West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.
Photo: Andrew Reed/EdSource
Cheryl Cotton was appointed the next superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified.West Contra Costa Unified
West Contra Costa Unified School District’s incoming superintendent already knows the district well.
On Wednesday night, the district’s board unanimously approved a contract with Cheryl Cotton, a Richmond native, a former district administrator and a former student who attended district schools in San Pablo and El Cerrito.
Cotton currently serves as the deputy superintendent of public instruction at the California Department of Education, overseeing the instruction, measurement and administration branch, according to a press release from the school district. She also served as CDE’s deputy superintendent of human resources and labor relations.
“This is my life’s work. This is my home. This is my community,” Cotton told Richmondside after the announcement.
The board approved a three-year $325,000 contract with Cotton. She begins on June 20, presiding over the East Bay district that has 54 schools.
Board President Leslie Reckler said that the board was thrilled to find someone with Cotton’s “excellent skill set” who knows the district well enough to hit the ground running.
“She was born here; she went to school here; she worked as a principal here,” Reckler told EdSource. “She’s familiar with our community. That is super helpful, no question.”
Cotton is the first African American woman to hold the permanent role of superintendent. She served as a school principal and later a human resources director in the district for 14 years. She also worked in human resources in the Albany Unified School District and the Contra Costa County Office of Education.
Reckler said she is hopeful that Cotton’s experience and connections at CDE will help “drive student success.”
United Teachers of Richmond President Francisco Ortiz said he appreciates that the incoming superintendent is a product of the district, which he considers a “really big asset in working towards school stability.” He’s also hoping that Cotton’s experience at CDE working with districts all over the state will enable her to bring fresh insights into tackling the district’s thorniest issues.
“We’ve had a tough couple of years with the constant threat of layoffs,” Ortiz said. That makes it hard to find qualified teachers, he said.
Reckler said Cotton will have a solid team of support to ensure that she’s able to help the district navigate these challenges. Cotton’s contract also provides up to $20,000 for a mentor to support her during her first two years.
“We have good people watching over us, and we have a good safety net — not that the decisions will be easy,” Reckler said.
Ortiz, who had experience with Cotton while she served as district human resources director, said he appreciated her site visits and work to find solutions by seeking common ground. He added they’re ready to work with Cotton to fully staff district schools and stabilize the district. He also hopes that Cotton will improve transparency at the district level and aim to work more collaboratively with teachers, families and others in the school community.
The district’s previous superintendent, Chris Hurst, retired in December. Kim Moses, associate superintendent for business services, has been serving as an interim superintendent. Moses said, in a statement, that she is eager to return to her prior role to “support the fiscal operations of our district.”
Community members attend a listening session on Feb. 21 at Duncan Polytechnical High in Fresno to discuss the search for a new superintendent.
Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
At a special meeting Wednesday, the Fresno Unified School District board bowed to community pressure and postponed already scheduled interviews of district employees vying for the superintendent job.
The seven-person board was set to interview internal candidates during a closed session — an initial step in the process to select the next superintendent for the state’s third-largest district — before deciding whether to expand the search to candidates beyond the school district.
The boardroom was packed, standing-room-only, with parents, students, staff and other community members. An overflow crowd watched the meeting on TV screens on the first and second floors of the district building.
Thirty speakers echoed support for one of three positions regarding the search process: that the board’s decision to start with internal candidates first was best, that the board should’ve conducted at least a statewide search from the start, or that the process has been plagued by politics, so far.
The meeting displayed a divided school system and raised questions about the school board’s ability to select a leader to guide a district that desperately needs to improve student outcomes.
Outrage had been mounting among community members since the board’s March 20 closed-session decision on how to proceed with the search, which resulted in dueling board factions.
Trustee Claudia Cazares on Wednesday led a 5-2 vote, compelled by community feedback, to postpone the interviews until further deliberation. The “no” votes came from trustees Andy Levine and Veva Islas, who argued that the interviews had been scheduled.
Cazares said that “to make it cleaner for us and more transparent, that we take a giant step back and start fresh from the beginning, including additional community input, before we move forward with any interviews.”
Pausing gives the board an opportunity to further discuss the search process, correct misconceptions spreading in the community and ensure people are heard, trustee Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said during the meeting.
“It’s ultimately about trust in Fresno Unified,” Jonasson Rosas said. “I want everybody to be absolutely clear about what we’re actually doing.”
Even with the board’s decision to change course, the unrelenting public clamor for transparency and the elimination of political agendas will likely shape how the search for superintendent proceeds.
“When people talk about misinformation and misrepresentation — when there is no transparency, that is what happens,” said community member Christina Soto.
‘To ensure that FUSD staff are seen and heard first’
On Jan. 22, Superintendent Bob Nelson announced his resignation to start a tenure-track position at Fresno State. During a closed meeting on March 20, the school board, tasked with hiring and firing the superintendent, decided to interview internal candidates first, before deciding how to proceed with the search.
Board member Keshia Thomas said she made her decision in order to ensure Fresno Unified staff are “seen and heard first.”
“These people have given their lives to the district,” Thomas said, “and they deserve that much.”
Another reason given for wanting to interview in-house stemmed from the budget implications of launching a national search, which may be unnecessary, in the context of a $30 million deficit the district faces.
The first phase of the search — eliciting community feedback and creating the job description — cost the district $40,000 in fees from the search firm Leadership Associates. Another phase, whether completed by Leadership Associates or another firm, could cost between $75,000 and $100,000, Thomas said. The second phase has not been determined by the board.
“We’re shelling out all this money to search firms to do this work,” Thomas said. “And if we don’t have to, we really shouldn’t spend it.”
When Nelson was tapped as superintendent in 2017, the board conducted a costly national search that eventually chose an internal candidate.
After the departure of Nelson’s predecessor in 2017 and the uncertainty about who’d lead the district in the period until the new superintendent started, the school board implemented a plan for the resignation of the top district leader. The succession plan, formed in the early years of Nelson’s tenure, involved creating the position for and hiring a deputy superintendent who would be prepared to step in; it’s also a quasi-grow-our-own leadership model that ensures continuity during and following the transition of district leaders.
When Nelson announced his resignation, he told EdSource he’d continue serving as superintendent until July 31, which will trigger the district’s succession plan. The school district confirmed in a media release about Nelson’s resignation that Deputy Superintendent Misty Her would be named interim superintendent.
The board has approved succession planning and grow-our-own programs at different levels across the district, said Annarita Howell, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources. She was one of the district’s staff members and students who supported the board’s initial decision to interview internal candidates.
“My wondering is why we question that succession planning now (that) you have been supporting for the last 10 years?” Howell asked.
Brown Act violations?
Some board members blame the community outrage on information leaked from a closed session that has been misconstrued by those who accuse the board of a lack of transparency.
An update on the March 20 meeting for the search informed the public that the board had decided to interview in-house candidates. Details of the 4-3 decision and how each board member voted was leaked to GV Wire, a digital news site, which Thomas said violates the Brown Act, legislation guaranteeing the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings for bodies such as the school board.
“Only people in that room were privy to who thought what,” she said. Only board members and representatives from the search firm were present at that meeting.
According to Bryan Martin, attorney for Fresno Unified, the Brown Act generally requires the board to report out final actions that the board makes in closed session, including reporting how each board member “voted.” He didn’t consider the 4-3 decision to interview internal candidates as a final action.
Thomas confirmed that she was one of the four who chose to interview internal candidates first, a decision she stands by. But the leaked decision created a misconception that the four wanted to only interview and choose the new superintendent from staff.
District spokesperson Nikki Henry also said that what was communicated to the public was not what happened, and that the 4-3 decision was never about limiting the search to internal candidates only, but about starting with FUSD employees.
“The board has never said that they will only look at internal applicants,” she said. “There’s never been anything from the board that has said they will not go to a statewide or national search for the superintendent.”
Skepticism of the process, Henry said, likely came because the board was taking the search one step at a time and allowing each step to inform the next step.
“The whole process is not going to happen out in the open because that’s not how it’s done,” Thomas said. “That’s not how you do any interviews or hire any person if you’re an HR person.”
And the school board is the human resources for the superintendent hiring, she said.
In a Tuesday news conference called by board President Susan Wittrup, community leaders, including those in the teachers union as well as city council representatives, called on Fresno Unified board members to conduct the search the “right way,” at least statewide and in an open and transparent way, led by and with community involvement.
Wittrup said the school board needed to change course with the way it decided to handle the search, an action that the board has now taken.
Thomas said Wittrup’s actions have made matters worse.
“Trustee Wittrup decided to fabricate the truth about what was said and what was requested by a majority of the trustees,” Thomas said about an editorial published in GV Wire that Wittrup wrote as well as other statements she made to the media.
Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, said on Tuesday that there needs to be a public discussion about why the original decision was made.
He said that the explanation that the process be conducted in closed session as an HR process is an excuse.
In other places across the country, applications and interviews of those applying for a superintendency are open to the public because of state legislation.
Even individuals not associated with education, such as Darius Assemi, publisher of the online news site GV Wire and CEO of Granville Homes, a real estate development company, which he admitted doesn’t build homes in the Fresno Unified area, joined Tuesday’s event.
Assemi said that the community deserves better than a closed-door selection and hiring process.
“It should be a transparent, open process so that the public sees what actually takes place,” he told EdSource before the board backpedaled its decision. “Not behind closed doors; not in secrecy.”
Many say their voices were unheard
Another factor creating concern about the search process is related to the 24 listening sessions conducted in February and the search firm’s report on those sessions.
The search firm’s summary, not even a full two-page document, lists and briefly details key themes deemed necessary for the district’s next leader, including:
An educational background that includes experience as a teacher, an administrator and other roles, and administrative credentials
Experience and understanding of the district’s history, culture, complexities and diversity. According to the summary, the community preferred internal candidates and applicants with ties to the Central Valley
Effective communication skills and the ability to collaborate and engage with people in the school community
A strategic vision supported by data-driven strategies
Wittrup said Leadership Associates’ report misinformed board members about what the community wanted, and that community members felt their voices went unheard during the listening sessions because they asked for a search beyond district personnel.
“I have heard overwhelmingly from parents and constituents across this city that their voice was not captured,” Wittrup said. “That would be a travesty if we used misinformation to make these decisions.”
Community member Soto said she invested at least five hours in attending various listening sessions, just to have that information “disregarded and misrepresented.”
“Communities stated that we wanted someone that was familiar with the Valley,” she said. She was one of at least 10 people who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting in support of a search not limited to internal applicants. “I’m sure there are many people across the state and maybe the nation who have Central Valley roots who would be qualified to be superintendent.”
Community members at board meetings, including Wednesday’s, and through conversations with trustees have recommended a national or statewide search as well as a districtwide search committee to interview candidates.
Board member Cazares said in an April 2 Facebook post that she had originally asked board leadership for a community committee to assist in the search. Cazares was named as one of the four who wanted to start with the internal search. She could not be reached to confirm.
“I hope that board president (Trustee Wittrup) would reconsider my recommendation,” Cazares said in her social media post.
Board member Valerie F. Davis, also named as one of the four who chose to start with the internal search but couldn’t be reached to confirm, said she has hired three superintendents, in which the board “always” had community members as part of the search committee.
The original board decision, Bonilla said, eroded the community’s trust because the closed-door decision came without community input. He added that now, after an outpouring from frustrated community members, the board is deciding to “take steps in the right direction.”
What else complicated the process?
Wittrup is the sole board member who publicly challenged the board’s original decision. In the weeks before Tuesday’s news conference and Wednesday’s board meeting, Wittrup was the first of nearly 400 people to sign Break the Cycle of Failure at Fresno Unified, an online petition about the decision to start with internal candidates. She also penned an opinion piece about the matter.
“It’s the only way I know,” Wittrup said about the appropriateness of her actions to write an op-ed and host a news conference to challenge the board’s decision.
Board member Levine, though he’s remained quiet about the March 20 closed-session discussion, shared his position last week via Facebook and with EdSource. He supported inviting both internal and external candidates to apply and said that a process to consider all candidates at once sets up the board’s pick for success. The community would know the decision is based on a competitive and rigorous process.
He said he didn’t see the need to attend Tuesday’s new conference because the board must figure out how to move forward as a unit.
“We need to figure out, as a board, how to come together to get there, hopefully,” he said.
So what happens next?
It’s still unclear how the process will proceed, even after the board met in closed session for about an hour Wednesday night.
Whether community members want the board to maintain its direction to interview internal candidates first, to redo the entire process or to eliminate political influence, “we can’t do stuff behind closed doors,” said community member Gloria Hernandez.
“We need to proceed in this process in the most transparent way,” Roosevelt High teacher Marisa Rodriguez said, “so that we can gain the trust of our community.”
Fresno Unified School District board member Keshia Thomas speaks during a 2022 news conference.
Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
Among accusations of racism, intimidation and political play, ensuing from a March 20 decision by the Fresno Unified School District board to interview internal candidates first in the process to hire a superintendent, some district employees have faced harassment and threats, with some members of the Hmong community also citing attacks against them.
Sources, including district spokesperson Nikki Henry, told EdSource that board members and Deputy Superintendent Misty Her — a candidate for the open position and the presumptive interim superintendent — have been threatened. Her, specifically, has faced racial harassment, Henry said.
“It’s not fair to staff, and it’s not fair to the process,” school board member Keshia Thomas said.
During last week’s board meeting, Kao Xiong, CEO of the Hmong Business Incubator Center, a community-based organization serving the underrepresented Hmong community, said his group has been monitoring racial tensions related to the superintendent search.
Community member John Thao spoke about the “painful” and “hurtful” words someone told him in the wake of the superintendent’s search: “‘Your kind will never be superintendent.’”
On Jan. 22, when Superintendent Bob Nelson announced his plans to leave Fresno Unified, the district announced that if a permanent superintendent isn’t named by his final days, Her would be named interim superintendent.
Plans to name Her as interim superintendent put her at the center of the search as a favored candidate even though she’s not the only internal applicant. Her became the highest-ranking Hmong K-12 professional in 2021 when she was hired as deputy superintendent.
Stacy Williams, a community member who spoke at last week’s meeting, accused the board of favoring Her as the next superintendent for their own political gain.
“I know some of you have something to gain by using the Hmong community as your political pawn for when you want to run for something,” Williams said. A similar sentiment had been expressed in an opinion piece on news site GV Wire, which accused some board members of “pandering to the Hmong community for votes” in their November re-election bids.
Process is compromised
After the March 20 closed meeting of the school board, during which the board decided to interview internal candidates before deciding on how to proceed with the hiring process, details of the 4-3 decision and how each board member voted were leaked to the media, instigating community anger that propelled the board to reverse course in a 5-2 vote last Wednesday and postpone the scheduled internal interviews.
Beyond the threats, the search for the top leader of the state’s third-largest school system is engulfed in community angst about an alleged lack of transparency as well as accusations that the process has been tainted by politics.
Simply put, some say the search process has become “compromised.” But the reason for that conclusion varies, depending on whom you ask.
Trustee Thomas said the process is compromised because board members and staff are afraid but helpless to protect themselves and their families from threats and harassment, incited by the turmoil that the leaked information has caused.
“I don’t know what the next steps are going to be because everybody is uncertain, scared and wants to protect their families and protect employees from the nonsense,” Thomas told EdSource before the board voted to cancel the interviews of in-house candidates. “So now, we may have to pivot and try to figure out: how do we stop the unnecessary nonsense?”
Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, on the other hand, said the process was compromised from the moment the board decided to prioritize district employees rather than conducting an “extensive search to find the best candidate … creating the appearance that politics matter more than students.”
Fifteen community members who spoke at last Wednesday’s board meeting agreed that politics has permeated the process one way or another.
“Is this politics as usual?” asked Terri Kimber-Edwards, who attended Fresno Unified schools, is a parent to former students, and was a teacher and school and district administrator. “Is there some agenda? Are there backroom deals?”
Accusations of a personal or political agenda
A recently launched political action committee, Moving the Central Valley Forward, sent mailers to Fresno residents, asking them to run for a seat in the Roosevelt and Hoover High areas, represented by Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas and Claudia Cazares, who are up for re-election in November. Both trustees’ names were leaked as part of the board majority that voted to start the superintendent search with internal candidates.
Jonasson Rosas did not confirm or deny her part in the March 20 decision because it happened in a closed-door session, and Cazares could not be reached for comment. Both have since voted to cancel the internal candidate interviews. In fact, Cazares led the charge to change the scope of the search at last Wednesday’s meeting.
Board member Andy Levine, who represents the Fresno High area, is also up for re-election but was not included in the mailer, although the area is listed on the political action committee’s website. Last week, Levine stated on Facebook and told EdSource that he supported opening the search to both internal and external candidates from the start.
Board members are not the only ones being accused of having a political agenda in the superintendent search.
Thomas, who says she stands by her decision to interview internal candidates first, questioned the teachers union’s involvement in the April 2 news conference called by board President Susan Wittrup to challenge the board’s decision.
At that news conference, community leaders, including members of the teachers union, urged Fresno Unified board members to conduct the search the “right way,” with a scope that includes at least statewide candidates, and in an open and transparent way, led by and with community involvement.
Thomas said the labor union’s top leaders want to apply for the superintendency, which they couldn’t have done under the board’s original plan to interview internal candidates first.
District leaders, principals, teachers and other staff would be considered internal candidates who could apply.
Union presidents are district employees and could have applied; however, other union leaders and representatives would not have been able to unless the search was expanded to include external candidates.
Fresno Teachers Association leaders Louis Jamerson, pictured in the center, and Manuel Bonilla sign a tentative labor agreement between the teachers union and Fresno Unified School District last October. Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
The teachers union’s executive director, Louis Jamerson, said he’ll apply to be Fresno Unified’s superintendent if the process is opened to external candidates, but added that questions about the union’s involvement in the search process are “ridiculous.”
The union’s executive board endorses Jamerson’s plan to become superintendent and Bonilla, FTA president, as deputy superintendent.
“We have some support from our executive board and from our teachers to pursue this,” Jamerson said, referring to his public announcement in February to 200 educators who gave him a standing ovation.
“But that assumes that that’s possible. I don’t know, ultimately, how the board is going to decide on this process,” Jamerson said. “There could be another hurdle that prevents me from being able to apply. But if there are no hurdles, in terms of the ability for me to apply to become the superintendent, I will apply.”
FTA involvement isn’t unique to this search
The teachers union has been involved in the superintendent search process dating back to 2005, when Mike Hanson was hired, and 2017, when Nelson was selected.
Jamerson said that ensuring that the right superintendent is selected isn’t the only action the union takes to improve the education of students in Fresno Unified, where most students are still not meeting state standards.
“In my almost 10-year tenure at FTA, we have been involved in trying to do our best, from where we are, to try to … move this rock up a hill in terms of our students: our student safety, our student academic outcomes, our students’ ability to learn, read, do math — all of that,” Jamerson said about work the union engages in.
Trustee Jonasson Rosas said the situation is causing uneasiness at the district’s many schools, where students are now preparing for testing and other end-of-year obligations, such as college applications. Students who spoke during the April 3 meeting confirmed their worry.
“It’s unsettling for our school sites,” Jonasson Rosas said, “and I’m concerned about the effects that our schools are having because of this.”
Edison High senior Yunah Vang was one of seven students who stood at the podium during last Wednesday’s meeting, though not all spoke.
”Instead of preparing for my graduation or getting ready for my prom, my classmates and I are here addressing issues that we are supposed to trust adults with,” Vang said.
But regardless of how the search unfolds, the next superintendent must address the district’s struggles with student performance, including children’s ability to read and teens’ college readiness.
For third grade — the school year believed to be pivotal in determining reading proficiency and predicting future success — less than 1 in 3 third-graders are at grade level, a GO Public Schools 2023 student outcome report on Fresno Unified showed.
Of high school seniors in Fresno Unified, according to the report, under 20% are ready for college courses in English while less than 5% are ready for college math courses. College readiness is defined by a student exceeding standards on the 11th grade standardized tests.
It’s still unclear how the superintendent selection process will proceed. It’s possible that the board will update the community about the next phase of the process at its meeting on April 10.
Many are wondering whether qualified candidates will risk applying and being part of a process that has questionable community support or to work under a fractured school board. EdSource found that less experienced superintendents are becoming common across the state as there is a rise in superintendents leaving the job; many who are leaving cite threats, stress and politics.
“Interested candidates are going to be looking at the process thus far,” said Henry, the district’s spokesperson. “They’re going to be looking at how the board operates, how district leadership operates, how our schools operate. They’re going to take a deep dive and decide if this is the right fit for them, so I think it’s yet to be seen if this has a positive or negative impact on a wider search.”
Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.
Credit: John Joanino/Advancement Project California
Delaine Eastin, the only woman elected as California’s superintendent of public instruction, died Tuesday from complications of a stroke. She was 76.
She assumed the nonpartisan office in 1995, when the superintendent’s main power was persuasion. In a court decision preceding her election, the State Board of Education had wrested sole power to set state education policy from the state superintendent. But admirers said she used the public pulpit and verbal skills to effectively champion issues she cared about. These include raising academic standards, lowering class sizes and instilling the importance of nature in schools.
“Delaine was regarded as one of the great orators of the Legislature,” said Jack O’Connell, a fellow Democrat who served with her in the Legislature and succeeded her as state superintendent. Next to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Eastin was the most in demand on the speech circuit, he said. “Few could engender the kind of emotion and passion she delivered in every speech.”
Delaine Eastin
Calling her “a trailblazer in public education who will forever inspire us,” current State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said Eastin “was integral in establishing standards for what students should know and be able to do,” then developing statewide assessments and a school accountability system for the results. She also strengthened the framework for financial oversight of school districts through county offices of education and a quasi-state agency, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
“When I came into office, there was no testing. There were no academic content standards. And there was no system of school accountability at all,” Eastin told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003. “And we had the largest class size in America.”
Taking advantage of the state’s financially flush years, she made smaller classes a priority and helped persuade Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature to invest $2.3 billion to cut the size of K-3 classes from 30 to 20 students.
In 1995, she called for a garden in every school. With the help of Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters, she inspired the establishment of gardens in more than 3,000 schools. California became the first state to join the Clinton Team Nutrition effort to improve school nutrition. She oversaw curriculum guides on how to teach the academic content standards through nutrition, gardening, and cooking.
O’Connell called her “fearless in the constant fight for better school funding and put herself in the middle of every battle on behalf of kids.”
She was an early advocate of early childhood education, establishing a preschool task force of educators, business leaders, civil rights and children’s advocates that called for universal preschool. She established the state’s Teacher of the Year program; Thurmond honored her in this year’s state ceremony.
Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, a former school board member in San Jose, said Eastin left “an indelible imprint” on California’s school system. “Delaine was more than a colleague; she was a mentor and friend,” he said.
Born in San Diego, she moved to San Carlos as a child and was the first in the family to graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s degree from UC Davis and a master’s from UC Santa Barbara in political science. After teaching women’s studies and politics at De Anza College and Cañada College, she worked as a strategic planner for what was then Pacific Telephone before being elected to the City Council of Union City. She served four years in the Assembly in a district representing pats of Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
After serving the maximum two terms as state superintendent, she returned to politics in a brief run for governor as a voice for progressives in the 2018 Democratic primary. She was sixth with 3.4% of the vote. (For a transcript of an interview with then Executive Director Louis Freedberg during that campaign, go here.)
Eastin recalled to Orange County Register reporter Hanna Kang last year that women legislators were few and “especially close to each other” when she was in the Legislature. “Women did look after one another because we sort of had to, because we would be dismissed or spoken down to in some instances unless we stood up for each other.”
“I remember in the early days, there were people who wouldn’t let me on the members’ elevator because I was a girl, and I couldn’t possibly be a member,” she said.
Plans are underway for a public celebration to be held this summer.
The Fresno Unified school board on Friday appointed Misty Her, the district’s deputy superintendent, to lead the district on an interim basis while the board conducts a national search for someone to fill the permanent role.
The decision came after closed-session discussions at a Monday meeting and during special board meetings about the interim position on Wednesday and Friday.
As interim superintendent of California’s third-largest district, Her becomes the nation’s highest-ranking Hmong education leader and brings stability that the district needs, board members said at the news conference after Friday’s meeting.
Her appointment, which becomes effective on Wednesday when her contract is approved, allows Fresno Unified to “maintain momentum” without rushing the search process, board President Susan Wittrup told reporters.
“We need an interim superintendent who will continue to implement the important initiatives that the district is pursuing and who will ensure that we are fully prepared for the first day of school in the fall,” Wittrup said.
The school board said on April 10 that it would consider both internal and external candidates in the search for a new superintendent — a change in the search process that was spurred by weeks of community outrage.
The outrage followed a March 20 closed-session decision to interview internal candidates before deciding how to proceed with the search process. Details of the 4-3 decision were leaked to the media, sparking community anger that pushed the board to reverse course on April 3 and postpone already scheduled interviews.
After the April 10 decision, the search process was supposed to include community participation with the board providing additional updates at other meetings. Although board members met on April 24 for a regularly scheduled meeting, the board president didn’t disclose a timeline in a seemingly stalled process, The Fresno Bee reported.
Superintendent Bob Nelson announced his resignation on Jan. 22; his last day is July 31. The school district confirmed in a media release about Nelson’s resignation that Her would be named interim superintendent, but naming her on Friday is a move that most likely won’t restore community trust, according to Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla.
“The FUSD school board continues to erode community trust with its handling of the superintendent search process,” Bonilla said in an emailed statement following the announcement. “The board’s decision to announce the appointment of Interim Superintendent Misty Her during the Friday News Dump period, following two abnormally scheduled special meetings that effectively sidelined public input, undermines transparency and further erodes community trust in the superintendent selection process.”
So far, the search process has been engulfed in community angst about an alleged lack of transparency and accusations that the process had been tainted by politics, EdSource reported. District employees at the center of the search, including Her, even faced racial harassment and threats.
Reflecting on the last few weeks, board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said on Friday that the board is now where it needs to be — united to find its next superintendent who can advance student achievement. Most Fresno Unified students failed to meet the state standards in 2023.
The district leaders did not answer questions at Friday’s news conference but will host another one Wednesday before the board’s regularly scheduled meeting.
“Moving forward, the board must demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity and transparency in its decision-making processes,” Bonilla said. “We urge the board to prioritize meaningful community engagement and input in the selection of the next superintendent to rebuild trust and ensure accountability to all stakeholders.”
Nelson, board members say the appointment is what Fresno Unified needs
The board’s unanimous decision to appoint Her is what the Fresno Unified community needs, district leaders said.
“There is nobody I am more confident in leading our Fresno Unified family through this transitionary period than you,” Nelson said, addressing Her, at the Friday special board meeting. “You have never apologized about your relentless focus on student achievement, and that’s what we really need at this time.”
Her’s entire 30-year career has been in Fresno Unified where she’s held many positions, including a bilingual instructional aide, a school leader and deputy superintendent in 2021.
“Most important to me,” trustee Veva Islas said, “Misty’s lived experience allows her to relate to our disadvantaged students that no other superintendent can.”
Born in a prisoner of war camp in Laos, Her’s family escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand after the end of the Vietnam War before eventually coming to the United States and settling in Fresno when she was a young child, Fresno Unified said in an emailed statement. That firsthand experience and her understanding of the challenges faced by students from diverse backgrounds have shaped her into a passionate and effective leader, the school district stated.
Based on 2022-23 state data, more than 92% of Fresno Unified students are minorities, and according to 2023-24 district data, 88% of students are living in disadvantaged circumstances.
The school board, which has yet to lay out a timeline, share a job description for the next superintendent or select another search firm to lead the search, will update the community about the national search at its May 8 meeting.
The board is “committed and unified” to not only find the next superintendent but to support Her in the meantime, board members said.
“Fresno Unified is my life. From elementary school through more than three decades as an employee and a current Fresno Unified parent, my commitment runs deep,” Her said in the district’s statement.
“I am proud to serve our students and their families as one of their own,” she said. “Our Fresno Unified family deserves a leader who is a successful Fresno Unified graduate, is committed to this community and truly believes in our students and staff.”
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel and Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on May 8, 2024.
Credit: YouTube
A first-term California congressman sparred with the superintendent of Berkeley Unified and denounced the district’s choice of a consultant to create an ethnic studies curriculum during a House subcommittee hearing on antisemitism in K-12 schools Wednesday at the Capitol.
During his five minutes allowed for questioning, U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican representing a huge expanse of eastern California, pressed Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel about the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium.
The group pitches to school districts in California an alternative to the state’s ethnic studies model curriculum framework with a focus on dismantling capitalism, systems of racism, and Zionism, which it equates to colonialism. The group’s leaders include ethnic studies professors from California State University and the University of California.
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel and Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on Wednesday.
The district hired the group on a one-year contract in June 2023 for $111,120 to serve as what Ford Morthel called “a thought partner.” Berkeley’s memorandum of understanding said that the district’s Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee recommended the group as a “content expert group” that would “provide instructional materials, teacher training, and consultation for implementing ethnic studies.”
The consortium’s contract is up for renewal next month. Jewish parents in Berkeley have written the school board opposing continuing it. In their letter, the parents criticized the consortium as pushing “a non-inclusive, biased, divisive, and one-sided ideological world view.”
Ford Morthel testified Wednesday that the district has not purchased a Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum. Rather, she said, the district takes pride that teachers and community partners have written the curriculum. Teachers created lessons on Israel and Palestine because of “a lot of curiosity, a lot of questions, and quite frankly, a lot of confusion from many of our students wanting to know what was going on.”
The district did not respond Thursday to EdSource’s question on what the consortium is providing the district.
The district has not released the lesson plans, and a parent, Yossi Fendel, has sued the district for them. Fendel said that what he had been allowed to view of the ninth-grade lessons was biased against Israel and violated the district’s policy on teaching controversial issues, the publication Berkleyside reported.
The Liberated consortium is one of several consulting groups whose curriculum proposals have generated controversy in Sacramento and Berkeley.
The 16 members of the leadership team are listed on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium’s website and include leaders from across the state in ethnic studies.
Critics included State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The Jewish Legislative Caucus cited the curriculum’s one-sided view of the Israel-Palestine conflict and a favorable definition of the “boycott, divestment, sanctions movement,” which calls for sanctions and boycotts of Israel. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the document “insufficiently balanced and inclusive.”
Please answer yes or no
Early in the two-hour hearing, the chair of the subcommittee, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., forced Ford Morthel and the other two superintendents on the panel, New York City schools Chancellor David Banks and Montgomery County school board President Karla Silvestre, to give one-word answers to a series of complicated questions. One was whether the phrase “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
Yes or no, Bean asked?
“If it is calling for the elimination of the Jewish people in Israel,” Ford Morthel responded. “And I will also say that I recognize that it does have different meanings to different members of our community.”
“I’m going to go ‘yes.’ I’ll put you down, yes,” Bean said.
Kiley used that answer against her during his questioning. He referred to a slide in the teacher-prepared curriculum that cited the “From the river to the sea” phrase as a call for freedom and peace and paired it with a “supportive quote” by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, soon after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel. Congress censured Tlaib on a 224-188 Republican-led vote, with members claiming it implied support for armed resistance to abolish the state of Israel.
Many people, including most Jews, also view it that way. Others, Tlaib included, say it evokes future coexistence where everyone can live in freedom in Palestine.
“Do you think that’s an appropriate thing to have on a slide for students?” Kiley asked Ford Morthel.
“So,” she replied, “we definitely believe that it’s important to expose our students to a diversity of ideas and perspectives. And if it was presented as a perspective, I do think it’s appropriate.”
“You said earlier you thought this was antisemitic, and you put this on a slide in the classroom, and then students go around the hall saying it. I don’t think there’s anything surprising about that,” Kiley said.
Noting that the district passed a policy against hate speech last year, Ford Morthel said, “Public schools reflect the values and aspirations of their local communities. Berkeley is no different.
“Our history of activism, social justice, diversity, and inclusion is alive and well today. And we recognize the need to teach students to express themselves with respect and compassion.”
Stefan Bean is sworn in as Orange County’s 12th superintendent of schools on July 3, 2024.
Credit: Orange County Department of Education
Families of English learners and students with disabilities in Orange County can find inspiration and an ally in Stefan Bean. Supporters of school choice can find an advocate. In June, the five-member Orange County school board unanimously decided Bean has the perspective and skills they were looking for in a superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.
Two years from now, voters will decide if the board made the right choice.
Bean, 53, was sworn in last month as superintendent to fill out the remaining two years of the term of former Supterintendent Al Mijares, who resigned because of a lengthy battle with cancer. First elected in 2012, Mijares, a past member of the EdSource board of directors, had battled the politically conservative board majority in court and at board meetings. So the board turned to Bean, who lost to Mijares by nearly 10 percentage points in 2022 but promised to consult with them over policies and control of the office’s $380 million budget.
Stefan Bean is the superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.Credit: Orange County Department of Education.
Bean has lived a remarkable life and has an unusual resume for a county superintendent. Paralyzed from the waist down from polio as an infant, he was abandoned on the streets of Saigon before being taken in by an orphanage and then airlifted in 1975 to the United States as part of the Operation Babylift rescue during the chaotic end of the Vietnam War.
Judy and Gregory Bean took him and dozens of other foster children into their San Diego home and later adopted him. A scholarship recipient to USC, Bean became a public elementary school teacher in Fresno and Long Beach, and has spent the last 25 years as a charter school administrator — as the principal, then associate superintendent and superintendent for 11 Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles.
Most recently, he served as the executive director of the Irvine International Academy, a Mandarin language immersion charter school.
Since his wife died of breast cancer in 2020, Bean has raised their four children, ranging from a daughter who has just graduated from USC, to the youngest daughter, who is in middle school.
EdSource interviewed Bean about his childhood, his perspective on education, and his priorities as county superintendent for two years before an election contest in 2026. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
Superintendent, talk about your upbringing and experiences in school.
Judy Bean really taught her family to have compassion for the most vulnerable in our community. She and Dad decided they would care for children who were abused, had issues or disabilities. They had two of their own children and adopted 10, several with disabilities. I had three Black sisters, two Latino brothers, and a Latino brother who passed away at 2 because he had suffered so much brain trauma.
I went to public school in San Diego, where I struggled in elementary school because English was my second language and because IDEA (the landmark federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) just came out in the ‘70s, and schools were still trying to figure out how to educate students with disabilities. I often found myself in small groups out of the classroom. It didn’t really help with my education to isolate me, and it shaped my drive to be inclusive in education.
I didn’t do very well until I met Donald Geisinger, my sixth-grade teacher. I remain friends with him 43 years later. He saw right through the challenges that I had and said, “Stefan, you’re just going to give oral presentations and skits on the things that you’ve learned — no need to write.” That whole year I just worked on my verbal skills. I spoke Vietnamese quite a bit, and by the end of that year, I began to speak pretty fluent English. From sixth grade on, I began to get straight A’s and (earned) a scholarship to USC.
His heart for students and his seeing my strengths was a springboard to do other things, such as speaking in front of 15,000 people in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the disabled.
How did your experiences shape your perspective on education?
Mr. Geisinger and my father saw people and students through an asset lens. Whether they’re on the autism spectrum or have a physical disability or emotional disability — sure, these are deficits, but we as educators must see the assets in those students, and then lift them up and empower students.
Leading from the heart
When you say lead from the heart again, how does that translate into action?
You lead with empathy. My mantra has been you involve those who are most affected by decisions. It’s not top-down directed. Obviously there are certain legal and personnel decisions that would have to be made without input. But a lot of decisions that impact educational programming can involve the community and can involve the stakeholders that are impacted by it.
I assume that would be a particular strength in dealing with parents of English learners and parents of students with disabilities.
Absolutely. I now represent many students who have traditionally been left behind. I certainly identify with those students, and I hope that they will look to me as a voice for them.
Your predecessor had a contentious relationship with the board. Since the board chose you, I assume you are more philosophically in tune with them.
I can’t speak on behalf of Dr. Mijares, but I certainly have the utmost respect for his leadership. If I can lead in a collaborative, transparent manner, then I think we can resolve any dispute between the board and the County Department of Education. In my appointment process, I shared my commitment to building collaboration, transparency, and trust and continuing to support our 28 school districts.
How will you do this?
It is common for school districts to have committees in which two (out of five members), sometimes three if you have a larger board, can serve on these committees to really give input (without violating the Brown Act governing open meetings) and receive feedback.
You have been quoted as saying you want to “further expand” the board’s work supporting charters and open up more parental options for education, including charter schools and home schools. Is this a matter of using the bully pulpit? What can and will you do?
As people have been learning about me and meeting me and hearing my vision, they would say that I’m far from using this as a bullying pulpit. It’s the complete opposite, actually. My vision is to lead from the heart in which we serve our principals and serve our schools in this work. But to answer your question, this board certainly believes in alternative education models and therefore charter schools. I believe that most of the superintendents that I’ve met believe that our students have different needs. Therefore, in the name of equity, we must provide what our students need.
How does that work with homeschooling, though?
Many home schools now are charters, and charters are heavily regulated in all aspects. We support charter schools that do the independent study model, which is a lot like home school. We don’t support the private home school models. We do have within the department an independent study model in which students learn from home.
County offices can approve countywide charters but don’t charter proposals go through their individual districts for approval?
A charter school’s initial application goes to a local school district, and then if it’s denied there, they can bring it to their county as a county charter school. That’s one pathway. And then usually, those county charter schools can then later submit to be a countywide charter school. We have over 30 charter schools.
But don’t county boards have restrictions on when they can overturn a local decision?
If a district has denied a charter, they of course have to explain the reasons why. Then that charter can take it to the county board of education and say, “OK, this district denied us for A, B and C. And here’s how we have responded to A, B, and C. So now we would like you to authorize the charter.” There are few restrictions. Our county can certainly do that.
Theimportance of social-emotional learning
What is your view of social-emotional learning (SEL)?
Social-emotional learning is very important in schools when we do it as a team in a collaborative way. That includes our parents. Social emotional learning is simply helping our students navigate through the challenges of their lives. Helping them to become resilient. That’s exactly what I grew up with. I’ve had many adversities that our students experience. To overcome those, adults, including my parents, teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, special education providers, all of these people helped me to overcome my challenges to become resilient and competent. And that’s what SEL should be doing.
I have cautioned educators (not) to use it as a political tool to push forward something that may not be protecting our students. For instance, I believe 100% that parental involvement is absolutely critical in our education system. And so, if SEL is being used to exclude some of our parents, then we’ve missed the mark. That’s where I’m critical.
What are your priorities for the next two years?
The first priority is just to continue understanding the assets and the values of the department of education throughout Orange County.
My second vision is to remain at the forefront of 21st century competencies and skills and lead the way for our students through our OC Pathways partnerships with districts and ACCESS (Alternative, Community, and Correctional Education Schools and Services) what we call our 29th school district. We serve thousands of students across our county in an alternative education setting and model.
Assuming you do want to run in two years, what will you point to and say, “I’ve made this change, and it’s visible and it affects the way students succeed or not.”
It will be in the areas of where we will lead the nation, in college and career readiness. I wholeheartedly believe in that vision. One of my pushes will be to use some of our reserves to provide grants to our school districts in order to create and promote innovative programming. Three groups I spoke with recently were focused on artificial intelligence, different technical skills and student leadership. Our districts will come up with great ideas, and we will honor them with resources to implement them.
Stockton Unified Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez talks about how she arrived at her goals and plans for improving student achievement.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
Stockton Unified, a mostly poverty-stricken community in San Joaquin County, has become known for its legal troubles, financial issues and superintendent turnover, which have, for years, distracted the low-performing school district from addressing student achievement. Most of the district’s nearly 40,000 students have failed to meet state standards in English and math.
Becoming superintendent in July 2023, Michelle Rodriguez knew those facts to be true. Rodriguez, the 14th superintendent to lead the district in less than two decades, said she was determined to change SUSD’s troubled reputation by focusing on students, creating stability, restoring public trust and engaging the community “one interaction, one decision, one day at a time.”
But without “actually digging in to find out what is happening,” Rodriguez refused at the start to make assumptions about what the district faced, especially its barriers to student achievement.
“Until I get in the classroom, I probably won’t be able to answer the question about lack of student achievement here,” Rodriguez told EdSource last year.
“What I knew was that because I was the 14th superintendent in 19 years, and because of just the headlines that we had seen, we knew that we needed to make sure that we solidified the system,” she said in a recent sit-down. “Instead of making the assumption that I knew specifically what was happening, I identified four key areas that effective systems have”: quality assurance, high expectations, continuous improvement and community trust.
A little over a year since her start — aligned with those areas and guided by an initial 100-day plan, over 40 school visits and dozens of listening sessions and town halls — Rodriguez is implementing a public accountability system, 44 priority recommendations, and a district culture in which data and feedback drive change.
“Something that I’m trying to do is create new traditions and new systems to hear feedback, make changes and, kind of, move the work forward,” Rodriguez said.
A system of accountability
At the start of her superintendency, Rodriguez hosted meet-and-greets and community listening sessions in English and Spanish to identify concerns that the district needed to address; based on the sessions, there were in-person and virtual town halls to create priority recommendations with “fingerprints” of community feedback.
“We want to reach the hardest-to-reach parent. We want to reach the hardest-to-reach student,” Rodriguez said a year ago about listening and collaborating with the community to develop a plan. “And within those priority recommendations, you will see your fingerprints.”
As a result, all 44 priority recommendations, including a goal to create student success plans for certain student groups, came from those engagements.
Setting those goals was merely one part of Rodriguez’ approach.
Visit Stockton Unified’s Pubic Accountability Dashboard, here
Read the 2023 State of District, here, which detailed last school year’s priorities
The dashboard includes each goal, its complexity, which of the four areas it falls under, the department(s) responsible, actions, whether it’s completed or not, outcomes and the impact of those outcomes.
Simply put, the dashboard shows the district’s progress and holds the superintendent and the other officials accountable to the goals.
Rodriguez said she didn’t want the Stockton Unified community to feel as though “we did all this work, we did all these 21 listening sessions, and now nothing happened.”
44 goals is a lot. What’s been accomplished?
Within weeks of setting the goals, Rodriguez and the district completed “easy wins.”
An easy win, for example, was providing radios for special education classrooms to address student safety. Since the pandemic, dozens of teachers and staff had reported high numbers of “elopers,” mostly special education students but also young learners, running from the classroom — a recurring problem that “no one necessarily was able to solve, or chose to solve, until now,” she said.
For each radio purchased, a staff member felt better equipped to support students, Rodriguez said.
“Things like that seem insignificant, but to the system, they had a lot of impact because now those teachers feel more at ease that if they do have a student leave the classroom, there’s a way to get help to retrieve them,” she said.
Rodriguez, also in her first few weeks, formed a student advisory group of 90 students from the district’s high schools.
The formation of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory, the first of its kind in Stockton Unified, allowed her to listen to students, such as Emily Gomez Valle, a Chavez High School junior, who said the advisory was a way for her to advocate for her peers.
Then, the district tackled short-term goals, accomplishing them in three months. The district, for instance, started conducting thorough exit interviews to understand why staff were leaving the district.
The easy wins and short-term goals were intentional, so that “people knew the superintendent was getting things done,” Rodriguez said.
In the 2023-24 school year, under Rodriguez’ leadership, Stockton Unified’s graduation rate increased to 83.9% — the highest in the district’s history.
Long-term goals completed in the 2023-24 school year included increased access and participation in Educators Thriving, a program that provides social-emotional support and training for teachers and other school staff. Stockton Unified is set to have two program cohorts with up to 100 educators participating this school year, according to its accountability dashboard.
Based on the need to “focus on our most vulnerable students and have an action plan that is linked to them,” Stockton Unified created specific student success plans for Black students, English learners, homeless youth and students with special needs.
Other long-term goals have addressed the district’s legal and financial woes. The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, launched a criminal investigation into Stockton Unified in April 2023, after a state audit by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) found evidence that fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred between July 2019 and April 2022.
Millions of dollars in federal one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding, which school districts received to address the impacts of the pandemic, was the subject of the investigation. Under Rodriguez’ leadership, the school district didn’t have to repay the federal government the $6.6 million in ESSER funding that was improperly awarded for a contract.
Rodriguez’ challenge was spending the ESSER funds by their timeline.
As of March 2023, just months before she started, Stockton Unified had spent only 1.84% (over $5 million) of the more than $156 million it received in ESSER III, which must be returned to the federal government if not budgeted this month and spent by January 2025. According to Rodriguez, the district has now used all the funding, completing over 40 projects.
But the allegations about the misuse of ESSER funding triggered a 2021-22 grand jury investigation into the district’s overall spending as well. Stockton Unified, Rodriguez said in 2023, relied on and spent a lot of money on consultants, which the grand jury attributed to district staff lacking the “necessary training and guidance to execute complex district business needs.”
Stockton Unified has since identified and evaluated the consultants and increased staff expertise to take over the work, leading to a reduction in consultant costs from $886,561 last school year to an estimated $275,000 this year.
And as of June, the district has finalized 32 of 44 priority recommendations, including the easy wins, short-term goals and long-term priorities.
Still there are larger systemic and structural projects and objectives that are taking more than a year to accomplish, up until this school year or longer.
What’s left to do
Three weeks after school started in the 2023-24 school year, Rodriguez said she met a homeless student who hadn’t attended school at all. She told the student about district supports, such as transportation to school and other available resources once on campus.
“And what she said to me is, ‘How do you expect me to come to school when I haven’t bathed in a week?’” the superintendent recalled.
Such encounters highlighted the need to expand family and community partnerships, increase expectations and develop equitable action plans, all of which are among the remaining priorities meant to support students and improve their experience in Stockton Unified, Rodriguez said.
More than 82% of Stockton Unified students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to EdData, with many facing challenges such as the student Rodriguez encountered. Even so, there must be increased expectations for students to perform at high levels with strong support.
Using her saying, “You change experiences to change beliefs to change expectations,” Rodriguez said, “I actually have to reframe your experiences so that it changes your beliefs about students, and, then, that changes your expectations for students.”
The district will also conduct an equity audit to develop a three-year action plan. The equity audit is meant to evaluate district and school policies, practices and procedures that are inequitable and create barriers “that are getting in the way of our students,” Rodriguez said. The goal requires the district to form teams of employees from each school, which will develop a multiyear action plan.
In fact, Stockton Unified’s 2024-2027 LCAP goals are to increase student academic achievement; center the whole child; provide systemic and innovative programs aligned to students’ passions, interests and talents; create meaningful partnerships; provide access and opportunities to ensure success for students with disabilities; and provide positive learning conditions and experiences for Black students to thrive.
Some of the other district priorities include:
Investing in facilities by putting $50 million of ESSER funding into schools so that students have access to amenities such as classrooms with science labs.
Equitably offering arts programs at the district’s 55 schools and for all students, specifically those who are Black, English learners, homeless, have special needs and/or are foster youth who benefit from “differentiated instruction,” Rodriguez said.
Launching school and district administrator classroom visits, allowing classroom staff to get feedback and administrators to gain a better knowledge of the adopted curriculum.
Resolving the remaining findings and corrective actions reported by the California Department of Education and the San Joaquin County Office of Education as well as the findings of grand jury, FCMAT and audit reports.
Knowing if and when to change course
In some areas, such as chronic absenteeism, Stockton Unified identified a systemic goal and improved that metric in a year’s time, but still must find solutions to continue addressing the problem. In this case, the goal was to identify solutions to chronic absenteeism, in which students miss 10% or more days in a school year. Stockton Unified data shows that chronic absenteeism, though still higher than prepandemic numbers, decreased by 3.1 percentage points from the 2022-23 to the 2023-24 school year.
“How can we celebrate that?” Rodriguez asked, “but at the same time say, ‘OK, well, what we’re doing is working. Is it working fast enough? Are there any shifts that we could continue to do?’”
Chronic absenteeism, performance indicators and other data measured over time create the challenge of knowing if, when and how to pivot a district response.
For example, even though there isn’t a specific district goal about it, Stockton Unified has been adding an intervention teacher to each K-8 school based on district data. Seventeen of 41 such teachers have been hired so far.
“When we’re looking at our KPI (key performance indicator) data, what we know is that our students aren’t making the growth that we need them to make,” Rodriguez said. The district is now using iReady data, which allows teachers to deliver adaptive lessons and includes data on student progress.
Based on fall 2023 iReady data, 35% of fourth graders were one grade level behind in English, 13% were two grade levels behind and 39% were three or more grades behind, meaning that just 12.6% were on grade level. In math, 35% of fourth graders were one grade level behind, 25% were two grade levels behind and 32% were at least three years behind, meaning only 8.4% of students were on grade level.
“What is our data actually telling us? Every quarter we’re looking at the data because we want to be able to pivot and shift quicker than just yearly,” she said.
And the district was able to do that by the end of the 2023-24 school year. In the spring 2024 semester, 24.3% of fourth graders were on grade level in English – an 11.7 percentage point increase from the previous semester. In math, fourth graders on grade level grew from 8.4% to 29% — an improvement of 20.6 percentage points.
Maintaining focus
The priorities that Stockton Unified has identified are what the district has and will continue to focus on moving forward, Rodriguez said. While the equity audit will identify needed changes over the next three years, and while the district will respond to data, the district won’t shift much from the priorities it has identified.
“If you aren’t actually focused on what you need to do, then you can be too scattered and not really have the impact that you want,” she said, adding that, “Some of these changes will not change in one single year.”
Rodriguez maintains her pledge to make those changes by dedicating the last eight years of her career to Stockton Unified — a plan that became more attainable when the school board extended her contract until 2028, or year five.
“Why aren’t kids being successful?” she said. “That cannot happen until people even believe that I’m going to stay put. I won some people over at the six-month mark. I (won) some people over at the year mark. Some people will take the two-, three- year mark.”
Most board members said Her, out of applicants from across the nation, was the best candidate to improve student outcomes.
The year-long selection process may have eroded community trust.
Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, named interim superintendent Misty Her to the permanent role Wednesday, ending more than a year-long, contentious process to select a leader for a school system that many say needs to improve student outcomes and rebuild trust in the community.
The board voted 6-1 in closed session to select Her, keeping her at the helm of the 70,000-student district with over 15,000 employees. Trustee Susan Wittrup who cast the sole “no” vote said Her does not have a “proven track record of action, urgency and accountability with accelerating academic achievement.”
Late last school year, the school board picked Her, who was then a deputy superintendent in the district, to lead the district on an interim basis while the search for the permanent position went on. The board will approve Her’s contract at the April 30 meeting.
“We are not waiting for change to happen,” Her said after her selection. “We are leading it, and I am proud to be the leader at the helm of this critical work.”
Despite a 1.52 percentage point improvement from the 2022-23 school year, 34.72% of students met or exceeded the state’s English standards in 2023-24.
For third grade – the school year hailed as being pivotal in determining reading proficiency and predicting future success – less than one in three students were on grade level in English standards, a GO Public Schools 2024 student outcome report showed. According to the report, the numbers are closer to one in five English learners, students with disabilities and Black students meeting standards. Specifically among the English standards, 30.7% of third graders were below the standard in reading and 43.3% were below the standard in writing, the report detailed.
In math, 25.14% of students met or exceeded standards, a 1.83 point increase from the previous school year.
“Nobody should be even remotely satisfied with where we are,” said board member Andy Levine. “Selecting Misty as our next superintendent is our best bet to seeing Fresno Unified significantly improve academic outcomes for all students in the years ahead…”
As interim superintendent, Her established two district-wide goals: improving student outcomes and achieving operational excellence, “recognizing that our district was not progressing because we lacked focus and clarity districtwide,” board president Valerie F. Davis said.
Increase the percentage of first graders proficient in literacy
Support elementary and middle school students with underachieving reading test scores to accelerate their reading skills and close achievement gaps
Raise the percentage of students graduating from high school who are considered college and career ready
Build and equip students with essential skills, such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking
Moving forward, the district will align its actions with those board-set goals, monitoring programs’ and initiatives’ “academic return on investment,” Her told EdSource during an interview in early April.
So far, Her’s own plans have included implementing, measuring the effectiveness and monitoring the progress of the district’s recently-launched Every Child Is a Reader literacy initiative to achieve first-grade reading proficiency for students, two years before third grade, when future success is predicted.
Also a part of her tenure, Fresno Unified gathered state, district, school and student data to identify and prioritize ways to enhance learning for each child while also focusing on historically underserved student groups, such as English learners and students with disabilities, who have significant achievement gaps compared to other groups.
This school year, educators have been able to adapt teaching and leadership strategies based on real-time data via a district dashboard, including data-informed and data-driven instruction.
Her’s entire 32-year career has been in Fresno Unified where she’s held many positions, including a bilingual instructional aide, teacher, school administrator, districtwide leader and deputy superintendent in 2021.
“I know this district because I am this district,” Her said. “My story, like so many of our students, began in hardship, but it is fueled by hope.”
Born in a prisoner-of-war camp in Laos, Her’s family escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand after the end of the Vietnam War before eventually coming to the United States and settling in Fresno when she was a young child. Both her parents worked as custodians cleaning Fresno Unified classrooms where she, as a student, later “learned to read, to dream and to lead.”
“As an immigrant who overcame language and cultural barriers,” according to the district, “Misty understands the challenges many of our students face and is committed to ensuring every student has the opportunity to succeed.”
Of the more than 92% of Fresno Unified students who are from ethnic minority groups, around 6,500 are Hmong. Behind Spanish, the Hmong language, which was only developed in written form less than 75 years ago, is at over 10%, the second most common home language of Fresno Unified’s English learners.
“My lived experience — the struggles, the barriers, the perseverance — are not liabilities,” Her said. “They are my greatest leadership strengths.”
Wednesday’s selection concludes a long process
While members of the Hmong community thanked the board for its “care” and “diligence” in the search process and commitment to diversity with Her’s hiring, some criticized the board for making closed-door decisions without community engagement.
The search process in its early months was engulfed in community angst about an alleged lack of transparency and accusations that the process had been tainted by politics, EdSource reported.
Respondents to a Fresno Teachers Association survey of teachers and school staff indicated that they’ve lost trust in the school board, “not because of the person you chose but because of the process that you led,” said Manuel Bonilla, president of the teachers union.
“This isn’t just about process; it’s about trust,” Bonilla said. “It’s about a pattern of closed-door decisions.”
In January 2024, then-superintendent Bob Nelson announced his resignation to start a tenure-track position at Fresno State after his last day on July 31.
On March 20, 2024, the board’s 4-3 decision to interview internal candidates before deciding how to proceed with the search process sparked community anger. Details of the closed session were leaked to the media, pushing the board to reverse course on April 3 and postpone already scheduled interviews.
In May 2024, to avoid rushing the search process, the board named Her to the interim role, to “maintain momentum.”
Qualities the community asked for
The district conducted 24 listening sessions.
Key themes deemed necessary for the district’s next leader included:
An educational background that includes experience as a teacher, an administrator and other roles
Experience and understanding of the district’s history, culture, complexities and diversity
Effective communication skills and the ability to collaborate and engage with people in the school community
A strategic vision supported by data-driven strategies
“Those are the qualities we found 100% in Misty Her,” board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said.
Fresno Unified’s Misty Her and district leadersCredit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
Naming Her as interim superintendent wouldn’t restore community trust, Bonilla warned.
“You had the chance to build public trust through transparency and inclusion,” he said. “Instead, you allowed what many people thought was a secretive process.”
While the superintendent’s job description and criteria as well as other aspects of the search process were presented at public meetings where community members could comment, some people expected more participation in the search process, especially following last year’s alledged lack of transparency.
The teachers union, for example, requested a community forum for finalists, which didn’t occur. Candidate applications and interviews have remained confidential behind closed-door sessions.
In other places across the country, applications and interviews of those applying for a superintendency are open to the public because of state legislation.
According to the district, the board in its national search accepted applications from candidates from several states, in which Her’s “depth of experience, unparalleled skills and dedication to the students of Fresno Unified make her the ideal person to assume the top leadership role for Fresno Unified.”
“This next chapter is not about politics,” said board president Davis during a press conference announcing Her’s selection. “It’s about our 70,000 students and their families. It’s about building on the progress we have made while boldly charting a new path forward: one that demands excellence out of every student, every classroom, every teacher, every school, every neighborhood we serve.”
Jill Underly was recently te-elected as State Superintendent of Schools in Wisconsin. She is an active member of the Netwotk for Public Education and attended its last two meetings. She released the following statement after two courts hacked away at Trump’s threat to withhold funds from schools that taught diversity, equity, and inclusion
MADISON, Wis. (WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION PRESS RELEASE) – State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly today issued a statement following two federal court rulings that limit the Trump administration’s ability to withhold critical school funding over an unclear certification form and process.
“Our top priority in Wisconsin is our kids and making sure every student has the support they need to succeed. The past few weeks, school leaders have been scrambling to understand what the impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s order could be for their federal funds, forcing them to take their eye off what matters most.
“Today, two separate courts reached a similar conclusion: the USDE’s new certification process is likely unlawful and unconstitutionally vague. That is a welcome development for our schools and communities who, working in partnership with parents and families, are best positioned to make decisions for their communities – not Washington, D.C.
“We are closely reviewing today’s rulings and will continue to stand up for Wisconsin schools, and most importantly, our kids.”
