After becoming the first female superintendent for Fresno Unified and the first Hmong superintendent in the nation, Misty Her has been taking calls from around the world from people congratulating her for the achievement, said Diana Diaz, communications director with the district.

Hmong from Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, France, and Australia called to show their support, she said.

Her, however, has a tough job ahead of her.

Her comes into the role as a longtime leader of a district that for decades has struggled far behind other school systems in getting kids to read and do math.

Only 35% of Fresno Unified students met English language arts standards and 25% met math standards in the 2023-24 school year, according to Ed-Data.org. That’s compared to 47% for English and 36% for math statewide.

But Her says her time as interim superintendent has given her the tools she needs to immediately begin the work of correcting the district.

“I already did 100 days when I became interim,” Her said. “So my next 100 days is not going to be made up of sitting down and talking to people. It is actually going to be boots on the ground, start running.”

When she began as interim after Bob Nelson stepped down in July 2024, the district changed its model, narrowing its goals from more than 100 to only four — called student governance-focused outcomes.

In a sit-down interview with GV Wire, she laid out her plan to increase reading skills, balance a budget, and bring accountability to a district with an executive team more than double the size of its most comparable district: Long Beach Unified.

She emphasized that her four goals — focusing on literacy, career and college readiness, and life skills — would go beyond the classroom. They would dictate expectations for staff at all levels, how to build a budget with a projected shortfall, and how to turn around students’ readiness for the world after school.

She said that in the past, the district has gotten too easily distracted.

“Don’t create more goals, don’t create other things, other distractions that are going to come in. That is all that we’re doing,” Her said. “As soon as our board got the goals and the guardrails, I started taking them straight to our executive team and our departments to say as we go through this budget season, it’s going to look very different. Meaning, you’re going to have to really look at the things you’re doing. If it’s not in alignment to these four goals that we’re going after, then you’re not doing them.”

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Education Begins With Literacy: Her

Getting kids ready for the world begins with reading, Her said. So much so that Her’s plan to address failing math scores also begins with literacy.

“If we can get kids to read, the math is going to start to come in,” Her said of district students, more than 92% of which are from racial or ethnic minority groups.

Two of the district’s four goals are about reading. The first is a promise to have kids reading at grade by first grade. The second is literacy intervention for those kids who lag behind.

Giving failing students below-grade-level work doesn’t help, she said.

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When she was a child learning English, reading about homes with white picket fences made little sense to a child born in a prisoner-of-war camp in Laos and living in a Fresno apartment.

Literacy intervention means contextualizing concepts to children.

She talked about a teacher who delegated stronger students to lead groups so that that teacher could focus on needier children.

Her said the district does have tutors and teaching fellows to help.

“There’s all kinds of supports that can come into the classroom, but I will say to you, there is no greater expert than the teacher,” Her said.

Connecting With Students to Improve Attendance

Attendance at Fresno Unified has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. The 61,879 average daily student attendance in the 2023-24 school year is a slight decline from 2022-23 and a marked decline from  66,904 in 2019-20. Reversing this trend is important because the district’s state funding is based on attendance.

During Her’s tenure, she personally met with chronically absent students to encourage them to come to class. After the third or fourth visit, she said she could get students to come back to class. But, scaling to the district’s 70,000 students is a challenge. She said that’s where the district’s 10,000 employees come in.

When she took a bus with students, she met one driver who got out of the bus to shake the hands of every student. She said students look forward to those interactions.

“That driver’s kids, they get on that bus every single day. And the reason is because they want to see him,” she said.

Implementing District’s Goals Will Bring a Top-Level Reorganization

Many Fresno Unified workers tell GV Wire about how top heavy the district is. The 98 administrators listed on FUSD’s organizational chart more than doubles the number in Long Beach Unified, a “peer” district only a few thousand students smaller than Fresno.

Long Beach, with its coastal cost-of-living rates, spent $75.3 million on administrative salaries in the 2023-24 year for classified and certificated staff compared to Fresno Unified’s $94.6 million on the same line items that year.

Her said she’s begun looking at organizational charts of other districts because as she implements the four goals and guardrails, the district will need a redesign. But, she said she’s not ready to make any “knee-jerk” decisions.

She implemented an “effective staff guardrail” during her interim tenure that promised no promotions without merit and no lateral movement of administrators. Part of a lawsuit filed this month against the district names one top executive who changed positions in December 2024 — an example of the very thing Her initially said would no longer occur.

Her said, however, the effective staff guardrail wasn’t meant to get rid of people.

She said it’s meant to build capacity for people rather than moving them around and changing assignments.

She said she wants employees and administrators to feel safe to encourage new ideas.

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“We’ve always been a district of so many goals and we’ve narrowed it,” Her said. “Now, I’m trying to inspire everybody to move toward this. And the minute somebody makes a mistake and I weaponize it against them, no one else is going to be willing to try things that are innovative because they’re going to be scared. Accountability also has to be coupled with psychological safety.”

District’s Budget Will Be Shaped by the Four Goals

In addressing the district’s coming budget shortfall, Her said cuts would begin at the district.

“As we continue to cut, we are going to cut as much as we can at the district level before we touch schools,” Her said. Budget forecasts haven’t come out yet, but at the state level, revenues are projected to decline.

Her said the board wanted a budget aligned with the four goals and guardrails.

“As I’m looking at positions that we’re hiring for or things that we are doing, is everything that we’re doing, hiring, investing in, in alignment with the four goals and guardrails?” Her said. “Those are the most important things for the next five years.”

But she says she’s willing to make shifts in the budget as they make discoveries.

“I may try something and then it maybe it worked and then three weeks later it didn’t work, so I have to find something different,” Her said. “And that’s what’s going to happen with this student outcomes work that we’re doing.”

Reporter Anya Ellis contributed to this story.

Watch: (Extended) Misty Her’s Plans for Fresno Unified as the New Superintendent