Clovis Unified pro-union group alleges ‘surveillance campaign’ in latest complaint

A group of Clovis teachers vying to create a union in the state’s last largest school district without one took a hit last week after a judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order to force the district to stop its alleged support of the faculty senate.

The Association of Clovis Educators has filed two complaints with the California Public Employment Relations Board, which alleges Clovis Unified continues to support and influence the faculty senate, which the pro-union organizers say interferes with efforts to launch a labor union to better represent faculty.

The hearing in Fresno County Superior Court came after ACE sought injunctive relief against Clovis Unified through PERB, which requested “immediately to stop the district from favoring, financially supporting and falsely misrepresenting the Faculty Senate as a representative body of teachers.”

Another judge will hear the full injunctive relief request in the next few weeks, according to ACE spokesperson Kristin Heimerdinger.

“The judge didn’t find the issues were urgent enough, especially since there are over 1,500 pages of documents with the case,” she said Thursday. “PERB is seeking an aggressive list of remedies, and today’s judge was not willing to grant those remedies on an emergency basis.”

Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants said the district was pleased with the outcome.

“We realize that this is just one step in the process, but the District will continue to exercise its legal rights to respond to complaints filed against it,” she said.

ACE is made up of Clovis Unified teachers who have been attempting to create the district’s first teachers union. Organizers have been met with pushback from the faculty senate, which is the organization that represents teachers at the district level during decision-making. The senate works as more of an advisory panel and doesn’t have direct bargaining or negotiating power.

Surveillance campaign?

In its claims against the district, ACE says Clovis Unified is interfering with its right to organize “through an ongoing misinformation and surveillance campaign that includes the monitoring of emails.”

Heimerdinger said after filing a public records request, organizers saw the administration was monitoring the emails of ACE organizers.

According to court documents, several emails in April 2021 show that some administrators were discussing ACE’s efforts and were concerned it was happening during work hours.

The complaint alleges a teacher forwarded an email from ACE to an associate superintendent, asking if the email had been sent during work hours. The associate superintendent replied, “Probably right outside of her hours.” In a different email, he allegedly said he wasn’t sure if it was her “lunch hour.”

Another associate superintendent advised a library technician not to respond to the emails and replied, “he was ‘glad you get the emails you can share with me,’” court documents said.

Avants said about the claim administration was surveilling organizers, “That’s a mischaracterization by ACE.”

The complaint describes how teachers have been scared to support unionization efforts in fear of retaliation.

“One teacher reportedly described ‘signing for ACE was like signing a death sentence,’” the complaint read, and “one teacher arranged with ACE to sign his support for ACE in private so that no one would see him meeting with an ACE supporter.”

Others worried about receiving “undesirable schedules or assignments if the District learns of their support for ACE.”

CUSD is also accused of controlling and supporting the faculty senate by paying the faculty senate president a full salary and benefits, providing a car and office space, and giving the president use of the district’s website and email system.

The president, Stacy Schiro, is working as a certificated employee for the district and was formerly a physical education teacher. Schiro made headlines a few years ago in an unrelated controversy involving her role as a cheerleading coach.

According to ACE, the district has also provided the faculty senate with an operating budget, a credit card, legal counsel, and accounting services.

The senate does not currently receive any of those perks, Avants said, but “over the past 40+ years there have been times that faculty senate had requested and been provided a small budget to buy meeting supplies using a credit card. These were provided at the request of elected teachers serving on Faculty Senate.”

Members do receive a stipend for their work in the senate.

Avants said the district had filed a response to the claims with PERB, but the district “categorically disagree(s)“ with the claims.

“We have 68 full- or part-time teachers who are on various special assignments currently in Clovis Unified, all of whom have access to email, workspace and tools to conduct their work,” she said in a statement. “All teachers, regardless of being on special assignment or not, are provided access to having a web page, have email, and could check out a district vehicle for business purposes if needed. The current faculty senate president is not using a district vehicle.”

The district and ACE came together for a settlement conference last week, according to Heimerdinger, but the two sides could not come to terms.

If the restraining order had been granted, it would have effectively dissolved the senate as-is, Heimerdinger said, leaving senators without a stipend and the release time they get to work on senate issues, at least until the full injunction was heard by the court, which could take months.

“I think it’s important to keep in mind that it is the judge who hears our injunctive relief request who ultimately makes the decision about what behaviors have to stop,” she said. “... we are dependent on the expertise of the judge to determine which behavior is illegal and needs to stop now.”

While waiting for the full case to be heard, ACE continues to reach out to teachers and collect signatures to support making ACE the official union. Signatures are valid for a year, and the petition began in April, Heimerdinger said.

Clovis Unified is the largest school district in the state not to have a teachers union.

“What we have found is that many of our colleagues have a misunderstanding of what the faculty senate can provide them,” she said. “And, unfortunately, many of our colleagues think that what ACE can provide them, they are already receiving from the faculty senate.”

In June, a supermajority of Clovis Unified school psychologists signed a petition to unionize, which ACE called a “first step” toward larger unionization efforts.

Clovis Teachers for Clovis

Joni Sumter, an AP biology teacher at Clovis High School, said ACE’s campaign is distracting to teachers who are returning to classrooms.

Sumter is one of the founders of Clovis Teachers for Clovis, an anti-union group formed to rally support for the faculty senate.

“(It’s) really putting a lot of stress on teachers,” Sumter told The Bee. “We’re receiving unnecessary emails from ACE when we’re trying to plan for students and get back into the swing of things.”

“I do think that their current attack, which is the legal attack,” Sumter said about ACE, “demonstrates that they don’t have the number of teachers needed to vote for ACE to be representing all teachers, or else they would just have a vote.”

Sumter, an alumna of Clovis Unified, pointed to a 2019 study done by the Learning Policy Institute that sought to understand why Clovis Unified was an outlier in the Fresno area with its high test scores for students of color.

One of the findings was that its “supportive school culture help(s) it hire and retain a high-quality teaching workforce.”

In the report, administrators say the district avoids an “us versus them” mentality with teachers by allowing the faculty senate to address issues instead of a union.

Sumter said many teachers agree that the faculty senate works for them, in part because the relationships between faculty senate members and administration are “well-established,” even though different members cycle through.

“There aren’t attorneys that have to negotiate all of these decisions,” she said, “it’s people who have the same goal, which is doing what’s best for kids, the Clovis way, which is (for) all kids.”

She said unions would politicize the district and, “just like they sat home all school year last year, the kids will be the ones who absorb all of the damage.”

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. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published September 4, 2021 at 7:00 AM.