For close to a year, Fresno Unified and its teachers union have been haggling over the district’s proposed elimination of its Designated Schools Program.

Money is at the heart of the ongoing dispute about the program that provides extended-day learning for students at 40 schools.

The district says it is critical to cut costs due to declining enrollment and low average daily attendance. The Designated Schools Program’s $30 million price tag is one money-saving area.

“We need to save some to deal with the budget cuts we’re facing,” said Nikki Henry, Fresno Unified’s chief communications officer.

In addition to the expense of paying teachers additional wages for their longer day, Fresno Unified says an analysis of the program indicated that it hasn’t produced sufficient academic gains.

However, Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla says that dropping Designated Schools amounts to a salary cut for teachers at a time when the district should prioritize investing in them.

Arbitrator Sides With District

The ongoing dispute went to an arbitrator in December, who ruled in the district’s favor.

Since then, the two sides have been arguing over how to carry out the program’s elimination.

FTA and Fresno Unified are on the same page on how to ease the negative effects of the program’s loss: adding extra meeting days, teacher raises, expanding after school programs, and adding extra money for supplies.

However, they are on very different pages regarding the amount of money put toward each of these areas.

Bonilla says the district can move money from other areas of the budget and must prioritize investing in teachers. Major areas of concern for the FTA include district money spent on “Professional/Consulting Services and Operating Expenditures” and the amount of funding held in reserve.

The district must hold back some money because of budget constraints Henry counters.

Related Story: Will Fresno Unified Cut Instruction Hours at Some Schools to Balance Budget?

Instruction Time is Missing

While FTA has also cited a loss of important student learning time for those who need it most, none of its counter proposals addressed keeping the additional 30 minutes of instructional time offered via the program.

“They (FTA) could have proposed any number of things,” Henry said. “Instead of saying ‘we want a salary increase for everyone at a certain level,’ they could have said ‘we want to keep the instructional minutes’ or negotiate around schools they wanted to keep minutes at.”

Bonilla said the FTA is respecting the arbitration by not including instructional time in their proposal.

“If they were respecting the arbitration, they would’ve taken it as a binding agreement and wouldn’t have turned this into a public media fight,” Henry said.

FTA organized two protests over the program’s elimination. The most recent demonstration at a school board meeting produced an overflow of teachers and parents.

Related Story: 250 Fresno Unified Bus Driver Jobs at Risk, Teachers Fear 12% Pay Cuts

One way to mitigate lost instruction time is to expand after-school programs.

FTA is pushing for after-school and intervention programs led by certified teachers; the district often has classified staff and community partners running these programs.

‘Classrooms Over Consultants’ 

Still, money remains at the heart of the dispute.

FTA said that there is money spent elsewhere that can be put into teachers and the classroom.

The district pushed back against the idea that they aren’t investing in teachers.

“Our teachers are some of the highest paid and benefited teachers in this valley and we are focused on investing in our kids, in our teachers, and in our classrooms every day,” Henry said.

The FTA has criticized the district’s allocation of $110 million to “Professional/Consulting Services and Operating Expenditures.”

“This claim of ‘classrooms over consultants’ is a nice slogan but really doesn’t have a lot of substance or meat behind it when most of that $110 million is going directly into the classroom,” Henry said.

For example, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program grant funding from California, designated for after-school programs, is restricted funding included in these expenditures Henry said.

At a previous board meeting, the district handed out a paper breaking down where “Professional/Consulting Services and Operating Expenditures” money is being spent.

That prompted Bonilla to tell supporters to rip the paper in half, which Henry characterized as dismissing the facts.

When asked about the paper showing money going into classroom services, Bonilla said, “We (the FTA) didn’t say all consultants were bad.”

At a previous protest, Bonilla turned all questions regarding consultants over to the teachers.

After being prompted by Bonilla to respond to what impact consultants have made, the group yelled, “None.”

Related Story: Fresno Unified Faces Teacher Uproar Over Slashing Designated Schools

The Designated Schools Battle Through the Years

Fresno Unified and the FTA have switched positions in their long-standing arguments around the Designated Schools Program.

During the last negotiation cycle, the district pushed to expand designated schools by 26 sites, Bonilla said.

A year later, the district notified the FTA of their plan to slash the program citing poor academic return on investment.

Bonilla questions how the district can change their position so quickly, including its stance on benefits of the program.

The district’s response: “It’s the same question reversed.”

“After nearly 10 years of FTA advocating against designated schools, we did not expect for them to flip their position and come so hard against us now, easing it out,” Henry said.

Bonilla denied this in a previous interview saying, “What we (the FTA) were saying is that you cannot say that there is one silver bullet. In designated schools, you still need good leadership. You still need support.”

During a 2023 bargaining session, Bonilla questioned the benefits of additional instruction time and requested metrics showing results.

“I hear, very loud and clear, that the district has an interest to increase the instructional minutes. I guess my question is: why? What’s the rationale? Other than ‘we think that it will help our students.’”

Now, Bonilla challenges that the program is not producing results, and said the district is using old data.

The district cited Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test results as evidence that Designated Schools isn’t working.

The district took a closer look at the program, did not see academic returns, and heard from the FTA that they did not want this program, Henry said.

“I think it’s a bit of a perfect storm of why the decision happened now.”