Clovis Unified seems to have had more than its share of state labor board decisions going against it in recent months. In the latest, the district was ordered to stop negotiating in bad faith and interfering with the bargaining rights of employees who are represented by the California School Employees Association.

Clovis is one of the state’s largest school districts in which teachers are not represented by unions, although many other district employees are.

CSEA Chapter 250, which represents the district’s campus catering, maintenance, warehouse, custodial, grounds, and transportation workers, was on the winning side of the March 3 decision by the California Public Employment Relations Board.

CSEA had complained to PERB that when it attempted to negotiate upgrades in the salary schedule for transportation workers along with campus catering pay upgrades, the district fobbed it off over a series of months.

Part of the problem, according to the district, was a union email that a lead district negotiator said never arrived in his mailbox. (School Zone is reminded of the benefits of registered snail mail in such instances.)

The district tried to argue that the union had failed to push harder to negotiate and was itself guilty of bad faith bargaining, but the PERB decision rejected that contention.

“The District is essentially faulting CSEA for not pursuing negotiations further after the District had already demonstrated its per se unwillingness to bargain. … Continued demands to bargain after the District had refused would have been an act of futility, and failure to undertake a futile at does not constitute a waiver,” the PERB decision says.

PERB found that the district had violated the Educational Employment Relation Act by failing to meet and negotiate in good faith and ordered that the district post a cease-and-desist order.

Clovis Unified has been on the losing end of several recent labor complaints by the Assocation of Clovis Educators, which has been trying to unionize the district’s 1,877 teachers for several years but has so far has signed up smaller groups — school psychologists, the American Sign Language interpreters, and the Sierra Outdoor School naturalists.

PERB found that the district had actively interfered in ACE’s organizing efforts by providing financial support to the former Faculty Senate, which the district had created as the teachers’ labor representative. PERB ordered the district to disband the Faculty Senate in June 2024.

Related Story: State Board Says Clovis Unified Violated Labor Laws, Must Disband Faculty

Speaking of Unions …

The State Center Federation of Teachers, which represents faculty across the district’s campuses in Fresno and Madera counties, has joined its voice to the Madera Community College Academic Senate in taking no-confidence votes against Madera President Angel Reyna and Marie Harris, the college’s vice president of learning and student success.

The college has been part of a consortium of seven California community colleges testing a new type of instruction called competency-based education. Students pass courses when they demonstrate they have learned a competency, which is intended to streamline some classes and allow for more online education.

But since the program was first announced in 2021, Madera faculty have been raising concerns over how competency-based education would increase faculty workloads, potentially cause problems for older workers without access to technology needed for online instruction, and whether it could be coordinated with traditional classes.

State legislators have set aside millions of dollars for CBE to be piloted by the participating community colleges, and the courses were originally scheduled to start in 2025 but have encountered delays, according to a December CalMatters report.

Madera’s Academic Senate took a vote of no-confidence in the college leadership last fall, and the 28-member SCFT Executive Council followed suit this year, leading to its decision to present resolutions to the Board of Trustees earlier this month.

The union contends that Reyna has shown “blatant disregard … for the curricular processes” that are supposed to involve faculty and also that Reyna and Harris have engaged in retaliation.

“We are a very deliberative group and we don’t make these kinds of moves lightly or commonly,” SCFT President Keith Ford said in a news release about the no-confidence resolutions. “We have twenty- and thirty-year faculty members who say that this is the worst working environment they have seen in this District. This is why we chose to act.”

Ford told School Zone on Thursday that the union hasn’t taken such an action “in at least 20 years, if ever.”

FUSD Foundation Scholarship Deadline Is at Hand

Fresno Unified seniors who are college-bound could get a chunk of change to help cover their post-secondary costs — but the clock is ticking.

The deadline to submit an application for a share in $400,000 worth of scholarships that will be doled out by the Foundation for Fresno Unified Students is 4 p.m. Sunday.

Students planning to attend a two-year, four-year, or trade or technical school could get assistance ranging from $1,000 to $4,500. There is no GPA requirement, and the application is focused on student essays outlining their financial need and also explaining how their life experiences have shaped their career goals.

To apply, use this link.