Fresno Unified gets $7M grant to transform five schools. Here’s how the money will be spent
In several of the classrooms at Fort Miller Middle School in Fresno, students can find much more than standard school supplies lining teachers’ closets and shelves.
Some teachers have toiletry closets, with toothbrushes and toothpaste, combs and hair ties, deodorant and menstrual pads, all free for the taking. Others have food pantries with granola bars and mac ‘n’ cheese for students who don’t have enough to eat, or closets of extra shirts and sweaters for students who don’t have enough clean clothes to last the week.
In these ways, the middle school already resembles what’s known as a “community school” — a new model for education, which treats schools as not just venues for teaching and learning but also as resource hubs, based on what the particular school community needs. That could be a health clinic or, like Fort Miller, food and toiletry pantries.
The underlying idea is that students will struggle to learn if their basic needs aren’t met — and that the local community of parents, teachers, students and staff know those needs best.
This fall, Fort Miller will officially become a community school, after the state board of education voted to approve an over $7,125,000 implementation grant for the district to transform select sites into community schools over the next five years.
Birney Elementary, Holland Elementary, Norseman Elementary and Thomas Elementary will also be part of FUSD’s inaugural cohort.
With the grant, Fort Miller teacher Eric Calderon said he’s hopeful they’ll have the chance to “streamline” the resources teachers have already provided via crowdfunding or out of their own pockets, so that “teachers can focus on teaching.”
A portion of the funding from the implementation grant will also go toward hiring one community schools coordinator for each of the five schools. It will be these people’s job to secure wraparound services for the community schools.
That new position will take much of this work off the backs of other staff as well, which Fort Miller Principal Abraham Olivares welcomes.
“Having a community schools coordinator, that is their sole focus,” he said. “Making sure our families, our kids have what they need.”
Some district leaders have high hopes this will help address some of its deepest-rooted problems, like chronic absenteeism and low academic achievement.
“The bet” with community schools, said district Trustee Andy Levine, “is that providing these broader resources makes it more possible for students to make it to school and to be focused in school.”
How Fresno Unified’s community schools will work
Every community school will look different, but that’s the name of the game.
The particular wraparound services, resources and after-school support offered at a community school develop out of engagement with district families.
At Fort Miller, staff, students, and parents previously identified the need for access to laundry machines.
The school has one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the district, according to 2021-22 CDE data, and students not having clean clothes was contributing to the problem.
Transportation is another issue, as Fort Miller has the highest number of feeder schools of any middle school in the district, Olivares said. They’re hoping to request a van to help pick up students who live furthest from the school.
Meanwhile at Holland Elementary, another member of Fresno Unified’s inaugural class of community schools, students have slightly different needs. They have a high number of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), which are academic paths customized for students in special education, according to Carlos Arredondo, a FUSD principal on special assignment leading the districtwide community schools efforts.
“They’re looking to see how they can utilize the community schools model to support that aspect,” he said, “whether it were to be through specific tutoring, through a focused after-school approach where there’s more targeted instruction taking place” or other approaches.
Fresno teachers union backs initiative
Another aspect that sets community schools apart is their commitment to “collaborative leadership” between teachers, staff, students, parents, administrators, and community members.
“The whole DNA of a community school,” said Linda Hoff, a retired Fresno Pacific University director of teacher education helping coordinate Fresno Unified’s initiative, “is not assuming that the people at the top of the pile know what to do.”
That’s part of what draws the Fresno Teachers Association to the model.
The union has, in fact, been one of the driving forces behind bringing community schools to the district. FTA drew up a memorandum of understanding in March 2022 that established a district-wide steering committee of Fresno Unified leaders, FTA teachers and parents to help shape the community schools initiative.
“Historically, Fresno Unified is top-down. If you were to ask employees, if you were to ask our community, not many people feel heard,” Bonilla said, “and not a lot of people feel like they have a space to be a decision maker in this district.”
“One of the goals,” he added, “is to show we could do this in a different way.”
The model also encourages partnerships with community organizations to help meet identified needs — something that the community schools coordinator will be tasked with securing.
At Fort Miller, that could look like a partnership with the Fresno Housing Authority to help the school’s population of unhoused students, Calderon said.
The community schools coordinator position was posted May 18, according to EdJoin. The district’s goal is to hire coordinators in the next month and a half so they’ll be ready to start come July, Arredondo said.
Measuring community schools’ success
Several leaders told the Ed Lab they will be closely watching chronic absenteeism trends to measure the impact of the first five community schools.
Hoff, the former Fresno Pacific faculty member supporting Fresno Unified’s initiative, said it’s “very common” for community schools to use that metric.
“There is some assumption that when kids’ needs are met better,” she said, “and families feel more connected to the school … the kids are much more likely to come to school.”
Trustee Levine envisions a bigger ripple effect.
“It goes all the way to achievement scores, and college and career readiness,” he said.
“Our first and foremost responsibility is to prepare students for college and career success. But,” Levine added, “we can’t do that if we’re not intentionally being proactive about our students’ more basic needs. If we do meet those basic needs, we should expect to see achievement scores go up.”
At the same time, Hoff said these changes shouldn’t be expected to happen “overnight.”
“It’s a five-year process. Each school gets money for each of the five years,” she said. “So that tells you something about (how) it takes a while.”
The state funding lasts through 2028. After that, unless the state extends funding, the district will have to figure out how to support the community schools on its own.
For the time being, teacher Calderon sees these next several years as an opportunity to “rewrite the story” of Fort Miller.
“Oftentimes, I go around and talk about Fort Miller. A lot of times people say, ‘Oh. You work there?’ – it’s always this negative tone.
“If we can get families to come here, and we can get students to be more engaged, and our staff too, I feel like we would be turning that leaf,” he said. Through the community schools initiative, he added, “we can say, ‘the school has been designed based on your voice and your needs.’”
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 at its website.
This story was originally published May 24, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
