BLOG: No confidence in Fresno Unified means ‘no’ vote on $500M bond

The Fresno Unified School District board of trustees has voted to place a $500 million school bond on the ballot this November. Yes, that’s FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. Many of these trustees have been elected to represent the people of Fresno for several terms. One, Valerie Davis representing the Sunnyside region, has been on that school board for nearly two decades. And a consistent theme of Valerie Davis’s re-election campaigns over the years has been her promise to never vote to increase your taxes.

This bond measure will increase the property taxes paid by everyone in Fresno — whether they have children attending Fresno Unified schools or not — to be the highest in Fresno County.

This would be the fifth school bond that FUSD has put on the ballot in the last two decades for more than $1.5 billion in total. And the voters have agreed to the money each time.

Voters passing a school bond measure is a vote of confidence in that school system — in the ability of that school district to educate the children of that city. Voters believe that the school sites will be clean and safe and have faith that the funds will be spent wisely.

Unfortunately, FUSD just doesn’t measure up on any of these. Families are withdrawing their children from FUSD schools at an alarming rate due to the loss of confidence in this district and its tragic inability to teach the children of Fresno families the most basic components of education.

The kids can’t read, they can’t write, and they can’t do math. FUSD, in September 2022, assessed their students via a system called “i-Ready” and found that only 17% of the students at FUSD school sites can read at grade level. At some campuses, notably Hoover High School in Northeast Fresno, only 1.5% of students tested were able to read at grade level. Math skills were also assessed at that time and, worse yet, it was found that only 9% of FUSD’s students could do math at grade level.

FUSD has been ranked in the bottom 5% of U.S. large urban school districts for well over a decade.

The number of campus fights, threats and bullying continues to climb each year.

FUSD received $773 million in COVID relief funds beginning in 2020. That’s SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THREE MILLION DOLLARS. These funds had no restrictions on what they could be used for. The FUSD board could have used some of that giant amount of one-time money for site improvements, deferred maintenance or new construction. They choose instead to go on a hiring spree, bringing on 1,000 new employees. Because, apparently, 12,000 employees weren’t enough. In addition, the FUSD board of trustees has surrendered their statutory authority on having control of the school district budget to the president of the local teacher’s union and given that single individual, not elected by the voters of Fresno, the power to approve where over $150 million of these bond dollars would be spent.

Voting for a school bond and increasing your property taxes is meant to be a vote of confidence in a school district and its elected school board. I vote “NO” because I have no confidence in FUSD and even less in its elected school board.

Maj. Terry Slatic, USMC (Retired), was a trustee on the Fresno Unified School Board from 2018-2022.