Fresno Unified School Board elected a new president. Here are her top priorities
.JPG "Susan Wittrup")
Fresno Unified’s new school board president said her priorities next year are to increase literacy, improve safety and school facilities, and to advance special education.
Susan Wittrup, who joined the board a year ago to represent the Bullard area and also serve as clerk, was unanimously elected president by the other trustees in the annual organization of the board at last Wednesday’s meeting. She spoke to The Bee about her role and what she’d like to accomplish over her term.
“The most important thing here is that our children get the very best education, and the conditions at schools are such that children love being at school and they thrive in those areas,” said Wittrup, who worked in the district for 37 years as a school psychologist and special education teacher. She hopes to draw on her experience of working with different groups of personalities and being a good listener in her new role, she said.
The school board president doesn’t necessarily have a great deal of individual authority, but she can help shape the agenda and respond to the calls and priorities of the community.
As the new board president, Wittrup said she’ll champion the Literacy Initiative, a program launched in August 2023 aimed at teaching preschoolers how to read and ensuring that every student is reading at grade level.
“What I observed is that though there were pockets of perfection where reading is being taught very well in this class or that class by this teacher or the other teacher, overall in the district, our literacy instruction was very subpar,” said Wittrup. “And I think the test results supported that it hasn’t been very good.”
Fresno Unified lags far behind the state level in English comprehension, the Smarter Balanced test score showed. Administered yearly by the California Department of Education, the test is given to students in grades three to eight and grade 11. At Fresno Unified, 33.2% of students met or exceeded English language arts standards on the 2022-2023 test, compared to 44.66% statewide.
Another priority is student safety, especially ensuring safe pathways to schools, which Wittrup said the board has made great efforts to resolve over the past year.
“After eight years of advocating for it, we’ve been able to get a turn signal at the intersection of West and Sierra,” said Wittrup. “We’ve seen so many near accidents and actual accidents where students were in that crosswalk. It took a long time to get that because of the pandemic and supply shortages, but we finally have that up and we’re already seeing improvement.”
Upgrading facilities will also be an emphasis, said Wittrup.
“Our facilities are dilapidated, these are very old buildings, many of them,” she said.
Wittrup said upcoming renovations include adding fencing at Bullard High School and installing two air conditioning units in the gym.
Trustee Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas echoed the prioritization of facility improvements. She described major upgrades to theaters, libraries and school buildings under construction in the Roosevelt High School district she represents. The area is in full swing gearing up for an “alternative learning” center – Farber Educational Campus, featuring state-of-the-art facilities to offer occupational and practical training for students – and is set to open in summer 2024.
The board is also bracing for potential funding cuts from the state.
California is facing a $68 billion budget deficit due to a severe decline in revenues in 2022-23, which mirrors reductions in funding for Proposition 98, a ballot initiative that guarantees a minimum portion of the state’s general fund goes to education. In 2023, California’s K-12 schools received $108.3 billion from the general fund.
A fiscal outlook from the Legislative Analyst’s Office in early December showed that K-12 schools and community colleges could face three-year funding cuts totaling $18.8 billion if the 2024-25 budget passes next month by Governor Gavin Newsom.
“I’m really hoping that the governor or the legislator don’t decide to give education the biggest hit,” said Rosas.
In seeking to refine decision-making in the face of tight budgets, Rosas said the board has been advocating for analytical tools, such as a data mechanism for evaluating the allocation of funds, so that the board can be well-informed, determine where the needs lie and analyze the cost-effectiveness of investing in programs.
She further spoke about the importance of parent and family involvement in the outcomes and budgeting process.
“Kids have needs and we want to fulfill those needs as best we can,” she said. “When we are limited with resources, we have to make difficult decisions, and for that we need a parent and community input.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2023 at 10:46 AM.
