Who’s going back to school in Fresno? FUSD releases new student data ahead of return

For the first time since last March, thousands of students in the Fresno Unified School District will have a chance to return to school for part-time in-person learning next month.

Fresno Unified, the area’s largest school district with more than 73,000 students, has been less aggressive in reopening campuses. FUSD students will begin returning to schools after spring break on April 6 in the so-called hybrid model, a mixture of in-person and online learning.

The latest numbers from the district, obtained Thursday by The Bee’s Education Lab, were released before the Centers for Disease Control on Friday updated its social distancing guidance for schools, lowering the recommended space between students in classrooms from six feet to three feet. It wasn’t immediately clear Friday how the new guidance might affect local school plans for the current semester.

About 82% of FUSD families responded to the district’s survey form, and 60.47% said their students would return to campuses. Approximately 39.53% of the district’s students will remain at home and continue distance learning.

About 66% of students did not specify their race or ethnicity in the district’s response form.

Hispanic or Latino students make up most of the FUSD population, about 68% in the 2019-20 school year. About 61% of Hispanic or Latino students want to return to in-person, according to the district’s data.

About 65% of Black students want to return to in-person learning. Black students made up about 8% of the district’s students last school year.

About 63% of Native American students want to return to campuses, and in the 2019-2020 school year, Native American students made up less than 1% of the total student population.

About 42% of Asian students and about 44% of Filipino students want to return to in-person learning. In the 2019-20 school year, Filipino students made up less than 1% of the population, and about 10% were Asian.

About 69% of white students said they want to return to classrooms. White students made up only about 9% of FUSD’s total student population in the 2019-20 school year, according to data from the California Department of Education.

FUSD data shows most of the students returning are in elementary grades. Transitional kindergarten through sixth grade all have more than 60% of students wanting to go back to in-person learning, with transitional-kindergarten and kindergarten reaching almost 70%.

Out of secondary grades, middle school campuses have the largest percentage of students wanting to return to campuses, around 58%. Out of high school students, about 55% of freshmen want to go back to classrooms.

It’s also unknown how the district will choose which students can return if not enough spots are available.

But FUSD Spokesperson Amy Idsvoog said there “is no scenario” where the whole student population can return to in-person classes at once, and there will not be a lottery system.

“We have 60% of our students who want to return to campus, so we’re building our hybrid groups around those wishing to return to in-person instruction,” she said in an email to the Ed Lab. “This is an incredibly complicated undertaking with lots of moving pieces behind the scenes to ensure siblings and students from shared households are kept in the same hybrid group district-wide as well as class size leveling to ensure physical distancing.

Trustee Terry Slatic told the Ed Lab the district still does not know how many teachers are returning to in-person learning and how that will compare to the number of students who are returning. He’s also heard from principals that said some teachers don’t want to return until they get the second dose of the vaccine, Slatic said, which for some could be after the first day back to school.

The district has about 1,000 substitutes, Slatic said, but FUSD doesn’t know how many it will need yet.

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 9:38 AM.