FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – The Fresno Unified School District released a statement Thursday afternoon, saying it continues to bargain in good faith during the pandemic.
That release comes after the Fresno Teachers Association announced on Wednesday, that it would be filing three grievances against the district.
FTA President Manuel Bonilla said the system is built on educators who are sacrificing their personal time, and the district is exploiting their empathy.
The FTA said the pandemic only magnified contract violations.
The union said it hopes to work alongside Fresno Unified leadership to collaboratively address its concerns.
In a press release emailed out on Thursday, F.U.S.D. said with only five weeks left in the semester, they are trying to determine a solution that does not reduce instructional minutes for students, disrupt schedules for families nor burden families or staff. (See press release below)
On Facebook, the District posted the following message:
Good Afternoon #FUSDFamily! Please see our attached press release regarding our district’s efforts to continue bargaining in good faith with our labor leaders. Our District is committed to work toward ongoing solutions that do not reduce instructional time for students, disrupt schedules for families in the last 30 days of the semester, or shift any additional burden to site leaders and/or classified staff. Thank you! –
FUSD on Facebook:
On Facebook, Fresno Unified also promoted a meeting being held Thursday night:
Reminder! Tonight Fresno Unified will hold a Virtual Town Hall Conversation with Superintendent Nelson. There is still time to submit questions. Fresno Unified will have a Virtual Town Hall Conversation with Superintendent Nelson Date: Thursday, October 28, 2021Time: 5:30pm-6:30pmPlease submit your questions here: https://tinyurl.com/FUSDQuestion
El Distrito Unificado de Fresno tendrá una conversación virtual con el superintendente NelsonFecha: jueves 28 de octubre de 2021Hora: 5:30 pm-6:30pmPor favor envíe sus preguntas aquí: https://tinyurl.com/FUSDQuestionF
Fresno Unified yuav muaj Virtual Town HallHnub tim: Thursday, Kaum Hli 28, 2021Sijhawm: 5:30pm-6:30pmThov xa koj cov lus nug ntawm no: https://tinyurl.com/FUSDQuestion#fusdfamily
Listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
MEDIA RELEASE
Fresno Unified Continues to Bargain in Good Faith during the Pandemic
Fresno Unified School District has been collaboratively working toward ongoing solutions to ensure adequate teacher preparation time without reducing instructional minutes for our students and without disrupting schedules for families. The proposals received from Fresno Teachers Association at current, all include reducing instructional minutes for students and revising school schedules during the last 30 days of the semester. The District is trying to determine a solution that does not reduce instructional minutes for students, disrupt schedules for families, and does not shift any additional burden to site leaders and/or classified staff.
We are Fresno Unified, and as Fresno Unified, our students, staff, and families are entitled to and deserve to have the same instructional supports that all students, staff and families have across our community. Our students deserve their instructional time, our families deserve reliability and consistency, and our teachers deserve their prep time.
Our District leadership team has been working in space with Fresno Teachers Association (FTA) leadership regularly and have already addressed at least eight of the items on FTA’s original 10-point plan. That original 10-point plan did not include the current issue of teacher prep time, which was brought to the district less than one month ago. Specific steps the District has taken since the beginning of the current school year include:
- Increased communication and implementation of uniform COVID-19 protocols districtwide.
- Provided a recalibration staff town hall, with monthly staff town halls through at least January and community town hall this evening.
- Developed and communicated an efficient process for staff acquiring adequate Personal Protective Equipment.
- Established a COVID-19 Dashboard publicly available online.
- Worked in collaboration with Community Based Organizations to provide vaccine incentives for eligible students through more than 30 school-based COVID-19 vaccination clinics.
- Developed three COVID-19 testing hubs at Sunnyside High School, Hoover High School and Gaston Middle School for students, staff, and families at no cost. Four additional hubs are being set up to ensure a testing hub in all seven regions of our District.
- Collaborated with labor groups to increase the substitute pool through increased recruitment, streamlined application and hiring processes, and an increased daily pay rate which has resulted in over 300 additional substitutes joining our system.
- Provided an additional $200 in financial resources to teachers for classroom resources.
In addition, Fresno Unified has:
- Partnered with the Immigrant Refugee Coalition (IRC) to provide contract tracing staff at each our secondary schools.
- Partnered with Fresno City College, Fresno State School of Nursing, and our own internal district team to provide school-based testing of students so that they can remain safely in class.
- Deployed district TSAs, Coaches, and Management staff to cover classrooms, wherever and whenever needed.
- Worked in collaboration with our labor partners to provided additional pay to employees for the additional work which has resulted in roughly $5,600 of additional pay for teachers in Semester 1 of the 2021-2022 school year.
- Added three additional buyback days and 15 additional hours of teacher-directed buyback time.
- Agreed to provide additional pay for classroom teachers when they voluntarily accept the deployment of additional students in their classroom or voluntarily accept to serve as a substitute covering other classes as needed.
Fresno Unified students lost 28% of all instructional time during the 20-21 school year, compared to pre-pandemic minutes. Research has demonstrated that students in historically underserved groups and communities are experiencing more ‘learning lag’ as a result of COVID school closures than their peers. Our families and parents have struggled economically and emotionally throughout this pandemic and have shouldered much burden during the more than one school year that students were in distance learning. Knowing this, the District is unwilling to compromise student’s instructional minutes with their teachers or change and disrupt schedules of families with five weeks left in the semester.
