Summer officially wound down for students returning to Fresno and Clovis Unified classrooms on Monday.

Meanwhile, teachers, construction crews, and school administration have been hard at work prepping for their arrival.

Fresno Unified School District spent the summer renovating school sites — replacing outdated systems, modernizing buildings, repairing parking lots, ensuring ADA compliance, and installing new playgrounds and equipment.

Additionally, district administration has been helping incoming pupils prep for the school year with registration and immunization events. They have offered sports physical clinics as well.

Similarly, Clovis Unified led multiple site renovations and worked to complete Philip V. Sanchez Intermediate School in time to welcome nearly 1,100 incoming seventh, eighth, and ninth graders.

The middle school, boasting a 1,500-student capacity, is located at the Terry P. Bradley campus, which will open in phases over three years.

“Busy, busy summer as we’re putting the finishing touches on the academic buildings and the support facilities that are needed to open that school,” said district spokesperson, Kelly Avants. “We have staff that’s been out there helping the construction crews finish things up and put the finishing touches on the library and classrooms.”

Parents will get a chance to tour the campus and acquaint themselves with the new space soon.

Districts Welcome Students

The beginning of school is an exciting and nerve-wracking time for students, especially those in transitional grades.

Clovis Unified works to ease student anxiety, familiarizing them with sites and peers through a “Where Everyone Belongs” event.

Hosted the week leading up to school, the even invited seventh and ninth grade students onto campus for a tour and icebreaker events.

They can “learn who else is going to be on the campus with them and try to break down some of those natural barriers that might otherwise happen when kids are coming onto a campus who don’t know each other and don’t have the facility,” Avants said.

Students attending Sanchez Intermediate will participate in this event during the first week of school.

This year, Fresno Unified expanded their after-school programs for students, softening the loss of the Designated Schools program.

The district has expanded literacy programs and interventions based on student needs, including small group instruction. Areas of focus will include fluency, reading comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary development and writing.

Teachers Prep for School Year

Teachers have been in class themselves, attending professional training and team building events during the past week.

Currently, Clovis Unified is wrapping up “Institute Week,” which is full of team events and training.

“We certainly want people to understand that they are not only a member of an individual school team, but they are part of something bigger,” said Avants. “When our kids are coming on Monday, they’re being welcomed by a team that’s prepared and ready to have a great school year.”

Campus principals dictate professional training, molding it to the needs of that site’s teachers and students, Avants said.

Fresno Unified lead two full days of site-led professional learning, Diaz said.

Additionally, a handful of K-6 teachers participated in history and social science training. The remaining teachers will get training during October and March.

Efforts to Reach Pre-Pandemic Scores

School districts nationwide are struggling to return to pre-pandemic scores, a process that is taking longer than expected.

Clovis Unified teachers focus on fundamentals that were possibly missed when addressing this issue, ensuring students are taught by need.

“Our teachers have been doing just great work around identifying those things and then going back and kind of backward mapping,” Avants said.

In the 2023-24 school year 67% of students reached English Language Arts standards and around 52% met math standards. In 2018-19 a little more than 72% and 58% respectively met standards.

Fresno Unified is also struggling to improve student outcomes, failing to breach the 50% mark in the last decade.

Almost 35% of students met ELA standards and 25% met math standards in the 2023-24 school year. In 2018-19, 38% reached ELA standards and almost 30% met math standards.

Recently, the district has centralized efforts around four goals, addressing early literacy, intervention, life skills, and college and career readiness.

“Literacy intervention supports will be implemented during after school programming and align with the district’s goals to ensure 80% of 1^st grade students are reading on grade level,” Diaz said.