alleged victim is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at Fresno City College.
Fresno State opened its investigation based on the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX, records show. The investigation determined that Boroujeni committed an “act of sexual violence” in 2015. Fresno State made its findings in 2020 when he worked as an instructor at City College and Fresno State.
The State Center Community College District learned of the sexual misconduct investigation when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order against Boroujeni, which was granted in the spring 2022 semester. There was no communication between the schools about the matter until the request for the stay-away order.
The Fresno State case was not taken into account as Boroujeni achieved tenure and became senate president at Fresno City College in 2023, even after the district investigated the request for a stay-away order and found that sexual violence occurred.
Urging her academic senate colleagues at Fresno City College to support Boroujeni’s removal, McCollam-Martinez said her latest petition includes irrefutable facts: Boroujeni cannot fulfill his duties as president because he is on administrative leave.
Even if the 17 signatures are gathered to trigger the vote for Boroujeni’s removal, senators must “stand for something” in order to meet the 75% required vote, she said.
“The problem’s not going to go away,” she said. “The vote is not going to do anything unless they take their head out of the sand and stand for something.”
Bob Nelson, outgoing superintendent of Fresno Unified School District
Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
In almost seven years of superintendency, Bob Nelson focused on “grow-our-own” initiatives that include 18 teacher pipeline programs for Fresno Unified students, aspiring teachers and current educators.
Seventy-nine percent of new teachers joining Fresno Unified come through one of the district’s teacher pipeline programs, but there is no “similar thing on the leadership side,” said Nelson, the district’s outgoing superintendent. There’s no pipeline program to recruit, retain or support educators or school leaders hoping to become district administrators.
In summer 2023, a cohort of 19 district leaders, most of whom are people of color, graduated from the doctoral program at San Diego State — a result of collaboration between the university and school district which has ignited Nelson’s vision to develop a “grow-our-own” administrator program in the Fresno and broader Central San Joaquin Valley area.
Nelson says that the cohort of administrators graduating from San Diego State is one of the highlights of his superintendency as well as the reason for leaving Fresno Unified for a tenure-track position at California State University, Fresno.
Fresno Unified’s outgoing Superintendent Bob Nelson and interim Superintendent Misty Her Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
Fresno State offers a doctoral program in educational leadership, but Nelson wants to strengthen it to draw more Fresno and Central Valley leaders into a Fresno-centered program that can develop administrators for the region.
“I feel it’s my responsibility to go and try and build a cadre of leaders here locally that can come and lead Valley schools,” Nelson said in a sit-down with EdSource in May.
On May 3, the Fresno Unified school board appointed Misty Her, the district’s deputy superintendent, to lead the district on an interim basis while a national search for a permanent replacement is conducted. Her started the interim superintendency on May 8 with Nelson moving into an advisory role until his last day on July 31.
Ahead of his last day, Nelson talked about his seven-year tenure as the leader of the state’s third-largest district and the importance of the new role he’s about to embark on.
Why leave now?
“I’m leaving because I feel really comfortable leaving the district in the hands of my deputy (Her). (I’m) stepping aside so that the first woman in 151 years can come and lead the district,” Nelson said. “It’s time. Leaving on my own volition feels good; I mean, that’s powerful.”
‘Pinnacle of my career’
“Serving as the superintendent in the district where I initially taught elementary school and first served as a leader has been the pinnacle of my career thus far,” he said in his Jan. 22 resignation announcement.
Prior to his appointment as superintendent, Nelson had served the district for over 23 years, holding various positions, including teacher, vice principal, principal, human resources administrator and chief of staff, according to the school district.
What is greatest accomplishment as superintendent?
Nelson said he is most proud of the “visible changes” across the district, including career technical education (CTE), a guaranteed college admissions program, an increase in district-sponsored scholarships, more diverse staff and the pace of student growth.
CTE pathways
“When I came into the district, people were running for the board on a platform that there were no college/career options for kids,” he said. “I think that’s changed demonstrably.”
The changes, he said, include: the heavy truck and diesel maintenance facility and the pharmacology school at Duncan Polytechnical High School, opening the sports medicine complex and setting up an agriculture pathway at Sunnyside High School, and buying land at Chandler Air Force Base to train private pilots and to teach people to fix planes, making the public service pathway — police, fire, EMT — out of Roosevelt High School.
Other accomplishments Nelson mentioned include: offering heating, ventilation and air conditioning certifications at Fresno High School; building teacher pipelines at Hoover and five other high schools, opening a law pathway at Bullard High School, and expanding social justice at Edison High School.
“Kids have access to more than they’ve ever had over the course of seven and a half years,” he said.
Bulldog Bound
Nelson developed a partnership with Fresno State to offer Bulldog Bound Guaranteed Admissions, which provides students college and career prep throughout their entire high school career as well as a guarantee that, once they graduate, they’ll have a spot at Fresno State.
“I was on the front end of authoring the Bulldog Bound initiative in collaboration with Fresno State, making sure every single one of our kids has guaranteed enrollment,” he said.
A foundation
During Nelson’s tenure, Fresno Unified also established the Foundation for Fresno Unified Schools, which now has a $20 million endowment that funds up to $800,000 in scholarships annually — “which is more than we’ve ever given away,” he said.
Diversity
Nelson recalls that in 2017, only two of district’s nearly 100 schools were led by Black principals — although African American students made up at least 8% of the student population. That’s no longer true. Now with over 10 Black principals, school leadership is a more accurate representation of the student enrollment.
Nelson’s senior leadership team is much more diverse, he said, pointing out a rise in Hmong and Latino leaders as well.
“It’s true diversity,” Nelson said. “Every single year of my tenure, and actually several before I got in, the staffing is more reflective of the students that we serve. In every respect — teaching staff, leadership staff, professional staff, including classified personnel — it’s all more indicative of the students that we serve.”
Based on 2022-23 state data, more than 92% of Fresno Unified students are minorities.
“Kids need to see visual images of people who look like them, talk like them, sound like them, have their lived experience,” Nelson said.
A faster pace
Nelson said he is thankful for student academic growth, which outpaces the state’s.
Based on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards statewide improved by 6.87% in English and 6.07% in math from 2015 to 2019.
While Fresno Unified is still below state percentages in students meeting standards, from 2015 to 2019, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards outpaced the state’s improvement — by 11% in English and 11.85% in math.
“If you only look at the bar of proficiency, we’re always behind,” Nelson said. “But we’re always gaining distance from standard at a rate that’s faster than other people across the state.”
Because of the pandemic, students statewide, including those in Fresno Unified, experienced learning loss that dropped test scores.
Fresno Unified scores increased by 0.96% and 2.49% in English and math, respectively, meaning students are again improving at a faster rate, as they were before the pandemic.
“The same thing (a faster pace of growth) is happening right now with chronic absenteeism (when students miss 10% or more days in one school year),” Nelson said. “Like we’re closing chronic absenteeism at a rate that’s faster than anybody.”
From the 2021-22 school year to the 2022-23 school year, Fresno Unified reduced chronic absences by 14.9% in contrast to the state’s 5% reduction.
“I’m really proud of that,” Nelson said.
Were all his goals met for the district?
“Our kids have needs that are greater (because they) come from abject poverty; you start from a different starting line,” Nelson said.
According to 2023-24 district data, 88% of students are living in disadvantaged circumstances.
“So, the level of systemic change that is needed to help kids thrive is just a higher, deeper, more robust level of change,” he said. “Did I crack that nut in its entirety? No. There’s always room for improvement.”
What does Misty Her inherit?
Fresno Unified’s outgoing superintendent, Bob Nelson, during his tenure, launched a literacy initiative aimed at getting every child to read by first grade.Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
“What I am leaving, hanging over, is I launched this literacy initiative, wanting every child to read by first grade,” Nelson said.
In late May, the school district finalized the Every Child Is a Reader literacy plan, a comprehensive five-year plan to achieve first-grade reading proficiency for students, according to a media release.
“The actual digging in and observing the curriculum around that initiative is going to be left for my successor. That is something that’s being held over (for Misty Her),” Nelson said.“I think she is a stronger academic leader and will help move the literacy work in ways that I have not. (As an early learning teacher), she knows very clearly what it takes for kids to read, understands all the complexities of the science of reading — is it phonemics or is it whole language —and balancing those approaches to make sure that kids have what they need.”
How does superintendent experience help at Fresno State?
Nelson will join the educational leadership division at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development. Although he’s leaving K-12 education as a leader, he’ll take his experience and knowledge into the role at Fresno State, which, this year, accepted 2,150 Fresno Unified students — the highest number ever accepted.
If all the accepted students were to attend, Fresno Unified graduates would make up around 20% of the university’s enrollment, based on Fresno State enrollment data that shows over 2,800 FUSD alumni.
“Higher ed needs to better understand what’s going on in Fresno Unified,” Nelson said. “Understanding who we are and what we represent and what we’re trying to do, I think, is critical.”
In applying for the role at Fresno State, Nelson had to teach a lesson, in which he demonstrated his ability to bridge the gap between Fresno Unified and Fresno State, he said.
“I compared their mission, vision, core values and statement of purpose against the lived experiences of the district that they serve (Fresno Unified) and said, ‘If you’re going to say these things, then that has to mirror the lived experiences of the districts that you’re in,’” he said. “’I think I can help you get from here to here. I can bridge that gap.’”
Nelson’s responsibilities at Fresno State?
A tenure-track position will give Nelson the opportunity to continue serving Valley educators.
“I have master’s degree students who are probably teachers, working full time every day, that want to become vice principals and principals and then, potentially, district leaders and on and on … and then helping master’s students get their master’s projects completed too,” he said of the position.
Why back to the classroom?
Before becoming superintendent of Fresno Unified, Nelson taught at Fresno State and “loved every minute of it.”
“I’m really, really excited to just go back to teaching,” he said. “Almost every school counselor that we brought in our system (Fresno Unified) were my former students from Fresno State. You find the best leader, siphon them out and then try to get them into the places in the Valley where they can serve kids.”
What about the goal of a local ‘grow-our-own’ administrator program?
In 2021, Fresno Unified won an $8.2 million grant from the Wallace Foundation to develop and support a pipeline of equity-centered leaders with which the district developed a collaborative relationship with San Diego State. This led to the district’s first cohort of leaders matriculating through the doctorate program. The partnership allows Fresno Unified leaders and faculty — who model what the graduate students are looking to become — to teach the courses in Fresno.
Many of the district leaders who obtained their doctorate from San Diego State in 2023 are now teaching the new cohort of Fresno Unified administrators coming up behind them at San Diego State.
“San Diego State has a really robust infrastructure to take leaders and help them kind of go to the next level,” Nelson said. “Most of what San Diego State is doing is they’re taking existing leaders and getting them their doctorate, and those leaders are ending up in district positions. I’m not sure Fresno State is there yet.”
Nelson’s goal: grow and develop administrators through Fresno State in a way similar to the partnership at San Diego State.
Prior to 2018, Fresno State allowed Fresno Unified leaders and instructors to teach graduate-level courses to prospective leaders, according to Nelson. Now only Fresno State faculty can teach the courses.
“The tenure-track faculty members at Fresno State — the vast majority of them have an emphasis on higher ed, so perpetuating other collegiate leaders,” Nelson said.
“Meanwhile, there’re 150 districts that are all clamoring to find leaders.”
A local program geared toward leadership of K-12 schools and districts is also important to create a collaborative space for them, Nelson said.
“There’s people that I deeply respect in the Valley who also sit in the superintendency,” Nelson said. “I think of Todd Lile in Madera. I think of Yolanda (Valdez in Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified). And there’s no space for us to be together to jointly plan or even talk or collaborate because we’re in three different counties.”
That’s a problem, he said.
“There needs to be a structure by which people who are on the same journey in the same region can collaborate with one another,” he said. “I think Fresno State is uniquely positioned to be able to bring those leaders together. … If you’re in a cohort of people who are on the same journey and have the same goals and you’re trying to strive together, (such as) in your doctoral program, it matters.”
His goal to strengthen the program at Fresno State doesn’t quite fit into his role as professor, but he wants to build and support an effort to reach that goal.
“Fresno State has what’s called the Welty Center for Educational Leadership, and they organized that with the intent of doing exactly this work as a collaborative space for leaders across the Valley,” Nelson said. “(I’m) trying to use that Welty Center as a jumping off place to just provide support for leaders across all of the 150 districts that feed into Fresno State.
“There’s just a high degree of need, and the focus cannot be solely on higher ed. It has to focus on the K-12 experience.”
“I am not going to cop to that. I think that (narrative is) what I’m out to fix,” Nelson said. “I actually think leadership is not only critical, it is a wonderful blessing, and I need people to understand that. We have to change the counterculture narrative that leadership is not possible or not sustainable or a dead-end thing.
“Finding superintendents who actually want to serve is harder than it’s ever been, and there’s a lot of reasons why that’s a factor, but we have to actually push back against that.”
Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters in New York City, is a tireless advocate for reform policies that work. She has spent years collecting research about the benefits of class size reduction and prodding legislators to take action.
She wrote recently about the cross-pollination between New York State and Michigan, where state school board leaders used her research to advocate for lower class sizes.
She wrote:
On April 5 and 6, the Network for Public Education, on whose board I sit, held its annual conference in Columbus, Ohio. More than 400 parents, teachers, advocates, school board members, and other elected officials gathered to learn from each other’s work and be re-energized for the challenges of protecting our public schools from the ravages of budget cuts, right-wing censorship, and privatization.
It was a great weekend to reconnect with old friends, meet new ones, hear from eloquent education leaders, and participate in eye-opening workshops. I led a workshop on the risks of using AI in the classroom, along with Cassie Creswell of Illinois Families for Public Schools, and retired teacher/blogger extraordinaire, Peter Greene. You can take a look at our collective power point presentation here.
At one point, Diane Ravitch, the chair and founder of NPE,introduced each of the board members from the floor. When she told me to stand, I asked her to inform the attendees about the law we helped pass for class size reduction in NYC. She responded, you tell it –and so I briefly recounted how smaller class sizes are supposed to be phased in over the next three yearsin our schools, hoping this might lend encouragement to others in the room to advocate for similar measures in their own states and districts.
Perhaps the personal high point for me was the thrill of meeting Tim Walz, on his birthday no less, who said to me that indeed class size does matter. Here are videos with excerpts from some of the other terrific speeches at the conference.
Then, just four days ago, Prof. Julian Heilig Vasquez, another NPE board member, texted me a link to this news story from the Detroit News:
State Board of Education calls for smaller class sizes after Detroit News investigation
Lansing — Michigan’s State Board of Education approved a resolution Tuesday calling for limits on class sizes to be put in place by the 2030-31 school year, including a cap of 20 students per class for kindergarten through third grade.
The proposal, if enacted by state lawmakers, would represent a sea change for Michigan schools as leaders look to boost struggling literacy rates. Across the state, elementary school classes featuring more than 20 students have been widespread.
Mitchell Robinson, a Democratic member of the State Board of Education, authored the resolution and said action on class sizes was “overdue.”
“Smaller class sizes are going to be a better learning situation for kids and a better teaching situation for teachers,” said Robinson of Okemos, a former music teacher.
A months-long Detroit News investigation published in April found 206 elementary classes — ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade — across 49 schools over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 years that had at least 30 students in them. Among them was a kindergarten class at Bennett Elementary, where the Detroit Public Schools Community District said 30 students were enrolled.
Less than a month after The News’ probe, the Democratic-led State Board of Education, which advises state policymakers on education standards, voted 6-1 on Tuesday in favor of Robinson’s resolution. The resolution said lawmakers should provide funding in the next state budget for school districts with high rates of poverty to lower their student-to-teacher ratios in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
By the 2030-31 school year, the resolution said, limits should be instituted to cap class sizes at 20 students per class in kindergarten through third grade, at 23 students per class in fourth grade through eighth grade, and at 25 students per class in high school.
“Many studies show that class size reduction leads to better student outcomes in every way that can be measured, including better grades and test scores, fewer behavior problems, greater likelihood to graduate from high school on time and subsequently enroll in college,” the resolution said.
The resolution added that the Legislature should increase funding to ensure schools are “able to lower class sizes to the mandated levels.”
In an interview, Pamela Pugh, the president of the state board, labeled the resolution an “urgent call” for action. Pugh said the board hasn’t made a similar request in the decade she’s served on the panel.
…Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for action on class sizes after the reporting from The News and as Michigan’s reading scores have fallen behind other states.
During her State of the State address in February, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said just 24% of Michigan fourth graders were able to read proficiently. Michigan invests more per student than most states but achieves “bottom 10 results,” the governor said.
“I think the science would tell us that we’ve got to bring down class sizes,” Whitmer said in April.
On Wednesday, state Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, said he was open to a conversation about timelines for implementing class size limits and about how schools could achieve the proposed standards with staffing and physical space.
As I read the story, I was delighted, of course; and noticed that the class size caps cited in the resolution were identical to those required to be phased in for NYC schools. I also noted language in the resolution that echoed the words in some of our research summaries.
I reached out to Diane to ask her if she knew whether Mitchell Robinson had attended the NPE conference, and she confirmed that indeed he had. I then emailed him to ask if our New Yorklaw had played any role in his decision to introduce the resolution, and he immediately responded,
“Leonie, your work in NYC was the direct model and inspiration for this resolution! I was in your session in Columbus, and went home motivated to put together the resolution, using the figures from your bill and the research base on the website.”
He cautioned me that the proposal still has to be enacted into law, and that it would be “an uphill battle,” as Republicans hadretaken the state House.
Then he added: “But that doesn’t mean we sit on our hands for another 2 years—we need to stay on offense and advance good ideas whenever we can.”
I wholeheartedly agree. This resolution and what may hopefully follow for Michigan students reveals just how importantgatherings like the NPE conference are to enable the exchangeof ideas and positive examples of what’s occurring elsewhere. This sort of interaction can be vital to our collective struggle,not just to defend our public schools from the attempts of Trump et.al. to undermine them, but also to push for the sort of positive changes that will allow all our kids to receive the high qualityeducation they deserve.
Students at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in the Burbank Unified School District practice their reading skills.
Credit: Jordan Strauss/AP Images
A panel of reading experts has designated the tests that school districts can use to identify reading difficulties that kindergartners through second graders may have, starting next fall.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Tuesday of the selection of the reading risk screeners marks a milestone in the nearly decadelong campaign to mandate that all young students be measured for potential reading challenges, including dyslexia. California will become one of the last states to require universal literacy screening when it takes effect in 2025-26.
To learn more
For Frequently Asked Questions about the screening instruments for risk of reading difficulties, go here.
For more about the screeners selected for district use, go here.
For the letter on screening sent to district, county office and charter school superintendents, go here.
For more on the Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel, go here.
Between now and then, districts will select which of four approved reading screeners they will use, and all staff members designated as the testers will undergo state-led training. The Legislature funded $25 million for that effort.
“I know from my own challenges with dyslexia that when we help children read, we help them succeed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
Students will be tested annually in kindergarten through second grade. In authorizing the screeners, the Legislature and Newsom emphasized that screening will not serve as a diagnosis for reading disabilities, including dyslexia, which is estimated to affect 5% to 15% of readers. Instead, the results could lead to further evaluation and will be used for classroom supports and interventions for individual students. Parents will also receive the findings of the screenings.
“This is a significant step toward early identification and intervention for students showing early signs of difficulty learning to read. We believe that with strong implementation, educators will be better equipped to support all learners, fostering a more inclusive environment where every child has the opportunity to thrive,” said Megan Potente, co-director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, which led the effort for universal screening.
A reading-difficulty screener could consist of a series of questions and simple word-reading exercises to measure students’ strengths and needs in phonemic awareness skills, decoding abilities, vocabulary and reading comprehension. A student may be asked, for example, “What does the ‘sh’ sound like in ‘ship’”?
Among the four designated screeners chosen is Multitudes, a $28 million, state-funded effort that Newsom championed and the University of California San Francisco Dyslexia Center developed. The 10 to 13-minute initial assessment will serve K–2 grades and be offered in English and Spanish.
The other three are:
Young-Suk Kim, an associate dean at UC Irvine’s School of Education, and Yesenia Guerrero, a special education teacher at Lennox School District, led the nine-member Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel that held hearings and approved the screeners. The State Board of Education appointed the members.
The move to establish universal screening dragged out for a decade. The California Teachers Association and advocates for English learners were initially opposed, expressing fear that students who don’t speak English would be over-identified as having a disability and qualifying for special education.
In 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring schools to assess students for dyslexia, but students weren’t required to take the evaluation.
In 2021, advocates for universal screening were optimistic legislation would pass, but the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Patrick O’Donnell, refused to give it a hearing.
“Learning to read is a little like learning to ride a bike. With practice, typical readers gradually learn to read words automatically,” CTA wrote in a letter to O’Donnell.
Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale, reintroduced his bill the following year, but instead Newsom included funding and requirements for universal screening in his 2023-24 state budget.
The Newsom administration and advocates for universal screening reached out to advocates for English learners to incorporate their concerns in the requirements for approving screeners and to include English learner authorities on the selection panel.
Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said Wednesday it was clear that the panel considered the needs of English learners and she is pleased that the majority of the screeners are available in Spanish and English.
“Their commitment to addressing the unique needs of English learners was evident throughout the process,” Hernandez said.
However, she said it is important for the state to provide clear guidance to districts about what level of English proficiency is required in order for students to get accurate results from a screener in English.
“The vast majority of English learners will be screened only in English, and without evidence that these screeners are valid and reliable across different English proficiency levels, there is a risk of misidentification,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said Californians Together emphasized to the panel that it is important for students who are not yet fluent in English to be assessed for reading in both their native language and English, “to capture the full scope of their skills.” In addition, Hernandez said it is crucial for the state Department of Education to offer guidance to districts on selecting or developing a screener in languages other than English or Spanish.
The article was corrected on Dec. 18 to note that the initial Multitudes assessment takes 10 to 13 minutes, not 20 minutes, depending on the grade; a followup assessment can take an additional 10 minutes.
