LGBTQ+ group pushed to use Clovis school facilities. A new policy keeps everyone out
The Clovis school board is set to vote Wednesday to rescind permission it previously gave to several outside groups to use school facilities for meetings and other events. At past meetings, the board approved the use of district facilities for such groups as Destination Imagination, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Girl Scouts.
A local LGBTQ activist says the scheduled vote to exclude already-scheduled groups is likely due to the fact that his organization, LGBT Community Network, also requested to use district facilities.
Jason Scott, executive director of the LGBTQ group and parent of a Clovis student, says his multiple requests for his group to use facilities, starting about 11 months ago, were ignored until recently when the district told him it would be voted up or down at Wednesday’s meeting.
Yet, a board meeting agenda item made public last Friday is recommending the Clovis Unified School District board shut down use by any external group, a reversal of previous votes at the Aug. 16 and Sept. 6 meetings. And Scott’s request to use space appears nowhere on the agenda.
“I am extremely frustrated, I’m disappointed in the inability of the district to follow the law,” Scott said, “because if the school district decides to have their school facilities available to rent, anybody can rent them.”
If the Wednesday agenda item is approved, six groups that were already given permission to use facilities, with hundreds of reserved dates throughout the school year, will have to find other venues for the events and activities.
Scott, for his part, wants to offer an “inclusive story hour” that would include LGBTQ representation at the end of the school on three days throughout the fall semester at an elementary school where his son attends. He said he was told his reservation request would be taken up Wednesday but “we do not know if it will be approved.”
Scott said, “I asked for the policy for approvals and was told the board has none.”
Scott tried to reserve space the first time on November 2022. He said the district then told him the facility use policy had changed and his request was affected because of it, and that newer reservations were to follow the amended policies. Scott said he continuously reached out to district staff following that first suspended request, and he filed another reservation this month.
After months of not receiving a response of any kind, Scott decided to email the district’s superintendent, Corrine Folmer, and an assistant superintendent, to inform them about the situation. He heard back from district staff a few days ago and was told it would be decided at the Wednesday meeting.
In response to several questions from The Bee about Scott’s group and the district’s facilities use policies, Kelly Avants, the Clovis district’s spokesperson, said that the policy has been changed to not allow any facilities use by outside groups from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
She said the change was made because the board was asked by a private citizen to review its practices and policies for consistency. “That was done,” she said, “and changes made as a result.”
Avants said the “recent case-by-case assessment” for reservations was implemented on a trial basis and it was deemed unsuccessful because it interfered with district programming.
“Unfortunately, such a system has diverted resources away from our students, where our focus should be, caused confusion among those wishing to use our facilities, and in some cases created conflicts with our own district-use of facilities for our own students,” she said.
As a result of those resource and scheduling conflicts, she said the district is returning to past facility use procedures so reservations happen outside of the district’s own “enrichment and intervention programs.”
“Any group whose events had been previously approved to occur between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on a school day may modify their facility use requests to occur outside of those hours,” she said.
For the LGBT Community Network, she said, “they, along with numerous groups requesting use of facilities are being processed under our current facility use administrative regulation/policy.”
‘They pull that rug from under us and say, “but not for you” ‘
As a district parent, Scott last year said he found out religious groups were using school facilities through his child and wondered what had to be done to reserve facilities at Clovis Unified.
“Late last calendar year, I decided that our organization was going to do the same thing,” he said. “We were going to rent the space at the school.”
The district “dragged their feet” and when last year’s winter break came, Scott said the district told him they had updated their procedures and “decided to suspend all facility rentals.”
Clovis Unified’s Administrative Regulation for Board Policy 1330 document, which details the procedures to enact the facility use policy, was updated on January 1 and 13, July 25 and September 7 of last year. This year, the document was amended once again on Sept. 14. District staff confirmed to Scott his facilities use request was going to be presented at the upcoming board meeting via email on two dates, Sept. 7 and 13.
Scott said a district administrator called him on Monday to let him know his request wouldn’t be discussed at Wednesday’s board meeting because his reservation would be nullified by point A 1b, which limits weekday reservations while school is in session to start no earlier than 6 p.m.
“The district now, for the second time, has chosen to do an end-around and allow every other group to rent facilities to have that right,” Scott said, “and then when we come along they pull that rug from under us and say, “but not for you.””
The administrator said the board has to vote on whether or not they’ll rescind the other organizations’ previously approved reservations or not, said Scott.
The Bee reached out to San Joaquin Valley Destination Imagination and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and received no response from either. Someone who answered the phone at CEF NorCal Central Valley South, the Child Evangelism Fellowship chapter that runs the Good News Club in Clovis, said they did not have a comment on the potential effects to their scheduling if the board decides to cancel past reservations.
Scott said he’s attending Wednesday’s meeting because he believes the district has decided to suspend facility use by external organizations rather than approve space to be used by the LGBT Community Network.
“It’s been a very David versus Goliath fight because I am just one person,” Scott said. “I have tried to do things the right way and follow the process set by the district and have just gotten pushback every step of the way.”
Clovis Unified’s facilities reservation polices
Clovis Unified’s facilities-use website says district facilities are available for use by external, non-district groups or organizations in accordance with board policies and administrative regulations.
“The district makes its facilities available for public use under guidelines established by board policy,” the website says.
Board Policy 1330 – titled “Use of District Facilities” – says the district should make its facilities available as “civic center[s] to citizens and community groups. Applicable purposes include public meetings, recreational programs and childcare.
Religious groups – churches or organizations – can request to reserve facilities to conduct religious services temporarily, be it one time or on a recurring basis if any religious group has no suitable meeting place for their services. However, like others who reserve facilities, the church or religious organization is to be charged a fee.
Yet, the policy reads the fee does not apply to “district-sponsored activities which include district students.” Between reservations approved on Aug. 16 and Sep. 6, the groups with the most approved reservations were two religious organizations.
The Good News Club, an optional after-school weekly program for kids 5-12 years old featuring a Bible lesson from the Child Evangelism Fellowship, has 303 reservations across district elementary schools throughout the school year.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a group that encourages athletes to play for God’s glory and change the world through the gospel, has 161 reservations across district schools throughout the school year.
The Bee contacted Avants, the district spokesperson, during and after the Sept. 6 meeting to ask about the LGBT Community Network’s request for facility use, if fees had been waived for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Good News Club among other specific questions. The district didn’t reply to questions individually.
In a general statement, Avants said most of The Bee’s questions could be answered “in the language of our existing board policy and administrative regulations on facility use.” She did not provide specifics about these two groups.
Clovis’s school board meets on Wednesday evenings. The public portion of their meetings begins at 6:30 p.m. at 1680 David E. Cook Way in Clovis. The public can address the board during the public comment section of the meeting, or if discussion for an agenda item is prompted before the board votes on it.
This story was originally published September 20, 2023 at 11:54 AM.