Why is Fresno Unified cutting attendance specialists amid push to fill seats?
It’s no secret that Fresno Unified, facing a projected budget deficit of $88 million, is a district that continues to struggle with declining enrollment and post-pandemic attendance woes — so then why has it been drastically scaling back its number of attendance specialists?
In proposed updates to staffing formulas for the 2026-27 school year, the district shared that it’s considering cutting 14 child welfare and attendance specialists.
There are two different tiers of these specialists listed on the district’s job description site, though the main function of both roles is to support student attendance and achievement while maintaining contact with families.
This suggested reduction is accompanied by other proposed shifts to the district’s department of prevention and intervention, such as cutting seven school counselors and adding three behavior intervention specialists.
Records obtained by The Fresno Bee show that the overall number of mental health professionals ballooned after the COVID-19 pandemic, but the district has been steadily cutting attendance specialist jobs for years.
The district upped its overall number of mental health professionals by 53 percent from 2020 to 2025. Over the same period, the number of child welfare and attendance specialists dropped to 25 from 53, or by about 52 percent.
A.J. Kato, spokesperson for the district, said some of this decline is attributed to several child welfare and attendance specialist positions being reclassified into tier II intervention specialist roles.
Tier II intervention specialists focus on supporting students’ social emotional, behavioral and attendance needs, per the district’s job description site.
Fresno Unified is also exploring a redesign of how these positions work to help address the factors that drive chronic absenteeism — such as mental health, trauma and family issues, Kato said.
This redesign will include an increased focus on improving daily turnout among the earliest school experience — preschool to first grade — to help families create habits that support better attendance rates, Kato said.
Kato said this focus will help address the number of students who aren’t reading at grade level by third grade. This goes hand-in-hand with the district’s ambitious goal of nearly doubling its early literacy rates.
California Department of Education data shows that Fresno Unified’s chronic absenteeism rate has stayed around 31 percent for the last two school years. The district’s chronic absenteeism rate peaked at just over 50 percent for 2021-22.
Before the pandemic, these rates were around 17 percent.
