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Effort to Fully Unionize Clovis Unified Picks up More Backers
NANCY WEBSITE HEADSHOT 1
By Nancy Price, Multimedia Journalist
Published 1 year ago on
August 20, 2024

Clovis Unified American Sign Language Interpreters are seeking union representation. (GV Wire Composite/David Rodriguez)

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The Association of Clovis Educators announced Tuesday that Clovis Unified’s American Sign Language Interpreters have signed up to join the union.

The interpreters sent their union petition to the district and the Public Employment Relations Board on Monday to be recognized as part of ACE, the union said in a news release.

The ASL interpreters’ highest priority is making communications and learning accessible for the hearing impaired but are challenged by limited resources and staffing shortages.

The 28 interpreters provide services for deaf and hard of hearing students at Garfield Elementary, Alta Sierra Intermediate, and Buchanan High, in the classroom as well as at rallies, sporting events, concerts, field trips, and graduation ceremonies, interpreter Sarah Maricle said in the news release.

“The role of Educational ASL Interpreters at CUSD is to bridge the communication gap between our DHH and hearing campus communities,” she said.

Updated Friday, Sept. 13: District spokeswoman Kelly Avants said the district was notified Thursday that the employees had submitted a representation petition to PERB. “There are still several steps between this action and the creation of a new representative group and we are still reviewing the information we were provided,” she said.

Second Group of Employees Represented by ACE

ACE won recognition as the union representative of the district’s 78 school psychologists and mental health service professionals after they filed a petition for representation in June 2021, about two months after the union started gathering signatures of the district’s 2,100 certificated employees.

But teachers, who are the majority of the district’s certificated employees, are still unrepresented by the union after several years of organizing efforts.

ACE has come out the winner in a series of PERB decisions that found the district had unfairly supported the Faculty Senate as the unelected labor representative of teachers and other certificated employees in an attempt to discourage ACE’s organizing efforts

In June, PERB issued a cease-and-desist order requiring the district to disestablish the Faculty Senate. PERB’s order also required Superintendent Corrine Folmer to be videorecorded reading the cease-and-desist order and for that recording to be played at in-person teacher meetings.

The order also requires the district to eliminate from schools, websites, postings, and documents any reference to what has become known as the portion of “Doc’s Charge” that states “professionals who work in our district are proud that we do not have collective bargaining.””Doc’s Charge” was developed by founding superintendent Dr. Floyd “Doc” Buchanan.

Although Clovis Unified teachers are not represented by a union, other employee groups have been represented by other unions for some time.

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Nancy Price,
Multimedia Journalist
Nancy Price is a multimedia journalist for GV Wire. A longtime reporter and editor who has worked for newspapers in California, Florida, Alaska, Illinois and Kansas, Nancy joined GV Wire in July 2019. She previously worked as an assistant metro editor for 13 years at The Fresno Bee. Nancy earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her hobbies include singing with the Fresno Master Chorale and volunteering with Fresno Filmworks. You can reach Nancy at 559-492-4087 or Send an Email

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