Fresno Unified Interim Superintendent Misty Her has been busy this summer crafting her 100 Day Plan with goals designed to lift up students in the state’s third-largest school district.

She’s been working in temporary quarters in an FUSD building at the corner of Fresno and Fulton streets while the Educational Center undergoes a multimillion-dollar facelift. That remodeling project could symbolize the major overhaul that Her has started at all levels of the district — from school sites through the Executive Cabinet — to put Fresno Unified on the path to excellence.

Her, formerly the deputy superintendent, is serving as interim superintendent until the School Board conducts a national search. However, the board is waiting to start that process until after a board retreat over the Labor Day weekend.

She sat down Wednesday with GV Wire to talk about her 100 Day Plan, which is available on the Fresno Unified website, what she’s learned so far, and what her expectations are for the new school year and moving forward.

Before drawing up the plan, Her said, she spent hundreds of hours reading each school site plan, reviewing data from before and after the pandemic, and reviewing the goals set by the School Board for her predecessor, Bob Nelson, over the last couple of years. She stopped counting when she hit 170.

After a series of listening sessions primarily with students and district staffers and conducting “data dives” in the spring, Her determined that the district needs to sharpen its focus to just two goals: improving student outcomes and achieving operational excellence by improving customer service.

Focus on What’s Most Important

Accountability will be key to achieving both goals, Her said, through an increased focus on supervision and evaluation at all levels. She wants to convert the district from a “data-rich” to “data-informed” system that will be aligned to meet goals, guide decision-making, and enable district leaders to put resources where they will do the most good.

She’s making it clear, from the Executive Cabinet level on down, that supervision and evaluation will be critical for improving student outcomes and the district’s operations.

Some have told Her they think her goal of every student making a 15 percentage point improvement toward proficiency this year and again next year on assessment testing is overly aggressive.

“I know people are like, why are you calling it out? And I’m like, because if I don’t, people are not going to want to do it. And we’ve got to definitely call it out,” she said.

Literacy Goal Remains

Her wants to see gains in proficiency in both English and math, but literacy will continue to be the district’s main focus. “Because where our students struggle a lot in the math standards is in the problem solving. And that requires that they read, comprehend, and understand,” she said.

Nelson set a goal in April 2023 of every Fresno Unified student reading at grade level by the first grade, a goal that remains in effect and is part of Her’s 100 Day Plan of improving student outcomes.

She’s quick to note that when most people hear “supervision and evaluation” they think it’s about negative consequences. Instead, her intention is that supervisors provide more frequent, data-driven feedback to their staff members, providing coaching and assistance as needed to help them be successful in their jobs.

There should be no reason to be fearful of supervision and evaluation – so long as it leads to improvement, Her said.

“People can say, are you just going to go in and get rid of a bunch of people? One, I think everyone deserves due process. And, we all have to coach and teach before we say, ‘OK, you don’t belong in our system.’ ,,,

“So the first goal for all of us is how do we help people get better? Or people might have to realize that, OK, maybe this isn’t the system that they want to be in. And supervision and evaluation is going to be a critical piece of what we do.”

Making Better Use of Data

Utilizing data to track student outcomes will enable the district to home in on classrooms or groups of students who are struggling, and then provide resources to get them back on track, Her said. Up to now the district has been “data rich,” but she wants it to become “data informed” on all levels, from classroom teacher and parent all the way up to the Executive Cabinet.

As an example, each of the seven regions developed their own specific literacy plan of curriculum and materials. Now that the plans are in operation, the district can analyze student performance in each region, conduct case studies, determine which strategies are working and which are not, and then pivot toward the successful strategies, Her said.

Transparency is also critical to Her’s plan, and she expects to be providing monthly updates to the School Board, reporting on student performance through iReady testing and other markers.

One of her first reports in late September will be on the results of last year’s state assessment testing, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Testing, or SBAC.

Her has already gotten some extremely preliminary data showing improvement by only a few percentage points, which she called “disappointing.”

The state is still collating results, and district officials should have a better idea this month about how the district’s students did, Her said.

The state assessment testing won’t fully reflect the focused work that the district has been doing with its kindergarten and first grade students on literacy, she said. State assessment testing doesn’t start until the third grade, so it will be at least two years before the impacts of the district’s literacy plans can be fully gauged when last year’s first graders are tested as third graders.

Connecting Through Let’s Talk App

Improving operational effectiveness was a goal that Her hit on after talking with students and parents who related difficulty in reaching the right department or person. Students, parents, and members of the community shouldn’t have to depend on luck or knowing the right person to get a question answered or have information provided, she said.

And now they’ll have a new way to provide feedback through the new Let’s Talk app on the district website. Similar to the city of Fresno’s FresGO app to report graffiti, broken sidewalks, downed trees, and other issues, the Let’s Talk app has categories such as district operations, student services, schools, parent services, teaching and learning, with subcategories’. There’s even a button to send a communication to the superintendent’s office.

Her says she’s using the available data to keep an eye on response times, and she says she’s made it clear that that all queries will get a response within 24 to 48 hours, even if that response is “we’ve received your query, we’re looking into it, and we will be responding with more information.”

And she’s paying attention to those response times.

“The other day, I pulled up data. There were places in our district that they were like, oh man, within 45 minutes they were on it. There were places where five to 10 days have gone by and there hasn’t (been a response). So it allowed me to pick up the phone and go, ‘Hey, this has kind of been sitting in the queue. It’s been five days, why haven’t you done anything with it?’ And you know what? They’re not going to want calls like that from me.

“And so the fact that we’re doing that is going to just change the way — and rightfully so, because our community and our kids and our employees deserve it.”

Right now the Let’s Talk buttons are in English but Her said they will be translated into Spanish and Hmong to match the website’s three languages.

Return on Investment

Fine-tuning the goals from more than 170 to just two also will enable Her and other district leaders to sharpen their focus on which programs are successful and deserve resources, and which are not.

The question of “return on investment” becomes even more important as revenues decline, Her said.

“When we had 170 plus goals, it was easy to hide behind all those goals. And people want focus until they don’t want focus. And so now having two goals, I’m having very different conversations with people to say, OK, is what we’re doing, is that investment going to get us results on these two goals? And if it’s no, then why are we doing it? …

“I’m trying to get us into a place where we are learning and we’re leading. And that’s why those three words are so critical for me: How do we teach, how do we learn, and how are we making those direct connections?”

Her says she’s looking forward to introducing the 100 Day Plan to teachers and getting their feedback. “They actually are going to be the ones that are going to go and implement and tell us if something is working or not, and we need to listen to them,” she said.

She made the conscious decision to introduce the plan incrementally to make it easier to digest. The plan went up on the website last week, and next week she plans to unveil the “listen and learn trends” and a timeline of working that has been completed, work that is in the pipeline, and future work.

Still Making Home Visits

Her’s spring and summer have been occupied not only with data diving and drawing up the 100 Day Plan but also in making random visits to students’ homes.

She set a goal of five drop-ins each week and has been targeting students who were chronically absent, had suspensions, or did part of their school year at an alternative education site.

Families are usually surprised to see her on their doorstep, with a message for their student that they were missed in the last school year and that Her wants to see them back for the first day of school on Aug. 19 – and she’ll be looking for them.

“When families and students have a connection with you, they want to come to school. And I think part of it, too, is I wanted our families to see that I do love and care about them very much. It’s funny because I was doing one home visit and I said, ‘yeah, I’ve been waiting for you all summer.’ And the dad was looking at me kind of skeptical. And he’s like, really? I go, no, would you believe that someone who hasn’t even met your child already loves and cares about your child very much? And he was like, I appreciate that. It’s good to hear that.”

That personal connection means so much to a student, even her own 14-year-old son Gabe who will be entering high school and recently received a welcome letter from his principal.

“He was like, ’oh my gosh, Mom, this came from my principal. He really wants me there.”

Her says this summer and into the new school year she’s going to continue to hammer in staff meetings on the need to focus on the two goals of improving student outcomes and achieving operational excellence; to use data effectively in decision-making; to emphasize supervision, evaluation, and accountability; and to devote district resources to where they’ll do the most good.

She’s planning a meeting next Monday for 400 district leaders to communicate her goals and expectations, and once teachers are back at work she wants to meet with them as well.

Her’s First Day of School Schedule

And she’s already got her first day of school schedule lined up: At 5:30 a.m. she plans to be at the Nutrition Center in northwest Fresno as the school buses depart, then she’ll be racing throughout the district to visit at least four schools in each of the district’s seven regions — that’s 28 schools — and then end her day cheering on the bus drivers on their return from afternoon routes.

Her targeted schools include the ones where students who got home visits from her, because she wants to greet them personally on their first day back at school.

“I’m excited. I mean, I’ve done so many, 30 years of opening of schools, and I would say this one is so special because I looked around and I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m the person in charge now.’ And I just can’t wait. I mean, I really can’t wait. August 19th. We are all about getting every single child in the seats.”

Misty Her’s 100 Day Plan