Fresno Unified trustees aren’t in sync over whether the best plan for spending a potential $500 million on facilities is to allocate funds by equity needs or trustee area.

They are developing a project list for Measure H and reviewed spending proposals at Wednesday’s board meeting.

Five of the seven trustees indicated they support a project list focused on schools with the most needs instead of divvying up the pot across the seven trustee regions.

But Board President Susan Wittrup, who represents the Bullard region, said voters in her area won’t support the bond measure if it lacks Bullard-area projects, such as reconditioning Bullard High’s second gym.

Wittrup said the problems in the gym that she highlighted during her campaign two years ago, such as mold, haven’t gone away.

“As I talk to constituents and I talk to people that are preparing to vote, I’m going to say northwest (Fresno) voters need to feel like they’re going to see something for that bond too, and right now it’s pretty slim pickings,” she said.

“I mean, we’ve got the Roosevelt region with $114.67 million in projects, and we have the Bullard region at $25.7 million and Sunnyside at $9 million. Voters expect something when they vote for a bond. And so we as a board need to think about that also.”

Measure H, which will be on the November ballot, will need to win approval from 55% of the district’s voters to pass.

Paul Idsvoog, the district’s Chief Operations and Classified Labor Management Officer, said that not every school even has a second gym.

The $500 million will address only a small fraction of the district’s estimated $2.5 billion in facilities needs, Idsvoog said.

Equity = Fairness

Trustee Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, who represents the Roosevelt area, said dividing a portion of the bond measure proceeds across trustee areas won’t address the schools with the greatest needs, many of which are in older neighborhoods.

Analyzing the amount spent on current and past bond measures by trustee area could be skewed by millions of dollars spent on new construction projects such as the Farber Educational Campus, she said.

“Even though the project list doesn’t necessarily primarily benefit the Roosevelt region … it’s driven by a third-party objective metric that’s not driven by politics,” she said. “It’s an assessment of where the equity score is, and that’s where we’re driving our investment.”

Trustee Claudia Cazares, who represents the Hoover area, said she initially was in favor of a seven-way split of a $101 million portion of the bond measure, allowing trustees the opportunity to meet with their area leaders and come up with a project list.

But the School Board has made a commitment to consider projects through an equity lens and needs to see it through, Cazares said.

Fresno Unified paid RSS Consulting $126,000 last year to develop an equity tool to be used in conjunction with a facilities needs survey conducted by MGT of America, which was paid $604,294.

“I’m going to lean towards making sure our children’s health and safety is attended to first, versus making a political decision,” she said. “I’d rather do an ethical decision that benefits our children for the next several years versus making it look like we’re doing a political decision.”

Related Story: Where Nearly $2 Billion in School Bonds Go, Union and Construction Money Flow

Dividing Facilities Needs into ‘Buckets’

District staffers are proposing dividing the Measure H into different “buckets”:

— $167 million would be spent on projects to reduce classroom overcrowding developed in collaboration with the Fresno Teachers Association;

— $37 million for remaining Measure M projects;

— $80 million for deferred maintenance and small capital projects;

— $80 million for turf, track, lights and stands at Bullard, Edison, Fresno, Hoover, and Roosevelt high schools;

— $15 million for the new Aviation Academy;

— $20 million for unforeseen and escalating costs;

— And, $101 million for additional projects to be approved by the School Board, including $9 million for phase 1 of the career-technical education Ag Facility to be built in the Sunnyside region.

Teachers Union Gets a Say in Project Decisions

Fresno Unified’s contract with the FTA last fall included a provision for the union to collaborate with the district on how to spend one-third of any new bond measure to alleviate classroom overcrowding.

The staff prepared two options for how to spend the $101 million. In option 1, there is at least one project in each trustee region except Edison. The projects include $9 million for cafeteria reconstruction at Ewing and Pyle elementaries, $7 million to complete the theater modernization at Roosevelt, $7 million for safety improvements at Hoover High; $5 million to improve the theater and fire and safety improvements at Bullard Talent K-8; and $3.2 million for concrete tennis courts at Bullard High.

Option 2, labeled the “equity-based projects,” would spend nearly $109 million on three elementary schools, Ewing, Heaton, and Lowell, and two middle schools, Fort Miller and Yosemite, for new classroom buildings, portable replacement, fire alarm upgrades, electrical and heating/air-conditioning work, and a cafeteria reconstruction.

Fort Miller’s partial renovation of $25.6 million would top the list, and the total projects at that school would be $28.1 million. Yosemite’s projects, which include a partial renovation and office reconstruction, would total $30.3 million.

Ewing and Yosemite are in the McLane area, Heaton and Fort Miller are in the Fresno High area, and Lowell is in the Roosevelt area.

Related Story: Sierra Unified Hopes Voters Will Approve School Bond Measure for First Time

District and Union Collaborated on Projects

The projects identified in collaboration with FTA are new classrooms, cafeteria, portable replacements, and library projects at eight elementary schools that were constructed between 1945 (Calwa Elementary) and 1971 (King Elementary). Three (Birney, Ericson, and Norsemen) are in the McLane area; two in the Edison area (Addams and King); two in the Roosevelt area (Calwa and Lane); and one in the Fresno High area (Del Mar).

Idsvoog told the trustees that staffers will finetune the project lists before one-on-one meetings with trustees and then finalize the list before the Sept. 25 School Board meeting.

Open House on Measure H Is Wednesday

Interim Superintendent Misty Her said the district will hold an open house at Duncan Polytechnical High School on Wednesday to see firsthand the types of improvements that have been made possible through past bond measures and to learn how Measure H would continue the trend of community investment in Fresno’s schools.

“If you’re interested in getting an event invitation, please reach out to our Communications Department office at (559) 457-3733. Or you can go to communications@Fresno unified.org,” she said at the board meeting.

Related Story: California Lawmakers Propose $10 Billion Bonds for Climate and Schools

Initial Measure H Project List