Will special education students lose services in Fresno Unified cuts? What we know
As the new academic year starts, Fresno Unified kids and teachers from the special education department may find themselves struggling more than before, as special education is among the departments taking the hardest hit in budget cuts.
For the 2024-25 school year, Fresno Unified is reassigning 13 full-time equivalent educators back into classroom teaching to save $2.1 million. The cuts include three literacy coaches, six teachers in special assignments, and four regional instructional managers.
The reassignment highlights the strategic allocation of resources to better support teaching and learning, said the district’s spokesperson Diana Diaz, and the decisions follow the collective bargaining agreement. Reducing class sizes was one of the main demands of the union during the near-to-strike contract negotiations last October. In addition to the reassignment, the district plans a 3.5 FTE increase in classroom teachers.
However, decreasing “on assignment” roles and directing those teachers back to classroom teaching does not solve the problem, but worsens the situation, teachers told The Fresno Bee, because teachers would lose support and also shoulder more responsibilities, they say.
“A student that has autism in my class would benefit from a visual schedule, but I’ve never done it, I know it exists, but I never used the program and I’ve never had access to it,” said Tamara Smith, special education teacher at Fort Miller Middle School. “So I would not have the means to make it happen for my student, I’d be looking on the internet and coming up with something on my own.”
Smith said when the “on assignment” teacher was in place, she could simply put in a request asking them to find the teaching material from another school site, and she would hear back in three days. They would also come to her site to help her obtain access to the software.
Fresno Unified didn’t provide details to The Bee about the reductions and the decision-making process. An email that Chief Academic Officer Dr. Natasha Baker sent to a TSA said Baker and Dr. Tangee Pinheiro, instructional superintendent of special education, were opposed to any reductions, but the “decisions were made outside of her control,” according to emails provided to The Bee by the special education committee.
On June 20, the board of trustees passed the budget, and the position cuts became final.
In addition to communicating among the school sites and managing administrative tasks, TSAs also arrange for training, design curriculum, run assessments, and collaborate with other departments, such as case managers. They also play a key role in coaching new teachers.
“We have a couple of teachers that are less than five years’ teaching, so the TSA works with them on everything from classroom management to curriculum implementation,” Smith said. “How do you set up your room? What kind of materials do they need on the classroom walls?”
For the 2023-24 school year, the special education department had ten TSAs for mild/moderate and extensive needs programs in elementary and secondary education, says a summarizing graph provided to The Bee from the special education committee. To carry out all the work, the estimated need for TSAs is 19.
Fresno Unified has approximately 11,000 students receiving special education services. There are over 900 cases pending for assessment.
After the reduction, there would be only three teachers left to support the mild/moderate programs and one teacher for early learning.
Especially for the extensive needs programs, all four TSAs are gone, leaving 142 teachers, 1,330 PK-12 students, and 143 special education adults who receive services from Fresno Unified.
Teachers and administrators said they don’t know how to fill the needs left by the TSA cuts, not to mention fulfilling the district’s ambitious plan to further promote special education. Last fall, Fresno Unified paid $40,000 for a consultant from the Council of the Great City Schools to conduct a review of the special education program and services. The newly released report stresses that the district should promote “inclusive decision-making and communication” as well as “sufficient resources to carry out work.”
“We’re not saying that special ed is more important than another department in the district, but they’ve identified that special ed needs improvements, that’s why they’re putting money into a report, so let us fix it,” said Smith. “Don’t take away what’s working.”
“We keep saying we need you to hear us, we need you to stop making decisions up there and just telling the sites what to do,” said Carl D’Souza, a speech pathologist and representative on the special education committee. “We need teachers to tell you what we need, this is taking away more teacher voice.”
