California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit today against Chino Valley Unified asking the San Bernardino County Superior Court to end a district policy that requires school staff to tell parents if their child asks to be identified by a different gender or name, or accesses a bathroom or program that don’t align with the gender on their official records.
The lawsuit also asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction to halt the district policy immediately to protect the safety of transgender and gender-nonconforming students in the school district while the court case proceeds.
“In its function, in its text, and in its context this policy is disruptive,” Bonta said at a news conference Monday morning. “It’s discriminatory, and it’s downright dangerous. It has no place in California, which is why we have moved in court to strike it down.”
The Attorney General’s Office filed the case after completing a civil rights investigation of the district. The investigation found that the policy, passed on July 21, discriminates against transgender and gender-nonconforming students, violates their constitutional and civil rights, and threatens their mental, emotional and physical well-being, Bonta said.
“Let’s call this policy what it is. It’s a forced outing policy,” Bonta said.
The policy violates the constitutional right of all California students to be treated equally, regardless of their gender, gender identity, or gender expression, Bonta said. It violates California’s equal protection clause, and it violates California’s constitutionally protected right to privacy, he said.
Transcripts and recordings of the Chino Valley Unified board meetings reveal that trustees were motivated by a desire to harbor animosity, discrimination and prejudice, Bonta said.
“Transgender and gender-nonconforming students were described as suffering from a mental illness and perversion,” Bonta said. “There were claims that policies protecting these students are a threat to the integrity of our nation and the family system as we know it. One board member even went as far as to publicly state that transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals need non-affirming action from their parents to get better.”
Chino Valley Unified officials weren’t notified that the lawsuit was filed until after media outlets began to report on it Monday morning, said Andrea Johnston, district spokeswoman, in an email.
Johnston did not provide a district official for an interview with EdSource, saying district officials were still reviewing the lawsuit with attorneys. But, Johnston did dispute Bonta’s allegation that the policy puts transgender students at risk.
“The district’s policy does protect transgender students by requiring staff to notify CPS/law enforcement if the student believes they are in danger or have been abused, injured, or neglected due to their parent or guardian knowing of their preferred gender identity. In these circumstances, CVUSD staff will not notify parents or guardians, but rather, wait for the appropriate agencies to complete their investigations regarding the concerns shared by the student.”
Johnston said that the district has been transparent in its dealings with the Attorney General’s office on the matter, providing it with all the requested documents and records.
“Superintendent (Norm) Enfield spoke with the DOJ’s legal counsel weekly to confirm the district was providing requested files, which had changed several times from the original subpoena,” she wrote in the email.
Students who submitted declarations for the lawsuit said the board policy has made them fear for their safety and has caused them to become withdrawn in school.
“It presents students with a terrible choice, either walk back your rights to gender identity and gender expression, to be yourself, to be who you are, or face the risk of serious harm, mental harm, emotional harm, physical harm,” Bonta said of the policy.
“We are standing up for our children today, not allowing their rights to be trampled, not allowing them to be put in harm’s way by a school board who is not complying with California law,” Bonta said.
Packed crowd anticipates discussion on Orange Unified Parental Notification Policy on Sept. 8, 2023.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource
In a unanimous 4-0 vote, the Orange Unified School District passed a policy Thursday evening that would require school officials to notify parents and guardians if their child asks to use a name or pronoun different than what was assigned at birth, or if they engage in activities and use spaces designed for the opposite sex.
The policy, which has now percolated through a half dozen California districts, has its origins in Assembly Bill 1314, proposed by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, which was denied a hearing at the state level in April.
Rocklin Unified School District passed such a measure Wednesday. Previously, Temecula Valley Unified (Aug. 22), Anderson Union High School District (Aug. 22) Murrieta Valley Unified (Aug.10) and Chino Valley Unified (July 20) passed almost identical policies.
The policies passed by Chino Valley Unified and Murrieta Valley Unified have garnered backlash from state officials – who called the decisions a violation of students’ civil rights and have initiated an investigation into Chino Valley Unified. A Superior Court judge in San Bernardino County has also temporarily halted Chino Valley Unified’s policy.
It would specifically require parents and guardians to be notified if their child asks to use a different name or set of pronouns, or if they ask to use a different sex’s segregated spaces, such as bathrooms or locker rooms.
The policy would also mandate school principals be informed of pupils experiencing gender dysphoria or gender incongruence.
District officials would be required to tell school principals or counselors if a student makes any attempt or threat of suicide. The principal would then have to seek out medical or mental health treatment for the student, ensure that they are supervised until their parents, guardians or another support agency intervenes, and notify emergency assistance – such as law enforcement – if necessary.
Verbal and physical altercations, along with complaints of bullying, would have to be relayed to parents within three days.
But the policy’s opponents say denying student’s a source of support at school – especially if they come from toxic home environments and non-accepting parents – could exacerbate their mental health.
“When our lawmakers fail, when our families don’t accept us, when our friends leave us…I just want to feel safe at school,” said an Orange Unified School District high school student at the previous Aug. 17 meeting.
School Board Member Angie Rumsey said the majority of teachers would also back the policy.
“As a [someone in education], I hold and hide nothing from the parents of my students. The relationship begins with a realization that, as the teacher, I am not going to hide anything or keep information from a parent,” Rumsey said during the meeting. “Teachers should communicate with parents regarding any change in behavior.”
However, before the Aug. 17 meeting, the Orange Unified Educators Association released a letter, arguing the policy would violate various aspects of California law as well as “student privacy rights grounded in the California Constitution.”
The union added that the policy would burden teachers with the difficult task of discussing sensitive issues about their students with parents.
“In addition to the legal issues, this policy requires certificated employees to have the appropriate knowledge, training, and time to have communication with students and guardians about sensitive and confidential issues,” the letter stated.
“With the number of requirements and expectations already placed on certificated staff, this is an unreasonable and highly concerning expectation.”
Thursday evening, California Attorney General Rob Bonta also issued a letter to the board opposing the measure.
The school board meeting was heated – and dozens of activists spoke passionately for the measure, including many who didn’t have a direct connection to the district.
The three board members who opposed the policy walked out of the meeting before the vote, following a disruption.
“There’s a chilling effect that occurs for folks who then are unsure about what they can say and not say or what they’re required to do, and…. it creates a lot of stress on top of what is already a very stressful job for teachers,” said USC Professor of Education Julie Marsh.
“…But the broader ripple effect is that you know, might it dissuade potential teachers from actually going into the teaching profession.”
The policy
Orange Unified School District is now the sixth district in California to pass a policy that would require parental notification when students show signs of being transgender.
The district had originally considered that same policy at its meeting on Aug. 17, but Thursday’s agenda included a version where school counselors or psychologists would be informed instead of parents and guardians.
The board ultimately decided to revert back to a parental notification policy between Thursday’s closed and open sessions.
In response, several board members objected to discussing the item and tried to postpone the vote to a later meeting, after the Superior Court heard arguments for Chino Valley on Oct. 13. Those board members also claimed that they did not have enough time to adequately review the policy.
The version that ultimately passed reverted back to the policy’s original intention.
After the proposed AB 1314 was denied a hearing at the state level, Essayli – who spoke at Thursday’s meeting – vowed to bring it to local districts and encouraged parents to pursue litigation.
“In a state like California… a blue state, it becomes really the only option for these kinds of policies and actions to be occurring,” Marsh said. “And it shows us that we’re not immune.”
The protocols outlined in the policy in response to bullying and threats of suicide have become a common argument in favor of its passage – but detailed policies and protocols to support students through these challenges already exist in Orange County and other districts.
The 2023 Lead-Up at Orange Unified
January – The new Orange Unified School Board fired then-Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen during a closed session meeting without a stated reason. She was out of the country at the time. Angered by that board decision, parents have dubbed that night the “Thursday night massacre.”
Later that month, the board suspended the district’s digital library in response to parents’ complaints about the book “The Music of What Happens.”
February – Orange Unified School District’s interim superintendent Edward Velasquez resigned after one month in the position.
The board also faced a Brown Act complaint for allegedly not providing enough notice prior to a meeting, among other claims.
March: The district faced two lawsuits about alleged Brown Act violations as well as one from parents about the Superintendent firing.
June – The Orange Unified School Board adopted a policy that would ban Pride flags and other flags, calling them divisive.
August – The OUSD School Board appointed Ernie Gonzalez as its new superintendent and held an initial discussion of the new parental rights policy that would require school staff to inform parents if their child indicates they are transgender.
For the past several months, community activists have been calling for a recall of Board Members Rumsey, John Ortega, Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma, the president.
“All that we’re seeing in Temecula and Chino and Orange and other places around the state are examples of the same thing, where we’ve got a very concerted effort that started with trying to elect conservative members to the board to get a majority and to then advance policies that are more conservative in nature,” Marsh said.
“Some would argue it’s a politics of distraction to distract us from the core work of what schools are supposed to be doing around teaching and learning. And others would even go further to say this is an explicit effort to undermine public confidence in the public school system.”
Marsh added, “I feel like it’s a wake-up call for folks to just pay a little bit more attention to school boards.”
More than a thousand members of the Fresno Teachers Association rallied in late May and vowed to strike if the union and school district fail to agree to a contract by Sept. 29, 2023.
Credit: Courtesy of Fresno Teachers Association
The state’s third-largest school district, Fresno Unified, and its teachers union have tried since November to agree on a contract that invests in teachers.
The Fresno Teachers Association says its proposals are classroom-centered ideas to improve public education, including bettering teachers’ working environment, adding academic and social-emotional student support and increasing pay and benefits.
FTA President Manuel Bonilla said the school district hasn’t responded in a meaningful way, “really showing they have a lack of vision and honor the status quo.”
Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson disagrees.
“One of the things that’s frequently said is, ‘You have no vision,’” said Nelson, regarding FTA’s claims. “Our vision was to sit down and create a new way of bargaining, where we would work collaboratively on the things that really matter.”
Amid the tug-of-war of negotiations and a looming strike, both sides insist that they want to collaborate but continue to accuse the other side of stalling and impeding progress. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and more than 70,000 students who are still dealing with learning loss from the pandemic will inevitably bear the brunt of the fallout.
While a compromise may be attainable on some issues, others — notably class size caps, lifetime medical benefits after retirement and ways of supporting students outside of class — are still elusive.
Perhaps pay is negotiable
The union argues that to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, Fresno Unified — the Central Valley’s largest employer with a $2.3 billion budget — should set the standard for salary and benefits, starting with raising pay to keep pace with rising inflation and the cost of living.
Bonilla said that the district has been “defunding teachers” for the past decade.
He cited a union analysis showing that, despite increased funding and a rising number of teachers, the district has invested a smaller portion of the overall budget on teacher salaries over the years. Ten years ago, for instance, the district allocated 41% of its budget to teacher salaries compared with 27% in the most recent budget.
The school district’s analysis of salary, inflation and cost-of-living paints a different picture.
District spokesperson Nikki Henry said that the district’s analysis of its salary increases between 2013-14 and 2022-23 shows that all staff have received 32.7% increases. On top of that, teachers received step increases and longevity stipends, amounting to an additional 40%. The salary increases outpace inflation over the same period, which was 30%, according to the district’s analysis.
The district estimates that the 11% raises it’s offering would put the average teacher salary at over six figures. Despite teachers being at different levels of the pay schedule, Fresno Unified said teachers earn an average of $90,650, in pay alone, for 185 work days, based on a $490 average daily rate — a number Bonilla said is inflated.
Based on Fresno Unified’s pay schedule, salary currently ranges from $56,013 for new teachers to about $102,000 for teachers with loads of experience, not including those with professional development.
The district has also agreed to fund medical costs at 100%, Nelson said. But that action stemmed from a health management board vote about the district health care fund, not from negotiations, Bonilla said.
One-hundred-percent district-funded health care happened, in part, Bonilla said, because there was enough money in the district’s health care fund to do so. The health care fund has a surplus of money, estimated at $47 million this school year, according to a June 2023 document shared with EdSource. At this level, FTA argues, the health fund can cover the costs of its proposal to restart lifetime medical benefits for retirees.
No agreement on lifetime benefits
Nelson maintains that restarting lifetime benefits puts the district’s fiscal solvency in jeopardy.
“I’m not going to make any decisions that I think would put the district in long-term fiscal danger,” he said.
Fresno Unified ended the practice in 2005, but 300 or so employees, including Superintendent Nelson, had qualified for lifetime benefits before it ended.
For the hundreds of current employees still eligible for lifetime benefits, Nelson said, estimated future costs total more than $1 billion. And, if lifetime benefits are restored or based on 2020 hire dates as proposed, the future costs will grow by hundreds of millions of dollars.
“It creates a fiscal cliff … a world of unknowns, none of which you can financially plan for,” he said.
Class size average vs. class size cap. Caps can lower class sizes, union says
Though lifetime retiree benefits are the top issue that the district won’t agree to, it’s not the only one.
Ninety-three percent of Fresno Unified’s 1,800 teachers who responded to an August and September 2022 union poll either strongly agreed or agreed that lowering class sizes would improve student learning.
Fresno Unified acknowledges the importance of smaller classes but “draws the line” on capping class size as the union proposed, stating that it forces schools to move students out of a class, or even a school, if a class reaches its cap.
“I can’t rationalize that in any fair way,” Nelson said. Henry added that such stringent measures would split families who attend their neighborhood school.
District wants contract to address student underperformance
Bonilla said that Fresno Unified insists on tying student performance to teacher evaluations, which “unfairly penalizes the teacher” for factors out of their control.
“The teacher could potentially be negatively impacted by that without having the authority to say, ‘We need to change these working conditions,’” Bonilla said about a teacher’s inability to control class size or students’ adverse experiences.
District officials say that using students’ outcomes in teachers’ evaluations is not meant to be punitive but to help educators grow.
Based on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests, most Fresno Unified students did not meet state standards in 2022: 67.76% failed to meet the English language arts standards, and 79.18% didn’t reach the math standards.
The school board is pressuring the district to address students’ underperformance, Nelson said.
“If kids are not thriving in a setting, for whatever reason, we have an obligation to go figure out why — and unapologetically,” Nelson said.
Proposals for student support shouldn’t be in the contract, the district argues
Also on the negotiation table are the union’s ideas for student support, which the district says go beyond teachers’ working conditions and don’t belong in the teacher contract.
Bonilla said most of the ideas came straight from educators, who work with students directly and know the factors outside the classroom that are impacting students’ ability to learn.
With clothing closets at nearly two dozen schools, Henry said, Fresno Unified already practices some of the common-good measures. While the staff at those schools started the ventures themselves, she said, the district will offer $10,000 startup costs for other schools wanting to start the initiative.
Nelson questions some of the other student-support ideas proposed by the union, such as utilizing school parking lots to serve the homeless population. “It’s not our area of expertise,” he said, adding that the district is willing to partner with experts serving that population.
“Is it the school system’s job to fix everything in regards to societal things? Absolutely not,” Bonilla said. Like other districts with 55% or more of students living in poverty, or are English learners, foster youth or homeless, Fresno Unified receives 65% more of its base funding.
In fact, 87% of Fresno Unified students fall into at least one of those categories, so on top of the more than $650 million in basic educational costs, the district gets over $249 million for its targeted students, according to the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan executive summary.
Bonilla said the ideas, such as the parking lot for homeless families to park their cars, are meant to start a conversation with district leaders.
“There are ideas on how we might do it because nobody else is thinking about these things,” he said. “Instead of coming to the table and designing something with us, they’d rather scrutinize the idea and shut down the conversation. Our ideas are not the end all, be all; they are a starting point. And if they have a better idea, let’s do that. But they don’t even want to have a conversation.”
Ideas or not, it’s a part of FTA’s last, best and final offer, Nelson and Henry said.
Nelson said the union has not deviated much from that proposal, even in July and September mediations, which to Nelson is an indicator that the union hasn’t moved toward a shared vision for the school district.
The union shared a similar sentiment about the district, saying that since contract negotiations started in November, Fresno Unified has focused on defending what it currently does in regard to pay and benefits, class size and student support.
Awaiting fact-finding report, which both sides have preconceived notions about
Negotiations have led to a May promise to strike, to both sides declaring impasse in July and to failed mediation attempts in July and during a Sept. 5-7 fact-finding.
“I’m holding out some hope that the fact-finder’s report will get us to a different state,” Nelson said.
In the fact-finding stage, FTA and Fresno Unified made presentations to a neutral third party, who will make a recommendation.
“They don’t come into this process trying to improve school systems,” Bonilla said. “They come into this process trying to settle a contract.”
The fact finder will most likely focus on salary and benefits, Bonilla said, not lowering class size, for example.
“That should be the leadership’s position of working with teachers in order to figure out how to design those systems,” Bonilla said, adding that Nelson will most likely propose adopting the findings, as-is, like he did in 2017 when teachers voted to strike but averted it. The teachers union, Bonilla said, will not write a “blank check” from someone who doesn’t know teachers’ day-to-day reality.
Despite the union attempting to “invalidate” the findings, as Henry described it, district leadership remains confident in the report, which is expected early next week.
If the union and district still don’t agree on a contract 10 days after the fact-finding report, the district must release that report to the public, leaving them with the option to impose a contract and allowing the union to vote to strike.
FTA had already imposed a Sept. 29 deadline for the school district to agree on a contract or face an Oct. 18 strike vote, which teachers may feel is the only route left to take.
Is striking the only option left?
Many teachers, according to Bonilla, do not feel supported and are disappointed by the district’s response — or lack thereof — to what the union considers solution-based methods.
“We went through the avenues that one should go through,” Bonilla said, noting how more than 100 teachers attended eight school board meetings. “We communicated with board members. We communicated with the superintendent.
“We’re here because Superintendent Nelson has failed to give vision (and) direction.”
Nelson’s vision, he said, was to change how bargaining traditionally happened: to be able to sit down and collaborate without a third party mediator having to step in.
Thinking long term, Nelson continues to believe that coming to — and staying at — the bargaining table is the best route for Fresno Unified.
“There’s no scenario — even the scenario by which they take the strike vote and actually strike — where you don’t have to sit down and have a productive discussion,” Nelson said.
If and when that conversation takes place, Bonilla said, the administration must listen to teachers.
“In many ways, we’re fighting for the heart and soul of this school district,” he said. “This model that doesn’t give voice to those actually in the classroom needs to end if we really want to be a school district that meets the needs of our students.”
May 12 began as a typical school day for Temecula Valley High School drama teacher Greg Bailey.
But when he opened his mailbox, he found a printed copy of an email, sent on May 7, complaining that he taught the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Angels in America” by Tony Kushner, which deals with the AIDS epidemic in New York during the 1980s.
Allegations mounted that Bailey was grooming students and that he forced them to perform a short, explicit scene involving a gay man who makes questionable choices while dealing with the pain of his partner who was dying of AIDS.
Two days later, he was called to the principal’s office at Temecula Valley High School, and about 48 hours after that meeting, he was pulled out of the classroom and placed on paid leave, leaving his students in the hands of a long-term sub and the theater department that he runs in limbo.
“Most kids who take Drama 1, that’s the only drama class they will ever take in high school, and my whole goal is to bring in the most important, most talked-about plays,” Bailey said during an August interview.
“I tell them that it is about the AIDS crisis in the ‘80s in New York, that it contains adult language, that it has graphic situations in it. And it’s clear from the very first day of class in the fall semester that if students are uncomfortable with anything in the material or the way that anyone talks about them, that they just need to come to me, and we’ll make them comfortable because being comfortable in drama class is really, really important.”
While Bailey has since returned to the classroom awaiting potential discipline, his three-month-plus suspension has had a chilling effect on district teachers, many of whom are having to censor course materials, compromising student learning, for the sake of keeping their jobs.
“You just never know what someone else takes as the main focus of what you’re trying to say in a lesson or side conversation, or take something out of context,” Diaz said, adding that teachers fear they’ll be accused of violating the state’s education laws and losing their teaching credentials. “If your credential comes under fire, then you’re no longer able to carry out work anywhere in the state. And that’s a scary thing.”
The Temecula Valley Unified School District did not respond to EdSource’s requests for comment in response to Bailey’s story or to the allegations raised by teachers.
In the theater
Bailey, who has taught in the district for five years, often incorporates a unit focused on American playwrights.
At the start of the unit, he briefly introduces and summarizes 10 plays, and students pick one of them to study in groups. “Angels in America” was listed as one of the 10 options.
During the unit, students are also asked to complete a project that can involve performing a monologue or a scene, or they can bypass performance altogether and focus instead on set or costume design. Even if a student wanted to perform an explicit scene, Bailey said he would not permit it.
“I’m not against safeguarding or protecting the students,” Bailey said. “And if there are safeguards that need to be in place that I was somehow, you know, unaware of not putting in place, I’m willing to do what is right to make my students and their parents feel safe in my class. But that’s not the discussion that’s being had.”
Rather, Bailey — who has denied all allegations — said he feels like he’s being used as a “pawn in a much bigger political game,” and he anticipates other teachers will face similar accusations.
He said he’s still concerned about the larger effects on students’ education.
“If they’re going to fire me, I hope that they choose to do it soon so they can hire someone else, so that my students have a teacher and they have some kind of direction for their future of the program,” Bailey said.
Off stage
Temecula teachers have had to adjust the content of the lessons they teach and how they teach them, from taking down posters of Black activists, veering away from discussing current events and even removing classroom libraries.
“What happened to Mr. Bailey was scary for all of us,” said Jennee Scharf, a high school English teacher and department chair. “So I think that some teachers are even more cautious after that situation. So even if I tell them ‘It’s OK, it’s board approved,’ I don’t know that it’s always really believed 100%.”
Although the department’s curriculum already includes George Orwell’s “1984,” Scharf said they want to teach the graphic novel version and are worried about getting it approved by the board.
Teachers have also been apprehensive about asking for more copies of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” as some parents in the district have characterized as pornographic a scene in the book where the main character examines herself and realizes she has cervical cancer.
In addition to being concerned about what pieces of literature they can teach, teachers like Scharf are having to change their approach to books that have already been approved, such as Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy.”
“‘Just Mercy’ is … not just about the systemic racism, but systemic failures throughout or isms — ableism, sexism — throughout the justice system, and I might be a little more hesitant to point that out and have to really hope that the students can pick up on that on their own,” Scharf said.
Now, she avoids questions that make her students think critically about systemic injustices the book addresses.
“If I’m not even allowed to suggest that (these injustices) might be happening, how can the kids get to the part where we will come up with solutions for preventing these things in the future?” Scharf said.
Several teachers — including Margarita Middle School English teacher and activities adviser Rafael Loza — said they routinely send notices to parents if there is anything that might be sensitive about a piece of literature they’re teaching.
For example, whenever Loza teaches “Lord of the Flies,” he informs parents of the violent scenes and tells them that if they are uncomfortable with the material, he can have their child sit out of the class discussion or complete an alternate assignment.
He feels removing the book from the shelf altogether, however, should not be an option.
“The majority of my kids are going to, you know, partake in our discussion, our Socratic seminars in class. … I’m not going take away that aspect of critical thinking because I have one or two parents that … don’t want them to do that for whatever reason,” Loza said.
“Teachers call their students ‘my kids’ because of the bond and the trust that we build with those students. And it’s sad that the actions of three (school board members) with political motivations have undermined that trust.”
‘Censorship always fails’: A broader picture
In the long run, “censorship always fails,” according to Brent Blair, a professor at USC’s School of Dramatic Arts.
“As one of the richest countries in the world, we’re living in one of the greatest impoverishments of our cultural imagination in our history, where people can’t see metaphor, or they can’t imagine any kind of message … ‘Angels in America’ is sexual violence? That’s staggering to me,” Blair said.
He added that for those who are religiously conservative, “Angels in America” can also be read from a perspective of “great faith.”
“I often speak to those students who are concerned or worried about sexual content or about a general sense of some of the work that we’re doing, just to remind them what a rebel, and what an exciting, radical revolutionary Jesus was,” Blair said.
“I think if they could have a deep dive into ‘Angels in America,’ they can understand that this is also a play against sexual violence,” he said. “It’s against burying ourselves and shutting down our hearts. It’s an epic love poem to acceptance.”
Packed crowd anticipates discussion on Orange Unified Parental Notification Policy on Sept. 8, 2023.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource
Organizers seeking the ouster of two conservative members of the Orange Unified school board announced last week they had collected more than enough signatures to put the recall to a vote in the next several months.
The effort seeks the recall of board President Rick Ledesma and board member Madison Klovstad Miner, who was elected last November after defeating 22-year incumbent Kathryn A. Moffat by 0.2% — 221 votes out of 61,845 votes cast. Her election was pivotal in establishing a four-member conservative majority that had run on a uniform platform of parental rights. Ledesma and Miner had the financial backing of pro-conservative political action committees, including the Lincoln Club of Orange County, and the support of Jack Hibbs, an influential politically active pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, an evangelical megachurch.
The new majority’s first action was to fire Gunn Marie Hansen, the district’s popular superintendent, with one day’s notice during the Christmas break, when Hansen was abroad. During the heated four-hour school board meeting, several angry parents vowed a recall election, but it took several months to organize a campaign. Although Hansen was fired without cause, Ledesma later said that under Hansen, the district was “focusing too much on the social politics of education,” and the board planned to revisit policies related to sex education, student equity and ethnic studies.
The recall campaign is also running on a theme of fiscal responsibility, pointing to the cost of terminating Hansen’s contract, which, with vacation and benefits, was $505,000.
Last month, the conservative majority made Orange Unified the sixth California school district to require school officials to adopt a gender notification policy, requiring school officials to tell parents and guardians if their child engages in activities designed for the opposite sex or changes gender pronouns.
Darshan Smaaladen, recall committee co-chair and chief organizer, said the campaign had submitted more than 18,300 signatures — about 5,000 more than the 13,046 required. Organizers had to collect at least 10% of registered voters in the school district.
Smaaladen, a parent of two graduates and one current Orange Unified student, said she was “elated” by the number of signatures collected and “looks forward to more knowledgeable public voting on the issues in future elections.” She said the signature-gathering was done mainly by volunteers attending festivals, stationing outside schools and going door to door. Three hundred volunteer signature collectors signed a code of ethics, committing to acting in good faith and staying true to the campaign message, she said. Some teachers, many of whom live in the district, were among the canvassers.
“The Orange Unified Education Association is happy to see the petitions to be submitted weeks earlier than the deadline, and we see this as a statement of strength and support by the public for this recall,” said union President Greg Goodlander.
Paid solicitors were hired to ensure meeting a Nov. 8 deadline and collected 2,000 signatures, Smaaladen said.
In a lengthy email responding to EdSource’s request for a comment on the recall, district board member Miner wrote, “It’s essential to note that protecting students is my sole purpose, and the radical recall movement has made it clear that their quest for power over the children is nothing more than a strong political maneuver to influence and shape the children of OUSD. This has nothing to do with protecting or educating children.” (Go here for the full response.)
The Orange County Registrar of Voters must now validate the signatures, initially examining a large random sample, then doing a full certification, if needed. The Orange Unified school board must choose a date for the recall vote. Smaaladen said she hopes the board chooses the March state primary election; tying the recall vote to that election will save the district about $1 million from the cost of holding an election on a separate date, she said.
Located near Disneyland, Orange Unified draws from diverse neighborhoods in five cities plus unincorporated areas of Orange County; half of its 26,000 students are from low-income familes; 57% are Latino and a quarter are white.
According to Ballotpedia, only about 1 in 5 recall campaigns nationally have qualified for the ballot since 2009. Of those, fewer than half have unseated board members.
This effort could gain national attention and draw six-figure contributions on both sides. California Republicans and conservative PACs have targeted school board elections to outflank Democratic majorities in the Legislature, promote school choice, weaken teacher unions and oppose LGBTQ+ education. Democratic donors and the California Teachers Association in turn will weigh whether to encourage this and similar recalls, assuming it qualifies for the ballot, by donating heavily.
“Republicans have been talking about ratcheting up the fight on education policy for a few years. There have been some scattered skirmishes up until now, but this could be the all-out brawl that both sides have been anticipating,” said Dan Schnur, a longtime political observer who teaches political communications at the University of Southern California, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine University.
A similar recall campaign is under way to unseat three politically conservative members in Temecula Valley Unified, including board President Joseph Komrosky, whom Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned for denigrating the assassinated gay activist Harvey Milk as a pedophile. On Wednesday, leaders of the League of United Latin American Citizens de Inland Empire and the local branch of the NAACP civil rights group announced they were joining the effort. They have until Dec. 8 to turn in enough signatures to qualify.
Nearly 100 parents, former students and educators filled the Sept. 20 Clovis Unified school board meeting to voice their opinions on the prospect of a parental notification policy.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
Recent Clovis Unified school board meetings have been filled with posters bearing contrasting messages. “Support parental notification in schools. Stop keeping secrets from parents” as well as “Stop forced outing.”
With those starkly different messages in the background, nearly 100 people spoke at the Sept. 20 board meeting, joining a debate that’s sweeping the state: parents’ right to know how their children identify at school versus students’ right to privacy about gender identity and expression.
The contentious discourse came to Clovis Unified not because of a proposed school board policy — as has been the case in other school districts, including Chino, Temecula, Anderson Union High, Murrieta Valley and Rocklin — but because of a Student Site Plan, an optional form that, some say, could undermine students’ right to privacy by outing them to their parents. The district says it uses the form to gauge students’ needs for access to facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms.
Under a 10-year-old law known as Assembly Bill 1266, students in California have the right to access school facilities that are consistent with their gender identity, regardless of what’s listed on their school record.
The district spokesperson said that while the form could help facilitate a conversation with parents, students can opt out of completing it.
“While there is no hard and fast ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” about whether parents must be notified for students to access facilities aligned with their gender identity, said Kelly Avants, spokesperson for the district, “in general, we would work with the student about parental notification.”
Internal Clovis Unified guidance for administration details notifying parents if students want to access a facility aligned with their gender identity, but officials would not deny them access because of AB 1266.
“Access will be provided while informing those with educational rights (typically parents/guardians for minors),” according to the district guidance documents.
“They’re notified whether or not the SSP (Student Site Plan) is in place,” said Drew Harbaugh, chapter president for PFLAG Fresno, an organization that supports and advocates for LGBTQ+ people and their families, including many Clovis Unified parents.
What’s on the Student Site Plan form?
The Student Site Plan asks students for their legal and chosen names, pronouns, gender assigned at birth, gender identity and gender expression.
Students provide information on their programs and activities and indicate whether they want to access restrooms and locker rooms by their gender at birth, gender identity or a gender-neutral space, such as the nurse’s office.
Parents or guardians must consent to or participate in completing the form.
“The SSP is our district’s process by which a student and parent have the opportunity to sit down with school staff and arrive at a plan to support the student,” the guidance documents say.
Though the process for facility usage has changed over time to meet state laws and requirements, the Student Site Plan was first established in the school district last school year, Avants said. According to the district’s internal document, the form replaced the Gender Acknowledgement Plan, which had involved parents, but only at the student’s discretion.
Clovis Unified, Avants said, created the form in an attempt to address the “complexities of meeting the unique needs of individual students and families.”
What’s the process for accessing facilities if students do not complete the form?
For students who want to access different facilities but do not want to complete the form, they’d inform the school, Avants said. Trained school staff and the student then discuss how to accomplish that.
Using a gender-neutral space doesn’t require parental notification. However, “parents must be informed,” district guidance says, if a student seeks the use of a facility that’s different from the gender assigned at the student’s birth or what’s listed on records. Such students are granted access in either event, the guidance states.
“The student is allowed access in accordance with AB 1266 and California Education Code, but not at the expense of or superseding parents’/guardians’ educational rights to be informed,” the district guidance states.
So, “the guidance still directs staff to out them,” even though students have the right to access their preferred facilities, Harbaugh said.
If telling their parents causes students to be concerned about their safety, the district guidance spells out how staff should report suspected child abuse to Child Protective Services — if evidence exists. While the guidance directs staff not to complete the Student Site Plan in that scenario, it instructs staff to offer the student a meeting with the school’s psychologists or safety team about those concerns and to help the student communicate with their parents or guardians. The guidance also tells staff to attempt to facilitate the Student Site Plan with students and parents, if that’s appropriate.
Legislation isn’t ‘well-established’
AB 1266 is “silent” on practical application and implementation, Avants said, so the Student Site Plan attempts to balance facility access, parent rights to information, student needs and parental involvement.
“We do look at every child individually and work to make sure they’re supported and safe at school,” said Clovis Unified Superintendent Corrine Folmer, emphasizing the “balance” of the site plan.
“It’s not an area of law that’s well-established,” said Maiya Yang, Clovis Unified in-house counsel, adding that current lawsuits are proof of that.
Avants said other districts’ policies seem to be “a black-and-white treatment of a nuanced topic.”
And comparing Clovis Unified to those districts that have adopted parental notification policies is a “miscategorization of our process,” she said. “Our process is individualized, customized (and) looks at every child individually.”
Even though Clovis Unified hasn’t proposed a policy, people are already advocating for or against the prospect of one.
On one side of the issue, many Clovis Unified parents and other members of the school community urged the school board to adopt a parental notification policy to involve parents in the decision-making of their children’s education and to provide them access to all information that affects student well-being.
“My rights matter,” said Ashley Williams, parent of two Clovis Unified students. “I’m a parent, and my rights to my children trump people’s concerns” about possible abuse by parents and self-harm of students who are outed.
Many other parents, former students and educators say the school district should allow students to come out in their own way, when they’re ready, while protecting students who don’t feel safe to do so.
“While I value the parent-child relationship and would hope children feel safe to share this part of themselves with their parents, it remains a reality that that is not the case for many CUSD students,” said Clovis Unified teacher Laramie Woolsey.
Woolsey said many of her students told her about their sexuality and gender identity, rather than their parents.
“Many of these students struggled with suicidal thoughts because they imagined that death would be easier than being someone other than who their parents wanted them to be,” Woolsey said. “Why did these students come to me and not to their parents? Because they knew I was a safe person to talk to who wouldn’t judge them, invalidate them or otherwise harm them.”
“ I earned their trust.”
In Clovis, there is no policy and won’t be one anytime soon
At a Sept. 13 meeting, where two dozen people also spoke and the Sept. 20 meeting, neither the site plan form nor a proposed policy was on the agenda, so board members could not address community members on the topic.
But Clovis Unified School District and its board do not and will not have a policy until there is legal clarity, Avants said.
“They (the school board members) have said, publicly several times, they have no interest in putting on their agenda a policy that is under legal challenge,” Avants said. “We’ll visit this when there’s more legal clarity.”
Concerned community members, such as Harbaugh, say that the district’s insistence that the Student Site Plan is not a board policy makes it impossible to address the subject.
“By not making it a policy, they take away any options we have for recourse,” Harbaugh said. “But if they’re still putting it in place regarding these students … whether or not they’re calling it a policy, they’re implementing it as a policy.”
Because legislation is developing and evolving, Yang, the district’s general counsel, said it will take several years for local, state and federal courts to give school districts guidance on handling situations where the rights of students and parents conflict.
“Unfortunately, for school districts like us that are trying to navigate this very important issue,” Yang said, “we don’t have a lot of guidance.”
Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla, centered on the left, passes the pen and contract to Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson to sign a tentative agreement that FTA and FUSD reached less than a day ahead of a potential strike.
Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
This article was updated Nov. 2 to reflect changes in the final version of the contract between Fresno Unified and the teachers union.
Less than 24 hours before a strike by thousands of educators was scheduled to start, Fresno Unified School District and its teachers union agreed on a tentative contract, the two announced during a joint press conference Tuesday morning.
“Our students have been the innocent bystanders waiting through the difficulties of negotiations,” Superintendent Bob Nelson said. “This deal is really about you (students): it’s our joint commitment to avoid a strike because there’s really nothing more important than making sure our students have the opportunity to be in school every day, all the time.”
District and union leaders as well as board members touted the contract for investing in teachers, supporting students and maintaining the district’s fiscal solvency.
To Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla, the contract meets and exceeds the four requests that emerged as sticking points throughout negotiations: reducing class size, reducing special education caseloads, keeping educators competitive in pay and maintaining certain health care benefits.
Bonilla and Louis Jamerson, executive director of the teachers union, highlighted key provisions from the offer, including:
Class size reductions for all grades with investments for new classrooms to continue to reduce class size.
A comprehensive guideline for special education caseloads – the first time such guidance has existed in contract language.
Competitive salaries.
Lifetime medical benefits.
“Soon a child will walk into their classroom and have the closest connection ever with their teacher, rather than competing for attention and assistance,” Bonilla said about one of many “wins” for students.
What does the contract offer?
Class size
The teachers union came to the bargaining table with a request to cap class size while the district proposed maintaining class size averages but reducing the number of students over that average for a teacher stipend.
Starting next school year, the district will reduce class size averages to ratios of 1 teacher for every:
Eight students for prekindergarten.
12 students for transitional kindergarten.
23 students for grades K-three.
28 students for grades four to six.
27 students for grades seven and eight.
28 students for high school grades.
The contract language provides guidelines for class size, which say the district will reduce individual class size even more each school year and will reassign 75 non-classroom educators back to the classroom to lower class size.
Benefits
The agreed-upon offer includes what Fresno Unified previously called a bridge to Medicare to meet the same goal as lifetime retiree benefits:
At age 57.5, if an employee has worked in Fresno Unified for at least 20 years, they’ll be offered the same health care plan, and at the same rate, as current employees.
At 65, when employees become eligible for Medicare, they will have access to a district health plan that acts as a secondary coverage to Medicare.
The contract guarantees seven and a half years of the coverage, even if the Medicare eligibility age changes. The contract also includes provisions about the district’s contribution to employees’ health care fund, which, in part, determines health care benefits. The district will contribute less to the health fund, but, according to the contract, it will automatically increase to the previous contribution level within a couple of years.
More than 20% in raises and bonuses
Over the next three years, Fresno Unified educators will receive 21% in raises and one-time payments – up from the previous 11% and 19% offers – which include:
8.5% raises this school year.
3% raises in the 2024-25 school year with a 2.5% one-time bonus.
4.5% raises in the 2025-26 school year with a 2.5% one-time bonus.
Educators will also receive a $5,000 one-time payment as part of a side letter agreement to the contract.
A win for teachers and students
The contract allows educators and students to thrive, Bonilla said.
“As educators and as a community, we’ve made it clear (that) students thrive when educators thrive,” he said. “And educators thrive when leaders value their hard work — when they value that tireless dedication to adequate support.”
While negotiations have ended, many said that the work of building a better Fresno starts now. The district and the union agreed to act as partners in a “collaborative shared decision process (that) will ensure the partners work together in a meaningful way within a timely manner.” Four district leaders, including the superintendent, and four union leaders will be a part of the partnership.
Don Raczka, author of a fact-finding report, recommended that Fresno Unified and its teachers union work closely to find solutions so they can address the “transformational student and teacher support systems the (Fresno Teachers) Association believes essential.”
The partnership, said school board member Andy Levine, will enable the district and union to continue to work on issues over time, not wait three years for the next contract negotiations to come around.
“It’s not over; we start from a different place today,” trustee Valerie Davis said. “Today, our students win.”
San Juan Unified in Sacramento County implemented the Safe Routes to School initiative and other measures to address pedestrian safety, including the Charles Peck Elementary School “May the 4th be with you!” Walk to School Day.
Credit: Courtesy of Civic Thread
This story was updated to reflect Clovis Unified’s 2022-23 accident data that was provided after the story’s publication.
As students waited for a bus in front of Roosevelt High School last September, a vehicle crashed into the bus stop, injuring 11 of them. The next day, a mom was walking her four children to school when a driver ran a traffic light, hitting the mom and dragging one of her children. They were using the crosswalk.
These incidents represent a few of the many accidents involving students or pedestrians being hit by vehicles on or near Fresno Unified campuses between August and December.
“Those are the ones that made the news,” said Amy Idsvoog, executive officer for health services, safety and emergency response for Fresno Unified School District.
Many more incidents never made the news but can still be traumatizing for students and families, causing them to live in fear over their safety when getting to or leaving school.
“We saw a need even last year to try and do something,” Idsvoog said.
Fresno Unified district leaders, Idsvoog said, first noticed an uptick in the number of students being hit by cars in the 2022-23 school year when there were 17 incidents, including a death in October 2022. In the aftermath of the student’s death, board member Andy Levine acknowledged “the reality that our students are not safe when they step right off of campus,” and that the district needed to “make sure that never happens ever again.”
Despite the district’s efforts to improve pedestrian safety, Fresno Unified is recording double-digit numbers of incidents for the second consecutive school year — nearing 20 incidents this school year with about six months of school remaining.
Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, with about 70,000 students, is trying to curb the frequency of accidents involving students being hit by vehicles by teaching students about pedestrian safety, displaying banners and materials on campuses and educating the wider community on the importance of the topic.
“It just seems to be something that is not stopping,” Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson said in late September after a student on her way to school was hit by a vehicle. “It just can’t continue to happen to our kids. Our kids deserve to be safe as they travel to and from school.”
Now the school district is working to implement the Safe Routes to School initiative to address pedestrian safety.
Fresno-area districts, organizations launched a campaign last school year
Fresno Unified’s 17 vehicles vs. student/pedestrian incidents in the 2022-23 school year was up from seven in 2018-19, nine in 2019-20 and four in 2020-21. The district had zero reported incidents in 2021-22, when all students returned to in-person learning following the pandemic.
But there’s not a sole explanation for the increased number of incidents, Idsvoog said.
She explained that among many factors, possible causes include pedestrians not using crosswalks or doing so incorrectly, drivers not paying attention to a stop sign or traffic light in a school zone, as well as parents dropping students off in the middle of the street, rather than in a drop-off zone. The district has also seen a rising number of cases involving student drivers, including four this school year.
“No one can exactly come up with why yet,” she said.
Idsvoog said she learned from the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of 78 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems, that school districts across the nation have not found the answer either.
Nationally, some school districts have tried different methods to address pedestrian safety, including buying $20,000 speed monitoring displays, Idsvoog said. (Fresno Unified has at least two dozen schools with speed monitors requiring a battery replacement.) As of Jan. 1, thanks to new legislation across the state, six California cities will install automated speed cameras in school zones.
“I think everyone is trying to address the same problem,” Idsvoog said. “I don’t think there’s this magic ticket yet that says, ‘This is what you do.’”
In April 2023, Fresno Unified, the Fresno County superintendent of schools, Central Unified, Clovis Unified, Sanger Unified, the Fresno Police Department and the city of Fresno launched Street Smart, a joint pedestrian safety campaign.
“They all wanted to get the message out and, hopefully, have a stronger impact on the community,” Idsvoog said. “But we know there’s more that has to be done.”
‘It’s not enough’
Despite the multi-agency campaign and other efforts, the number of incidents involving students or pedestrians being hit by vehicles on or near campus has remained stagnant in some districts.
Central Unified, a district in Fresno that participated in the Street Smart campaign, reported one incident this school year of someone being hit while crossing the street near a school — a number that has not changed from the previous school year.
The district has continually invested in crossing guards, monitored signage and crosswalk painting needs and advocated for infrastructure improvements, including a High-intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK) grant near Herndon-Barstow Elementary, a four-way stop near Teague Elementary and additional sidewalks, according to a district spokesperson.
So far this school year, between August and Jan. 9, Clovis Unified has recorded 18 incidents of a vehicle striking a pedestrian or bicyclist in contrast to eight incidents last school year. No injuries were reported either year, said district spokesperson Kelly Avants.
Still, the district continues to focus on pedestrian safety, Avants said, citing crossing guards at busy intersections, reminders to families to follow traffic laws and education of students and the community.
Fresno Unified also “isn’t there yet,” Idsvoog said about numbers continuing to rise year after year. As of Friday, the number of students hit as they traveled to or from school stood at 17 — already matching the total at the end of the last school year.
In the spring 2023 semester, Fresno Unified launched an age-appropriate pedestrian safety curriculum, which is available again this school year. The school district even sought additional volunteer crossing guards and conducted community outreach about pedestrian safety.
Idsvoog said that Fresno Unified’s education and outreach efforts to address pedestrian safety are not “enough to resolve the problem.”
“Everything we’re intending to do is still not enough,” she said. “It’s not enough because we’re not seeing a decrease in incidents.”
Safe Routes to School initiative
The Safe Routes to School initiative pilot is assessing 15 schools in Fresno Unified, representing the seven high school regions:
Bullard High
Hoover High
McLane High
Roosevelt High
Duncan High
Cooper Middle
Computech Middle
Kings Canyon Middle
Scandinavian Middle
Tioga Middle
Wawona K-8
Herrera Elementary
Lincoln Elementary
Roeding Elementary
Vang Pao Elementary
Also a part of the Safe Routes to School initiative are community meetings.
The next meetings will be at the Roosevelt High School cafeteria on Jan. 18 and at the Bullard High cafeteria on Jan. 22. The meetings run from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.
That’s why the district started the Safe Routes to School initiative this school year.
Through a pilot at some of the district’s schools, Toole Design — a company that assesses city infrastructure, develops pedestrian safety programs and improves school arrival and dismissal — is assessing students’ routes to school.
The assessments will help Fresno Unified find school and district practices to create safe routes to school for all students, whether they are using a scooter, walking, biking or being dropped off, Idsvoog said.
Identifying the routes that students use to travel to and from school each day will allow the district to evaluate whether changes should be made.
In choosing the piloted campuses, the district considered whether students had been hit there, whether bus accidents had occurred and the proximity to another school. Idsvoog said the district hopes to assess 15 more schools next year through grant funding.
The assessments will also determine how the city might be able to help the district.
For example, Herrera Elementary, Fresno Unified’s newest school, between Storey Elementary and Terronez Middle, has no curbs or sidewalks on one side of the school.
Besides creating safe routes for students, the assessments can lead to district events continuing the community’s education on the importance of pedestrian safety.
Such events, Idsvoog said, could help reduce incidents and extend dialogue and awareness.
What FUSD can learn from other districts that implemented initiative
San Juan Unified, a 40,000-student district with 64 K-12 schools, implemented the Safe Routes to School initiative to address pedestrian safety. Located in Sacramento County, San Juan Unified comprises incorporated cities as well as communities such as Citrus Heights and Orangevale.
In partnership with the nonprofit organization Civic Thread, the district developed classroom presentations, demonstrations and other activities on pedestrian safety, according to Natalee Dyudyuk, community safety specialist and Safe Routes to School coordinator in San Juan Unified.
The demonstrations encompass a pretend intersection with stop signs, traffic lights and crosswalks; student volunteers act out what happens when “safe crossing skills” learned in the presentation are used or not, Dyudyuk said.
Following the demonstration, groups visit a crosswalk near the school to practice their skills, she said.
“As I always like to mention to the students, the drivers on the street are not paid actors,” Dyudyuk said about the effectiveness of the real-world scenario. “They are folks who are driving throughout the community, trying to get from point A to point B. It’s a great way to practice because you don’t ever quite know how those drivers are going to react to our presence there.”
Pictured are San Juan Unified students participating in the district’s Mission Avenue Elementary Bike Safety Education. Credit: Courtesy of Civic Thread
San Juan Unified students participate in the Charles Peck Elementary School Bike to School Day. Credit: Courtesy of Civic Thread
Mission Avenue Elementary Pedestrian Education in San Juan UnifiedCredit: Courtesy of Civic Thread
Students learn about crossing the street safely during a Mission Avenue Elementary pedestrian education event in San Juan Unified. Credit: Courtesy of Civic Thread
For its educational activities, the school district hosts bicycle rodeos, helmet giveaways and walk- or bike-to-school days, with students forming a “walking bus” or a “bike train,” Dyudyuk said.
“Parents get really excited about that,” she said.
According to Raj Rai, San Juan Unified district communication director, pedestrian safety efforts date back to at least 2010. District investments have grown from one liaison working with law enforcement to a safe schools department with eight community safety specialists.
In her role since 2021, Dyudyuk works with schools to evaluate student pickup and dropoff and to create checklists and visuals for families to use — education and outreach that continues beyond the initial Safe Routes to School assessments.
Universities implement education, enforcement
Just as K-12 school districts locally and nationally have worked to address pedestrian safety, so have higher education institutions.
Each semester, Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata displays signs “warning and reminding” pedestrians and bicyclists to stop at intersections and others to obey traffic laws, said Peter Cress, a lieutenant with the university’s police department.
When education and warnings don’t work, the university’s police can turn to enforcement: ticketing drivers. Crediting the college’s approach of using education and enforcement, Cress said that the 5,700-student Cal Poly Humboldt averages one vehicle-pedestrian incident causing significant injury annually. In September, a student was hit while crossing the street.
Enforcement — or the threat of enforcement — is the only proven way to change motorists’ behavior, Cress said. So, even though education is imperative to what schools do to address pedestrian safety, Cress encourages K-12 districts to implement enforcement through citations, possibly by partnering with local law enforcement.
That kind of enforcement isn’t an easy feat for K-12 school systems.
Idsvoog said that while the Fresno Police Department has worked to place more patrol officers at schools during student arrival and dismissal, police cannot be at Fresno Unified’s 107 schools every day at the same time while patrolling other parts of the city.
One way to fill the void and help with enforcement, Idsvoog said, is using volunteer crossing guards. With more crossing guards, Fresno Unified can strengthen pedestrian safety, she said.
But there’s never enough crossing guards, Idsvoog said, and the district usually relies on teachers for that role at schools’ multiple crosswalks used by students.
Kimberly Armstrong, second grade teacher at Kirk Elementary, became a volunteer crossing guard out of concern for her students. As a crossing guard, she said she still witnesses people disregarding traffic laws.
“There’s really no consequences for them to do any better,” Armstrong said during the Dec. 12 Safe Routes to School community meeting at Computech Middle School. She implored district leaders to find a way to add police at school arrival and dismissal, even if they have to rotate between schools or regions.
Fresno Unified school officials can report areas where high numbers of pedestrian safety concerns are occurring to police, Idsvoog said, but problems exist at each of the district’s more than 100 campuses.
“Having a police officer there is not just the answer,” Idsvoog said. “There is no quick resolution. There’s got to be a bigger plan: more education, more messaging to parents, yes, consequences.”
‘Everyone’s responsibility’
While law enforcement can define social expectations and attitudes toward pedestrian safety on a higher ed campus, the school community of parents, school staff and community members can set the standard in a K-12 environment, Lt. Cress said.
When parents and community members witness or learn about pedestrian safety concerns, Cress said, they must have difficult conversations with each other, which will lead to “conversation after conversation after conversation.”
“Those types of informal conversations generate a community attitude,” he said.
Ensuring pedestrian safety
“There’s so many things that we all can do,” Idsvoog said, including:
Adhering to speed limits, crosswalks and traffics signs, including the stop signs that are deployed from school buses
Being aware of one’s surroundings
Having conversations with students
District leaders and school staff in the Fresno, Clovis, Central and San Juan districts agreed that student and pedestrian safety is a community effort that requires everyone’s effort — not just parents and students.
“Pedestrian safety is everyone’s responsibility,” Idsvoog said. “And it’s going to take parents, community members and even students to really make a difference.”
Armstrong, the teacher and volunteer crossing guard, said she is optimistic about the district’s efforts, but “time is of the essence” to improve pedestrian safety. The importance of students arriving at and leaving campus safely is often overlooked and missing from the conversation about school safety, she said.
“We can’t just worry about kids and their safety once they’re inside of our school buildings,” Armstrong said. “We have to ensure their safety getting to and from. It’s just as important.”
Community member Kayla Church stands in support of LGBTQ+ community and in opposition to Temecula Valley Unified curriculum ban.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource
While litigation moves forward, the Temecula Valley Unified District can keep enforcing its transgender notification policy as well as its ban on critical race theory, which restricts instruction on race and gender more broadly, Riverside County Judge Eric A. Keen ruled Friday.
In what seemed to be a contradiction to this decision, Keen had ruled on Feb. 15 that the case — Mae M. v. Komrosky — filed on behalf of the district’s teachers union, teachers, parents and students, in August by Ballard Spahr and the country’s largest pro-bono law firm Public Counsel LLP — will move forward. The plaintiffs had asked Keen to temporarily block enforcement of the policies while the case was fought out in court, but did not get it.
“We are deeply disappointed with the denial of the preliminary injunction, primarily for the students and teachers and parents that we represent,” said Amanda Mangaser Savage, supervising attorney for Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project.
“While these policies remain in effect, students in Temecula’s classrooms are being denied access to an accurate and fact-based education and, instead, are receiving an education that is dictated entirely by the board members’ ideological preferences.”
Supporters of the board’s policy, including Joseph Komrosky, the Temecula Valley Unified school board president, have claimed that the policies do not discriminate against transgender students or students of color.
“The diversity that exists among the District’s community of students, staff, parents, and guardians is an asset to be honored and valued,” Komrosky said in a news release by Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a Murrieta-based law firm, “dedicated to protecting religious liberty in the courts,” that is representing the district for free.
“These policies were enacted by the school board to ensure our district puts the needs of students and their parents above all else,” adding that Temecula Valley Unified is committed to providing students with a well-rounded education devoid of “discrimination and indoctrination.”
In August, the board passed a policy that percolated through about a half-dozen other districts, requiring that school administrators notify parents if their child shows signs of being transgender.
Edgar Diaz, president of the Temecula Valley Educators Association, the district’s teachers union, criticized Keen’s ruling, stating that it “does not consider the ripple effects” of the district’s policies.
Diaz added that wooden blocks have since been placed on library shelves in lieu of books because teachers and staff fear “there may be some banned concept in them.”
“We shouldn’t be banning anything; we’re an educational institution. If children are curious about something, they explore it; they talk to the teachers. And especially in high school, they’re old enough to form their own opinions about what’s real and what’s not real,” said Temecula Valley Unified school board member Steve Schwartz.
He added that if an LGBTQ+ student “doesn’t feel safe enough in their home to tell their parent but needs to share it with someone and shares it with a teacher, it doesn’t seem like a good idea for the teacher to have to tell that parent.”
Widespread divides over critical race theory
The transgender notification policies and critical race theory ban supported by the Temecula Valley board are part of a larger movement driven by conservative organizations like Reform California. These groups formed to counter widespread calls from the left for racial justice following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020.
Nearly 800 measures in 244 local, state and federal entities have been taken against critical race theory, according to CRT Forward, an initiative of the UCLA School of Law’s critical race studies program.
In California alone, 13 measures have been introduced at the local level, nine of which have been passed or implemented.
As of April 2023, however, 60% of anti-CRT measures were adopted in predominantly conservative states.
“Today’s ruling unfortunately means that Temecula will continue amongst the ranks of Texas and Florida,” Mangaser Savage said.
“While California is obviously a liberal state, I think that the fact that this is happening in our districts demonstrates how pernicious this is.”
The survey specifically found that between 80% and 86% of Democrats support the idea of high school students learning about LGBTQ+ topics compared with less than 40% of Republicans. Introducing LGBTQ+ topics at the elementary level garnered less support on both sides of the aisle.
Over half of those surveyed also supported discussion of topics about race at the high school level. But at the elementary level, Democrats were much more likely to support the idea of students learning about slavery, civil rights and racial inequality.
Critical race theory is usually taught at the college level, and Schwartz said it has not been taught in Temecula Valley Unified.
“But if I were a teacher today, and a student came to me and said, ‘What do you think about CRT?’ my response would be: ‘Why don’t you do some research and see what you think about it, and then we can have a discussion,’” Schwartz said.
“My thought is not to tell kids not to investigate things that they’re interested in. That’s what learning is all about.”
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California
California LGBTQ Health & Human Services Network
Equal Justice Society
Equality California
Family Assistance Program
Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network
GLSEN
Inland Empire Prism Collective
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
LGBTQ Center OC
LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert
Legal Services of Northern California
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest
Public Advocates, Inc.
Public School Defenders Hub
Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance
Sacramento LGBT Center
Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County
Transgender Law Center
TransFamily Support Services
Trevor Project
Penguin Random House and PEN America have also announced their support for the preliminary injunction.
As pressure has mounted on the district to stop its enforcement of allegedly discriminatory and illegal policies, the school board’s makeup has also changed — and more could shift in the coming months.
In December, One Temecula Valley PAC, a political action committee, lodged a recall effort against the board’s three conservative members and gathered enough signatures to move forward with a recall election this spring against Komrosky, the board president.
Conservative board member Jennifer Wiersma, however, will remain on the board, while Danny Gonzalez announced his resignation in December with plans to move to Texas.
Temecula Valley Unified’s school board met on Feb.13 to appoint a replacement but was unable to and decided to move forward with an election. Whoever replaces Gonzalez in that seat will determine whether the board retains its conservative majority.
“Despite the small but vocal opponents that seek to rewrite history and indoctrinate students,” Komrosky said, “I am very optimistic for our school district.”
Editors’ note: This story has been updated to add a statement from Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project supervising attorney, Amanda Mangaser Savage.
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.”
