Overview:
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, FUSD acting superintendent Misty Her also said all of the district’s approximately 70,000 students would be dismissed from school early every Tuesday during the regular five-day school week.
Fresno Unified has unveiled new plans for the upcoming school year, which begins next week. These include plans to improve student testing schools’ performance on the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) by at least 30 points within two years.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, FUSD acting superintendent Misty Her also said all of the district’s approximately 70,000 students would be dismissed from school early every Tuesday during the regular five-day school week.
She shared more details of Fresno Unified’s 100-day plan, which she said has two fundamental goals: “One is about positive outcomes… and the second is a goal of operational excellence with a focus on customer service.”
“The goal for student achievement is for our students to make double-digit gains,” Her said. Fresno Unified will accomplish that by moving 15 points closer to proficiency on the SBAC each year for the next two years, Her said. She said she will elaborate as the months go by on how the school district will accomplish that “depending on the student, on the need, with specific strategies on how we’re going to accomplish that.”
As a new development this school year, students will have an early day off every Tuesday of the regular five-day school week.
“When we looked at the calendar, Tuesdays were the most consistent days,” Her said, noting how many weekends are Mondays off and that many schools have events and activities on Fridays. The goal of ending school early is to give teachers a chance to work together and use the time to talk to parents if needed.
Your students would of course make up for the time lost on Tuesday during the rest of the school week. From August 20th, there will be afternoon care every day, including Tuesdays, starting directly after school and lasting until 6 p.m.
She also highlighted the district’s online and mobile offerings for students and parents. She said school breakfast and lunch menus will be available through the Nutrislice app. Parents can also share “questions, concerns (or) compliments” with the district through the new “Let’s Talk” platform, which can be found on the Fresno Unified School District’s “new and improved” website.
There are also multilingual ways to contact the district. “Families who speak a language other than English can call our Family Connect hotline at 559-457-3988.” The hotline connects families with interpreters and is open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fresno Unified also has a “new and improved” website.
“It’s not just every day that counts, but every minute,” Her said, reminding parents and families to ensure their children are at school on time starting Monday, August 19.
“This year, every single one of our (elementary) schools has at least one full-time security assistant dedicated solely to campus security,” Her said. High schools have more security assistants on campus, and Fresno Unified is working with Fresno Police to have student safety officers on campus “to keep our students safe and build relationships with them.”
She thanked her team for the intense work they put into Fresno Unified’s 100-day plan over the summer – a time when many would expect more relaxed times. But she pointed out that the district still has work to do. “With continued bond funding, we will be able to expand these safety measures and more. Our district still has over $2.5 billion worth of facilities needs,” she said.
In May of this year, Her was named interim superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District, California’s third-largest school district. Her appointment followed controversy in both the community and the Fresno Unified School District Board of Trustees, as the Board of Trustees voted in April to look outside the district for candidates – a change of course from the original plan to look internally. Her is the first woman to ever lead the district and the highest-ranking Hmong public school official in the country.
