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  • Schools take on new designs for extra security in era of campus shootings

    Schools take on new designs for extra security in era of campus shootings


    A would-be intruder would have a difficult time trying to sneak into the new Del Sol High School in Oxnard, which opened in August with its first group of 475 first-year students.

    That’s because the $189 million campus was planned and built with security at the top of the list of concerns, officials say. And that puts it at the forefront of a trend throughout California and the nation as school districts respond to school shootings and try to prevent any more violence.

    At Del Sol, two perimeters of 8-foot-high black fencing — designed to deny a foothold to potential climbers — surround the campus and fill in openings between the buildings’ edges. After incoming students file through Del Sol’s two gates under the watchful eyes of campus employees, the only entry is through a glass cube-like lobby. There, visitors are screened carefully from behind a bulletproof glass window and, if approved, admitted through a locked metal interior door. Cameras survey the courtyards and exterior walkways. Coming soon is a new schoolwide door-locking system for emergencies.

    Students walk through the quad area of Del Sol High School during the passing period in Oxnard on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.

    “Nowadays safety and security are the first priority. The rest follows that,” explained Oxnard Union High School District Superintendent Tom McCoy on a recent tour of the school, which opened this fall. Many of the same safety features built into the new 47-acre campus are being added as retrofits where possible to the district’s 11 other high schools and one adult school. That includes Hueneme High School, where 22 years ago, a teenage gunman took a student hostage but was soon killed by a police sniper while the hostage was saved.

    Throughout the nation, new schools are being designed — and older schools retrofitted — to make them as safe as possible for students and staff and as difficult as possible for a potential assailant to gain entrance and cause deadly trouble. Those features often include a single point of entry, new fencing, limited visibility into classrooms, bulletproof glass in vulnerable spots and new alert and locking systems.

    McCoy and educators and architects throughout the state and country say the challenge is to make a school safe without making it look like a bunker or penitentiary. They say Del Sol and other campuses succeed in showing that a pleasant and secure learning environment can be created.

     

     

    Oxnard Union High School District Superintendent Thomas McCoy walks through Del School High School on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.

    “It’s a fine line,” Del Sol principal Terri Leon said. “We want our kids to feel safe, but we don’t want them to feel imprisoned. I think (the design) does a good job of balancing that. Our kids seem to like the design and the spaces and how everything is set up. But then we are pretty secure.”

    The campus was designed by the PBK architecture firm, which has nine offices throughout California. So far, the school consists of eight buildings, mainly two stories and connected by walkways. All share plenty of outdoor space and plazas. Corridors and classrooms have large windows, providing much light and views of mountains. Students can present projects or hold meetings in big, flexible interior spaces. While a sense of openness exists inside the campus, there is no mistake that the exterior’s decorative black metal mesh fence presents a strong impression of do-not-enter to an uninvited visitor — even without old-fashioned barbed wire or chain link.

    In California, many older schools were built when openness and a sense of freedom were important, taking advantage of the climate with unprotected breezeways, unfenced lawns and multiple easy entries. School officials and architects and parents say they don’t want to entirely lose that, at least inside secure perimeters.

    “Security is on everyone’s minds,” said Michael Pinto, design director at NAC Architecture firm’s Los Angeles office, which has worked on many school projects with anti-crime features. “It is really a concern of parents. And when someone is concerned about the safety of their children, there is nothing you can do but respect that and take those concerns seriously.”

    That does not mean designing a dark, windowless bunker or having excessive fencing, said Pinto, whose projects include the current rebuilding of the century-old Belvedere Middle School in East Los Angeles. Belvedere’s new buildings were placed to form much of the campus’ exterior boundaries. As a result, the amount of fencing is actually reduced from the old arrangement, according to Pinto. Meanwhile, inside the campus, students get a lot of outdoor space and light.

    “We don’t want hermetically sealed schools,” said Pinto, who served on the Los Angeles city attorney’s commission on school safety. That panel’s 2018 report called for improved security measures like single entries, along with better mental health services and more societal gun controls. The federal government has issued similar guidelines that emphasize clear sight lines and access control, along with clean and upbeat school environments.

    The Saugus Union School District in northern Los Angeles County recently spent much of a $148 million bond issue for security measures at its 15 K-six schools. Those include new single-point-of-entry lobbies with secondary locked doors leading into the campuses, better fencing and lighting, new door-locking systems and window shades that can be closed in an emergency. Identification letters and numbers have been painted on roofs so police or fire crews can see them from the air and get to the right location quickly in an emergency, according to Nick Heinlein, the district’s assistant superintendent of business.

    The goal is to make campuses “as safe as we can make them without them seeming unappealing,” Heinlein said.

    The need was brought home by a tragic 2019 episode at Saugus High School, a hometown campus run by a separate district, Heinlein said. A student armed with a pistol shot five schoolmates, killing two, before killing himself. When something like that happens, “there is always something that can be learned,” Heinlein said. Among other things, changes were made to allow students to flee if necessary through campus exits with panic bars that can be opened from the inside or that can be easily unlocked by adults in an emergency, he said.

    Responses to school violence go beyond architecture and window panes. Staffs are getting better trained on how to lead lockdowns, evacuations and student drills. Campus and municipal police are being better trained for a faster response to shootings, searching quickly for assailants and being well-armed enough to counter them. Schools look more closely for students’ behavioral and emotional problems that could escalate. Mental health resources have been boosted, as have methods of reporting threats.

    Architecture and engineering help a lot, but they aren’t sufficient without other efforts, according to Scott Gaudineer, who is president of the California branch of the American Institute of Architects, a professional organization representing 11,000 architects in the state. “Human intelligence is just as important,” said Gaudineer, who also is president of the Flewelling & Moody firm, in the Los Angeles area, which has worked on school projects. “Schools must keep a watchful eye and offer counseling to a student “who is going through a divorce, who is stressed.”

    “The challenge is you never know who is going to show up with an AK-47 and is mentally deranged. It is shocking how often this is happening,” he added.

    Two of the most infamous school shooting sites have taken different approaches in the aftermath. In Connecticut, the Sandy Hook Elementary School was demolished in the wake of the 2012 rampage that left 20 children and six educators dead. A new school was built with a moat-like rain garden around it, bulletproof windows and an elevated first floor to make it harder to see in.

    In contrast, Columbine High in Colorado remained pretty much the same after the 1999 assault, during which two students killed 12 classmates and one teacher before committing suicide. Some new security measures have been added such as more fencing.

    McCoy, the Oxnard Union superintendent, has personal experience encountering violence. In 2001, a troubled teenage boy who was not a student there easily got into Hueneme High School. McCoy, a vice principal then, escorted him off the grounds. The intruder came back, holding a female student at gunpoint as he entered a campus quad through an unguarded gate. A police sniper shot and killed the gunman, and the girl was not wounded.

    McCoy, who was nearby but did not witness the shooting, said its lessons are reflected in Del Sol’s design and in improved emergency sheltering and evacuation procedures. Adult staff, he said, must be prepared since “the kids look to the adults immediately and follow our directions.”

    During the tour, McCoy pointed out what he said is one of the most important anti-violence features: a wellness center, a big sunny room with beanbag chairs where students under emotional stress can chill out and meet with a counselor. “If they are having a bad day, instead of acting out in the classroom, they can hang out here and spend the time they need and go back to class,” he said. About 60 students a day spend at least some time there, usually at lunch.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Eight-foot wire gates surround Del Sol High School in Oxnard on Oct. 3, 2023.

    Del Sol, built on a former strawberry and citrus farm in the eastern part of Oxnard, serves a predominately Latino and low-income population, including some whose parents work in the fields. As additional classes enter each of the next three years and the current freshmen become seniors, enrollment is expected to grow to about 2,100 students.

    The land cost $25 million, and construction bills so far total $194 million, including $30 million to the city for street improvements, funded by bonds, certificates of participation and other sources, according to McCoy. Athletic fields are being finished to the rear of the site, and plans call for a performing arts center, swimming pool and football stadium to be added when more state or local funds can be found.

    The contemporary-style buildings are clad in complementary panels of gray, cantaloupe and white. The black metal fencing has narrow vertical openings that make it nearly impossible to get a foothold, but there are no barbed wire or top stakes that could hurt a student who tries to climb out, according to Mark Graham, its principal architect, at the PBK firm. The company has installed similar security measures at the new $200 million Chino High, which opened last year, and at retrofits at three campuses in the Cucamonga School District in San Bernardino County.

    The fence aims to look porous, Graham said. “We wanted to use something that didn’t look so penal. It is there, but it is not like you are being caged in.” Going fenceless is not an option on most school projects these days since security is “at the top of the list of concerns, especially for parents and school board members.”





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  • Bias, extra work and feelings of isolation: 5 Black teachers tell their stories

    Bias, extra work and feelings of isolation: 5 Black teachers tell their stories


    Black teachers: how to recruit THEM and make them stay

    This is the second part of a special series on the recruitment and retention of Black teachers in California. The recruitment and hiring of Black educators has lagged, even as a teacher shortage has given the task new urgency.

    Our series looks at the obstacles that keep Black people from becoming teachers, and the bias and lack of support some face when they join the profession.

    The final story looks at what California and school districts are doing to recruit and retain Black teachers, and what still needs to be done.

    California school districts have been trying to recruit and retain Black teachers for years, but the numbers don’t seem to be increasing. The cost of teacher preparation and unpaid student teaching make it difficult for Black teacher candidates to complete the work to earn a credential. Once in the classroom, a lack of support and respect sometimes makes it difficult for them to remain.

    In the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year data is available, 3.8% of all teachers in California were Black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Black students made up 5.2% of the state’s student population that year. 

    Research shows that having a Black teacher in the classroom has a positive impact on all students, especially students of color who, as a result, have higher test scores and graduation rates.

    Krystle Goff: We constantly have to prove ourselves

    Krystle Goff
    Krystle Goff is a student program coordinator at 122nd Street Elementary in Los Angeles Unified.
    Krystle Goff

    Krystle Goff worked as a special education paraeducator for four years before earning a teaching credential, and later a masters’ degree. Now, even with eight years as a credentialed teacher, she still feels she has to prove herself every day.

    Black teachers aren’t given the same opportunities to make mistakes that other teachers are given, said Goff, who works in Los Angeles Unified. There is pressure every day to get it right the first time, even from other Black teachers, she said.

    “There is a standard that Black educators hold toward each other,” she said. “We are harder on ourselves and harder on our students than I think is talked about.”

    Goff also spent 14 months at the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA, which prepares educators to be social justice leaders in Los Angeles schools. 

    “(There was) lots of reading, lots of literature, and it just kind of pulled apart the systems that I now just can’t unsee,” Goff said. “It’s almost like I’m in the matrix. When I walk into school systems. I’m like, you guys need help.”

    Goff is currently the targeted student population coordinator, responsible for the re-designation of English learners at 122nd Street Elementary School in Los Angeles. She wants to be a school administrator. 

    “It’s important because that’s the only way we are going to shift schools,” she said. “… We need principals who are able to see the needs of the community and address them on the school campus, and not weaponize what’s happening in the community on the school campus.”

    There is racial tension at 122nd Street Elementary that should be addressed, she said. The school is predominantly Latino, with Black students making up less than 20% of the population. The tension was apparent in February as teachers made decisions about whether to have Black history programs. 

    “It’s been very, what seems controversial,” Goff said. “… It’s very political.”

    Schools should offer staff training on race and identity, or a staff retreat where colleagues can discuss the topic, Goff said.

    “I think that in every layer of what makes a school run — from the parent center to the classroom, to the office — there’s this buzz about race and identity, but we don’t ever talk about it,” she said. “We don’t ever mention it. And somehow we’re supposed to all gel together and work together. I think it takes training to identify who we are and what we bring to our position to understand how we’re able to best work with one another.”

    Preston Jackson: More Black mentors are needed

    P.E. teacher Preston Jackson works at California Middle School at Sacramento Ct.

    Being a teacher is hard, but being a Black teacher is harder, said Preston Jackson, who teaches physical education at California Middle School in Sacramento City Unified.

    “Ninety percent, you probably are going to be on a site where you’re the only one there,” Jackson said. “And so you’re not going to have someone there that has gone through a similar process, because being a Black teacher is a completely different situation.” 

    Jackson is one of two Black teachers at the middle school. During his 19-year tenure, there have only been a few more, he said.

    Having more Black mentors would have made his early years in teaching easier, Jackson said, because they would have provided guidance on difficult topics a new teacher may not feel comfortable discussing with administrators, like how to deal with parents of other races that talk down to them.

    “They have to have someone they can have those types of tough conversations with, to kind of help them work through the process until they get to a point where they are confident enough on their own feet, where they can handle those things,” he said.

    Jackson gets discouraged about teaching sometimes, particularly when it comes to the low expectations he feels some in education have for Black children. This is the No. 1 reason Black teachers quit, he said.

    He was going over benchmark test scores with the principal and fellow members of the School Site Council in February, when he realized that no Black students were enrolled in Math 8, the highest level math course.

    “So, you can tell me that, with all the Black kids we have on this campus, not one is qualified to be in Math 8?” Jackson asked.

    Not even the high-achieving Black students in the school were enrolled in the class, and Jackson suspects they were not steered toward the class because teachers think it is too difficult for them.

    “They’re expecting kids to fail,” he said. “They’re setting the kids up for failure instead of preparing them for success. And that’s a huge problem.”

    Alicia Simba: I wanted to work with Black teachers

    Alicia Simba is a transitional kindergarten teacher at Prescott Elementary School in Oakland Unified.

    Alicia Simba chose to work in the Oakland Unified School District when she started as a teacher four years ago, so that she could be in a school community with other Black teachers. Her school, Prescott Elementary, also has a Black principal, and the district has a Black superintendent.

    When she was looking for work, Simba went to Wikipedia and looked for cities in California with the largest populations of Black residents, and then looked up their school districts. Even those districts often didn’t have many Black teachers, she found.

    “Unlike other friends and peers that I have, I’m never the only Black teacher in a professional development or at a conference in the district,” Simba said of Oakland Unified. “I think that, really, to me, helps with the retention part.”

    Of her friends from her teacher preparation program, Simba, a transitional kindergarten teacher, says she works with the highest number of Black children and has the lowest salary.

    “I can see how friendships might become more segregated as we get older,” Simba said. “In a couple of years, my friends and I will just not be living within the same means. They’ll want to go to Baja, and I can’t go —  not because I don’t want to go to Baja. I do want to go to Baja. But because I teach in OUSD.”

    Simba attended a women’s college on the East Coast as a science major and worked at the campus day care center before being accepted into the teacher preparation program at Stanford University on a full scholarship. It was the job at the day care center that made her decide to teach.

    “I was like, one, this is the best job ever,” she said. “I love the kids. But two, I get to hang out with the best women in the world.”

    Simba decided to take the traditional route to a credential instead of an alternative route, such as an internship, which pays teacher candidates to work as a classroom teacher while completing teacher preparation coursework. She wanted a more thorough education, she said.

    While teacher interns are paid, they are more likely to leave teaching because they do not benefit from mentorship and are thrust into a classroom as the lead teacher without support or guidance, she said.

    Traditional training can help teachers learn to deal with difficult situations that may lead to burnout, Simba said.

     “Like when a kid throws a chair, or bites them,” she said. “Like when one peed on the floor, they actually know what to do. These are all things that happened to me.”

    There are things that can be done to increase the number of Black teachers, including student loan forgiveness, paying student teachers, paying teachers more equitably across districts and offering subsidized housing, Simba said. Young teachers also need mentorship and emotional support, she added.

    Black teachers may feel they have to leave (their jobs) to preserve their own emotional well-being, even if they love the kids and the community and love to teach, Simba said.

    Brooke Sims: Cruel words impact Black students 

    Brooke Sims teaches first grade in Stockton.

    Brooke Sims has always loved school. Her mother and grandmother were teachers, so she spent a lot of time in classrooms, even as a small child.

    “I was joking about how much I loved school supplies, so maybe that’s why I’m a teacher — a love of school supplies,” she said. “I always played school.” 

    Sims had a chance to do it for real in high school when she helped out in preschool and kindergarten classrooms in Stockton as part of a career educational course called Careers with Children.  It wasn’t long before Sims was certain that teaching was what she wanted to do with her life.

    Having her family as role models helped Sims to visualize herself as a teacher, because she had few Black teachers during her K-12 years in Stockton. She didn’t see many Black teachers until she attended Delta College in Stockton and then later, when she began student teaching at Elk Grove Unified in Sacramento County.

    Sims says that in the 16 years since she received her teaching credential, she has considered quitting many times. The work is harder; there is little support and the pay isn’t great.

    She also has had to contend with colleagues who make racist and insensitive comments about people of color, including students.

    “It breaks my heart because it’s like, you’re teaching Black children, you’re teaching children of color, and this is what you think, and you’ve never taken the time to reflect or maybe look at it differently.”

    This sometimes plays out with Black children being punished harder than their white counterparts, even if their offenses are worse, Sims said.

    “I’m not in all of these people’s classrooms, but I’ve heard the microaggressions, I’ve heard the way they speak, and I can’t imagine what happens in the classroom,” she said.

    The incidents go back as far as her days as a student teacher. In one case, a white teacher candidate came back from a meeting with her consulting teacher livid. She told Sims that the consulting teacher told her not to work so hard with two students of color because “they are not going to go to college.” The candidate asked to be assigned another consulting teacher.

    “She could not believe that this woman said this to her about some little kids, some little first graders,” Sims said. 

    Petrina Miller: Better pay would make teachers stay

    Petrina Miller teaches at 116th Street School in Los Angeles.

    A lot has changed since Petrina Miller began teaching at 116th Street School in Los Angeles about 26 years ago, including the demographics of the students. When she began teaching, the school had mostly Black students, and now the majority of students are Latino.

    Although Miller appreciates the need for Black students to have Black teachers, she doesn’t think people should be assigned tasks, or students, solely because of their skin color. It’s not fair to the student, and it’s not fair to the teacher, she said, because sometimes, they might fare better with a younger teacher, for example.

    Miller, who teaches a combined transitional kindergarten and kindergarten class at the school, is a member of Educators for Excellence, a nonprofit with the goal of elevating the teaching profession. It has more than 30,000 members. 

    Black teachers are being pushed out of the profession because of a lack of support, an ability to earn more at another job and a general lack of respect from the public and administrators, Miller said.

    People don’t go into teaching for the high pay, Miller said. But teachers do deserve a wage that is livable or some sort of property tax adjustment or other financial help to make being a teacher more attractive.

    “Then they can live where they work,” Miller said. “I know some teachers who work in San Pedro and live somewhere else. They can’t afford it, or they work in Torrance and … they can’t live there, it costs too much.”

    Since the Covid pandemic, there has been less support and sometimes respect from administrators as they struggle to balance new rules and requirements from the district and state.

    “I think that being 10, 15 years into this profession, you expect a certain amount of respect or professionalism from your higher-ups,” Miller said. “And I think that the trickle-down effect on all the things that happen from the district office to the (school) office, that respect is just getting lost.”





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  • How schools can go the extra mile to reduce absenteeism

    How schools can go the extra mile to reduce absenteeism


    A teacher’s aide sits with a kindergartner on the first day of school at George Washington Elementary School in Lodi Unified.

    Diana Lambert

    In today’s world, families have numerous school choices for their children and often rely on the experiences of neighbors, family and friends for advice. Families’ perceptions of the school — how they feel when they walk into the front office, their ability to provide feedback and feel heard and valued, and their access to school staff — are all crucial to improving student attendance, engagement and performance.

    This might sound a lot like customer service, and that’s precisely what it is.

    Just as in the business world, positive interactions between schools and their families directly influence satisfaction, loyalty and trust. According to the K12 Insight report on customer service in schools, these interactions can enhance student outcomes, enrollment, attendance and behavior.

    Children in poverty, children of color and children with disabilities are three times more likely to be chronically absent. A welcoming school that goes the extra mile to create a sense of belonging and build bonds with families can take proactive measures to address attendance challenges.

    This school year, schools should aim to create and nurture a sense of belonging and common purpose with families and the community. Here are some actionable suggestions:

    Create a family-friendly environment

    Families should feel comfortable touring and visiting the school. A welcoming environment includes convenient parking, clear signage, cleanliness, a friendly and helpful front office staff, a comfortable and inviting waiting area, translated materials, posted family engagement activities and events, and flyers informing families of enrichment opportunities available after school and in the community. When interacting with the school, families should find the staff knowledgeable, helpful and responsive to their concerns. To go the extra mile, schools can:

    • Advertise principal office hours when parents and students can stop by.
    • Promote networking among families during an open house by organizing grade-level meet-and-greet events and team-building activities.
    • Use student pickup and drop-off times as golden opportunities to make quick and friendly connections with families.
    • Post empowering messages for families on the school outdoor sign.
    • Actively recruit families to support decision-making and help identify the school’s vision and goals.

    Enhance family engagement with clear and honest communication

    Effective communication with families is clear, relevant and personalized. Go beyond good intentions and engage in meaningful conversations that can lead to improved student learning.

    Teachers can make a great first impression before school starts or at the beginning of the year by making a welcome phone call, sending a postcard, email, letter or any other form of communication that helps families get to know their child’s teachers.

    Encourage teachers to be relatable by sharing tidbits of their own lives; being a real person goes a long way in building relationships. Let families know the best way to contact their teacher for questions, guidance or updates on student learning progress.

    Transparent and honest communication builds trust. Prioritize communication linked to learning. Share student progress data promptly, inform families when and how students will be tested, and show parents specific activities and strategies for home support. Report cards and parent-teacher conferences are not enough; families need concrete and personalized information and guidance to support learning. To go the extra mile:

    • Implement quarterly listening circles with diverse groups of families to value parents’ perspectives and ideas and support school improvement.
    • Anticipate communication barriers by understanding each family’s preferred language and communication method.
    • Create school policies to allow teachers to regularly connect with families and build time into the schedule to make it possible.

    Expand engagement access for all families

    Traditionally, schools collect family engagement data based on family attendance at school events and activities. Often, this means counting the regulars — the ones who come time after time. This school year, challenge your team to count the families who were unable to attend the event, especially if the event is focused on student learning.

    Divide the number of absent families by grade level and ask teachers to reach out to their families to share the information they missed and build trust. Take this opportunity to learn more about the family, build trust, and open new lines of communication. Create space for teachers to share what they learn with their grade-level team. To go the extra mile:

    • Adjust engagement opportunities using family feedback and suggestions from prior years.
    • Leverage nonclassroom staff to facilitate mini-make-up sessions for families who were unable to attend the learning-focused events.

    Genuine family engagement happens away from school — it happens at the dinner table, in car rides and during everyday parent-child interactions and family dynamics. Strengthening relationships with families can enrich the way families support learning and provide valuable insights into the children you teach.

    There’s something incredibly heartwarming about reading parents’ social media posts expressing their appreciation for their child’s school. These parents highlight their favorite and trusted teachers, describe a sense of community and belonging, and invite new families to join in on school activities, volunteer opportunities, and decision-making committees. Their loyalty to the school is unmistakable.

    Efforts like those listed above can enable schools to build stronger, more supportive communities that foster student success and create a welcoming environment for everyone involved.

    Let’s make this school year the best one yet by going the extra mile for our families.

    •••

    Maria Paredes is a senior engagement manager on WestEd’s Family and Community Engagement team. A version of this post first appeared in the WestEd Bulletin in August and is reposted here with permission.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Fresno Unified teachers condemn district for plan to cut extra class time for students

    Fresno Unified teachers condemn district for plan to cut extra class time for students


    Fresno Unified School District will cut its Designated Schools program that provides 30 additional instructional minutes to over 24,000 students each day. Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla and around 100 educators protested the decision on Wednesday.

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    About 100 Fresno Unified educators slammed the state’s third-largest school system for its “unilateral” decision to eliminate a decadelong initiative for underserved students during a news conference Wednesday evening. 

    The district’s decision-making is being challenged as leaders face pushback for getting rid of a student-focused program that, from the district’s perspective, isn’t consistently meeting the needs of those students. 

    The district will cut its Designated Schools program, an initiative to improve student achievement through additional daily instruction. The district announced in January that the program, affecting about 40 schools, 24,000 students and over 1,250 educators, will end after this school year.

    Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla said educators feel devalued and disrespected because eliminating the Designated Schools program without input from the school community is not a classroom-centered decision as it takes money away from the classroom, from teachers and from much-needed resources. 

    “It is a huge cut to trust,” Bonilla said. “It is a huge cut to respect and to value in this district. And we’re here to say, ‘We’re not going to put up with it.’”

    For the superintendent and district staff, the main consideration in the decision to eliminate the program is its effectiveness: “Are we getting the return for the investment that we’re making?” asked interim Superintendent Misty Her. 

    “While we have gotten some results, they’ve not been consistent,” Her said. “We’ve not had consistent (growth) year after year.” 

    What are Designated Schools?

    At Designated Schools, which are intended to close academic gaps at a faster pace, students have 30 extra minutes of instruction each day, teachers have 10 additional work days for professional training, and campuses have a full-time teacher on special assignment to assist with reading or math intervention, costing the district $30 million annually.

    Designated Schools are typically located in neighborhoods with large numbers of students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. They serve vulnerable student populations that often start behind other groups. The extra time and resources are meant to catch students up by focusing on foundational skills they’re missing, teachers told EdSource. 

    Those students are going to lose 30 minutes of instruction every day, Bonilla said, equating the time to 90 additional instructional hours each year. 

    For example, during that 30 minutes of intervention time, teachers divide their classes into small groups by proficiency level and target students’ weak points. Teachers have the assistance of support staff who provide enrichment activities and targeted instruction.

    “Having that 30 extra minutes makes such a difference for these students, and we can see the gains, and we can see the growth that they make,” said Kate Hooper, a first grade teacher at Wilson Elementary, a Designated School.

    What does the decision mean?

    Designated School teachers are paid for the extra time and extra days they work, so eliminating the program means less pay for them. 

    Bonilla said the decision forces teachers to take a 12% pay cut, ranging from $651 to $1,150 each month. 

    District spokesperson Nikki Henry asserts that district officials stand behind their decision to end the $30 million program, but that much of what’s been communicated by the teachers union is “blatantly false” and “fear-based rhetoric.” 

    Nearly two-thirds of Designated School teachers will not see a pay reduction because there are already pay increases planned in their salary schedules, Henry said. In 2023, when the school district and teachers union reached a “historic” contract, the district agreed to 4.5% educator raises with a 2.5% bonus next school year. The remaining one-third of impacted teachers will see about a 2% decrease over two years. 

    Rather than keeping money in classrooms, Bonilla accused the district of wanting to pad its reserves and put the money toward consultants who, teachers say, don’t help them or students. According to Bonilla, the district’s reserves currently sit at about $234 million.

    Most of the money is already tied up by the district’s financial obligations, Henry said, explaining that only about 7%, or $121 million, belongs to the unrestricted reserves that can be used. The district plans to spend the reserves to a projected 4% in the next two years, she said. 

    Fresno Unified is in its second year of budget cuts with at least two more years of “tough decisions” ahead. Though cuts were at the district level for this school year, they will likely touch the classroom next school year, including consultant contracts, Henry said. 

    Much like other California school systems, the district is facing declining enrollment, less funding due to lower average daily attendance, and lower than expected cost of living adjustments from the state — all of which contributed to the decision to end the program. Now the district must add the volatility at the federal level to that, district officials said. 

    Is funding the only reason for the decision?

    The Designated School program seemingly includes all the components necessary to better student outcomes: more time with kids, more time for teachers’ professional learning and more support staff. 

    Henry said that in evaluating student growth over time, regardless of where student proficiency started, Designated Schools perform about the same as non-designated schools. 

    “You put $30 million a year into a program, and they perform similarly to non-designated schools,” she said. “There’s not a bigger growth.”

    And there should be, Henry said. The Designated Schools initiative was meant to show that with extra investment, schools make academic gains faster. 

    An analysis of the program, conducted by Hanover Research in the 2020-21 school year, also found that evidence of the program’s effectiveness on academic outcomes is mixed.

    “It’s just, more than anything, disheartening, coming from people who haven’t been in the classroom in a very long time,” Hooper, the Wilson Elementary teacher, said. 

    She and other teachers say they see the gains students are making. Devyn Stephens, another Wilson Elementary teacher, said she had a first grader who didn’t know their letters or sounds on the first day of school and is now able to read at a kindergarten or early first grade reading level, adding that she can’t imagine that being possible “without that 30 minutes.”

    Wilson Elementary third grade teacher Jessica Avila said the time is needed to ensure her students know how to read since the third grade curriculum is to read to understand, not learn to read. 

    There are “a few bright spots” in the data, the district admits, but not enough. The district did not provide the school-specific data it used to make its decision.

    Henry said after-school programs, which include homework help and intervention, will absorb the students who will no longer have 30 extra minutes of instruction in the classroom. Fresno Unified will also look to other programs that can make a difference.

    Since eliminating the program is a superintendent and staff-level decision, district staff won’t be recommending the program’s continuation in next year’s budget. Technically, the school board has the discretion and authority to add it back. 

    To many, that process is the problem. 

    “It’s not just the teachers that are suffering in regards to this lack of leadership, a lack of direction and student-focused decisions,” Bonilla, the teachers union president, said about a decision that affects tens of thousands of students. “They have not gone to our community whatsoever to have a discussion.”

    “If the district wants to own this, they need to come out and be real leaders and talk about it with the community.”





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