Improving Student Equity & Access at FUSD

I was surprised with the recent 5-2 vote of the Fresno Unified School Board to approve Superintendent Michael Hanson's recommendation to hire Mr. Jorge Aguilar to the newly created position of Associate Superintendent for Equity and Access. Mr. Aguilar will begin April 1 and will earn $148,000 a year.

I do not question the need for the District to pay additional attention to ensuring that every FUSD student has equal access to an education; nor do I question Mr. Aguilar's qualifications. What I do question, however, is why this critical student academic and accountability responsibility is being put in the hands of a new "staff" administrator instead of being given to the "line" elementary and secondary associate superintendents.

It has been reported that the Board may eventually consider Mr. Hanson's request for a new assistant superintendent for middle schools. If this administrator is hired (and it shouldn't be a foregone conclusion) this would be one more reason to not hire a separate administrator for student accountability but instead place it in the hands of this line manager as well those administrators overseeing elementary and high schools .

The dissenting board members, Carol Mills and Larry Moore, were also correct in asking why Superintendent Hanson should add another administrator when he was planning to suspend hiring and significantly reduce purchasing.

While the District has, and will always face, significant challenges to improve student learning, to include student equity and access, it should not be forgotten that the District is losing students and, therefore, state funding. Hiring additional administrators for vaguely defined problems is not, I believe, the answer. Accountability, at least at the administrative level, should be the responsibility of those academic line managers charged with directly supervising the teaching/learning process: the associate superintendents at the elementary, secondary (and possibly middle-school) level down through the school-site principals. To do otherwise is to dilute responsibility.

Coming soon. . .
1) Fulton Mall; 2) The incredible shrinking newspaper.

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