Who is Bob Nelson’s greatest enemy? Q&A with Fresno Unified outgoing superintendent
Bob Nelson served as superintendent of Fresno Unified School District for seven years, a position that he said placed him at the intersection of school board politics and student interests.
“A lot of educators say I don’t do politics. There’s no such thing. What you’re saying is I do it, I’m just not good at it,” Nelson told The Fresno Bee.
Nelson has worked at Fresno Unified for more than 30 years. He started as a teacher at Burroughs Elementary. He worked at multiple schools and made his way from vice principal through the ranks to superintendent in September 2017.
Nelson announced in January that he was leaving the district for a tenured faculty position at Fresno State. As he took his nameplate off the dais and swapped seats with Interim Superintendent Misty Her in mid-May, his role transitioned to special advisor for the board. Nelson’s last day will be July 31.
In an interview with The Bee, Nelson offered his candid assessment of Fresno politics and his time as leader of Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, with nearly 70,000 students.
Among other things, Nelson told The Bee that the school board has been known for conflict and that it can be traced back to the switch a decade ago from at-large to district-based voting. He also offered that some board members, general speaking, use their seats as stepping stones to other, more powerful elected positions. “... They see us as the AAA franchise of other political interests.”
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What made you become the superintendent?
I’m the first internal person in Fresno to serve in the superintendency for three decades. Like what you’re seeing with Misty (Her)’s journey that they’re really trying to grapple with, “Do we need to have an actual search, and some exemplar exists out there?” So that was always the case before I arrived. It was always an outside person coming into the district to save the district.
I was my predecessor’s chief of staff, and then if I’m totally honest about it, I was the least openly detested available. I was just the most available person at the time of the transition. And so I served as the interim for quite a long period of time, and then I served as superintendent.
At the time when you came in 2017, there was a lot of conflict among board members, can you describe the district around that time?
Honestly, it’s not distinguishable from board conflict now. I think a lot of board conflict centers around the changing nature of the community. The fundamental crux of that conflict: We used to be “at large” trustee districts, wherever the money and the power were in the community dictated who was going to have a voting bloc. That changed around the same time-frame when we changed from “at large” to trustee-area districts. And so what happened is you started getting a different trustee from each region. And the trustees started to be more representative of the community, and the traditional powers that be, who kind of control politics and Fresno, lost their ability to tightly control what was going on at the board level, and it created a different level of conflict.
Look at our board now, it varies from right to left in terms of the political spectrum. It varies in terms of what their interest and their focus is going to be. And you see it playing out in the superintendent transition, it plays out in Bullard fence (issue), it just plays out in all these weird ways. (The board has debated whether it should spend $2 million fortifying the fence around Bullard High.)
My role is different. I mean, honestly, my job is to try and block and tackle community politics to make sure that the interests of the kids are (addressed). I mean, the truth is a lot of our trustees are getting elected to the school board with the intent of moving on to the City Council or county government. They see us as the AAA franchise of other political interests.
How do you describe the change in the role of superintendent?
(Previous superintendent Michael Hanson’s) role was different than mine. He was kind of a “fix it” superintendent. He was in charge of fixing a broken system, and he did that pretty well.
My role was different, I had to take the academic structures that he put in place, and I tried to build attribution around that. In other words, how can I help you as a teacher, or have you as a leader, see yourself in the change that was happening in terms of what we’re trying to do, and feel like you have a voice in a part of that system and feel connected, and develop relationships.
As a superintendent, how do you manage the board political fights?
I’ve stayed close or at least tried to stay close to all seven of them, even if we were not on the same page politically. I never shut anybody out. I kept those conversations and those doors open even though I had some trustees treat me in ways that I would consider to be less than humane. You can just refuse to interact with them but that’s not productive; it’s not helpful. So I spent a lot of time talking to trustees about what their interests are. I tried to find ways that we can create things that are good for kids in ways that they care about too, like (offering free) summer camps. Tax dollars are being used to support the nonprofits in our community that are actually doing really good and meaningful things for kids. And the board likes that, too, because they’re able to ingratiate themselves with their constituency.
Who is your greatest enemy?
I wouldn’t name a person, but I’ll say there are folks whose interests in the district have nothing to do with children. If that’s where you are, the superintendent is not a person, right? The superintendent is a thing, the superintendent is either a barrier getting in the way of you accomplishing what it is you want to do, or the superintendent is the vehicle who’s going to give you a job or a contract or provide access to revenue. People that orient to me only through the lens of being a vehicle or barrier.... Those are the people I’m watching out for.
We are the biggest fiscal driver from Bakersfield to Sacramento, there’s actually a lot of people who have desires in the district that have nothing to do with children, those people would be my enemy.
What are the things you were proud to accomplish?
There were no Black male principals when I came into the superintendency. And now, there’s a ton. So I’m proud that every year I see the faculty look more like the kids that we serve, both the teachers and the leaders.
I’m very, very proud of the team I’m leaving behind. Misty will be more capable than me. She’s actually a really gifted educator in the area of literacy, and that’s what our system needs right now.
And I do want to effectuate change on the higher-ed side; 78% of our teachers in the district are groomed and came through our own pipeline programs.
What are the things that you would like to handle differently?
I think we need to do a better job of telling our version of the story. We are always behind on the proficiency bar, our kids are always lagging in proficiency statewide. I would say primarily that we start at a different starting line than most people. We’re the most impoverished major urban area anywhere, and I’m not making excuses about it, that’s just a reality. If you don’t educate people, you’re gonna continue to be implied, it’s a cyclical process. But we actually are gaining from a growth perspective. We’re gaining a rank faster than the state average.
The combination of us being the enforcer of pandemic health policy and earning extra dollars — we had a lot of one-time revenue come into the district, and basically told labor: “You can’t bargain this because it’s one-time revenue,” but the coffers were full of revenue. Those two things taken in tandem politicized education in a way that’s hard to come back from, which is why you see us as ground zero in the fight between right and left, right now. I don’t love lobbying at the state level, I should have done that more. I mean, the more important thing was showing up every day, and being punctual and loving kids. I cannot fix the pandemic, nobody could have anticipated it.
How’s the superintendent search going?
I said in January, “Just name Misty.” I was not Superintendent Hanson’s succession plan. So they put the deputy in with the express intent that we don’t want to lose a lot of traction in the change of transition of power.
So you put a deputy in, which is not to say she becomes the automatic superintendent. Now the goal is to hire somebody who is worthy of being the superintendent and could function in the event that the superintendent is not functioning. So I said to them in January to name Misty the interim, and spend six months of overlap while kids are still in school. This is a $1.7 billion organization, there’s some communication that has to go back and forth to transition from one person to another without losing traction.
What advice would you give to Misty Her and the next superintendent?
The secret for a superintendent is you have to manage change because people have a wide array of orientations. You have to have what you believe to be right and be kid-centric.
You have to know where the money is, what the influences are, where the power structures are. There’s not unanimity among any group about what they believe, so do you (as superintendent) understand the inner power structures that interplay in a group. You just need to be aware of the dots and put them together at all time.
What’s your new role at Fresno State?
Now I’m in a position to be able to nurture Valley leaders and have 33 years of serving in the Valley. I’m a Fresno fan, I’m super serious about it. So I have the opportunity to create a pipeline of leaders to channel right back to Fresno Unified. I’m in a unique position to try and help.
