Two Fresno-area school boards are considering renewing their commitments not to cooperate with immigration officials seeking to verify that students are legal U.S. residents.

Fresno Unified trustees passed such a pledge for the first time in March 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump started his first term with promises to tighten borders and with ICE conducting workplace immigration raids. For his second term, Trump has promised mass deportations and could be targeting sites that were previously off-limits to immigration raids: schools, hospitals, and places of worship.

FUSD trustees aren’t waiting for Trump to be sworn into his second term on  Jan. 20 (which somewhat ironically falls on the federal holiday honoring civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) to consider a new resolution reaffirming their “Recognition of a Safe Place School District.” The resolution they passed in 2017 prohibits district personnel from voluntarily cooperating in immigrant enforcement, including sharing information about the immigration status of students and their families.

The resolution is on the consent portion of Wednesday’s meeting that will see trustees return to the district’s downtown headquarters after a lengthy and expensive renovation project that includes a major overhaul of the board’s second floor meeting room.

The resolution also would require Interim Superintendent Misty Her to develop a comprehensive plan to communicate to both staff and families the district’s commitment to make Fresno Unified schools safe places.

Central Unified trustees are scheduled later this month to take up a similar resolution, reaffirming the commitment they made in 2017 not to collaborate voluntarily with immigration officials. That resolution emphasized that U.S. Supreme Court precedent guarantees a public education to all children regardless of the immigration status of themselves or their families.

The Supreme Court’s 1982 case, Plyler v. Doe, passed on a 5-4 majority and found that schools could neither deny education to undocumented students nor force their families to pay tuition.

Meanwhile, the potential for immigration raids could stymie the advances that school districts, including Fresno Unified, have been making in reducing chronic absenteeism, which skyrocketed after the pandemic. In addition to learning losses for children who aren’t in school, absenteeism puts a squeeze on district finances, since the state provides funding based on student attendance.

The slight uptick of 0.4% in attendance reported at the Dec. 18 board meeting represents about $4 million in additional state funding, chief financial officer Patrick Jensen told the board.

District Wants to Lift Bonding Ceiling

Central Unified voters have given the district the OK to sell general obligation bonds for school improvements that include the $109 million in bonds that voters authorized when they passed Measure X in November.

The property tax rate for each bond measure — Measure X was preceded by Measures B, C, and D — is capped at $60 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

But the size of the bond measure can impact the actual tax rate. Central Unified trustees opted not to seek a $126 million bond measure in November to maintain the current rate of taxation, which is $215.60 per $100,000 assessed valuation.

The district faces another limitation: State law caps the assessed valuation bonding capacity at 2.5% unless there is a waiver from the State Board of Education.

Central is competing against school districts with higher property tax valuations that reap more tax dollars and enable them to claim a bigger piece of the state’s facilities funding pie.

The board is holding a public hearing next week to receive public comment about making such a waiver request. The public hearing will start at 6 p.m. Jan. 14 and be held at 5652 W. Gettysburg Ave., Fresno.