7 Clovis Unified schools receive $10M state grant. How will students benefit?
Clovis Unified plans to use funds from a state grant intended to raise student attendance and achievement toward investing in professional development in early literacy for teachers and behavioral counseling for students.
The five-year grant comes from the California Community Schools Partnership Program, a $1.3 billion initiative to turn schools into resource hubs for families and neighborhoods. Some school districts in the Fresno area have used the money to fund food and clothing pantries, hire community coordinators for school sites, and provide transportation to families in need.
Seven schools in Clovis Unified were awarded a total of $9.7 million state grant funds, effective this school year: Fancher Creek Elementary, Miramonte Elementary, Pinedale Elementary, Sierra Vista Elementary, Tarpey Elementary, Weldon Elementary and Gateway High.
Karen Boone, assistant director of the curriculum, instruction, and accountability department, said the district used the grant’s first year to “look at what the needs are” and come up with a spending plan. Officials decided the best way to utilize the state grant would be to provide professional development in certain areas for educators so they could better help students in need.
“We have to do some hiring and planning, and some of that’s going to occur over the summer,” Boone said. “A lot of schools in the state are using the five-year grant this way, to have an initial planning year and then four years of implementation.”
As part of the grant application, schools conducted a “needs assessment” and surveyed educators, parents and students, Boone said.
Erin Waer, assistant superintendent for Clovis Unified, said some site principals proposed adding more professional development and coaching support in counseling and academics to expand teachers’ capacity to help students.
“That’s a way to maximize the dollars, because you may send a team of five or six (educators), and they come back to train their teams, then all of a sudden, you’ve trained 30 people. It’s a trainer’s model,” said Boone.
Clovis Unified has long been known in the Central Valley for its high academic achievement. The latest state test results show 61% of Clovis Unified third graders met or exceeded English language arts standards, compared to the state average of about 43%. Five of the six elementary schools that will be converted to community schools are at least 10 percentage points below the districtwide average in English literacy.
“When students reach a certain grade, if they are not on grade level, the chances of becoming on grade level will decrease. Investing in early literacy helps curb that trajectory of never becoming on grade level,” said Boone. “We recognize the importance of making sure that all of our teachers are trained in early literacy. If we give them those skills and maybe extra programs at schools, they’re going to be more successful as they progress through the education system.”
Site principals also reported that teachers are experiencing students with more behavior issues and could benefit from additional counseling services, said Boone.
“Students and teachers are experiencing some sort of trauma-based behavior or are just recovering from COVID,” Boone said. “We have a model that has worked well, and we would add that to the anchor schools without supplanting.”
Currently, Clovis Unified has a team of 94 psychologists and behavior analysts. The district does not plan to create grant-funded positions, but sees the community schools grant as an opportunity to leverage more resources and professional development for schools with greater needs, Waer said.
“A school may have to say, two or three hours a week of an academic counselor, but they may need more than that, so that’s an area this community schools grant could come in and help,” Waer said.
The district hasn’t made detailed plans to spend the funding. Waer said every school has unique needs and it shouldn’t be a top-down decision made by the district.
“The goal of any of these, and the grants in general, is that whatever we put in place will be sustainable beyond the grant,” Waer said.
