What's at stake?
As conversations surrounding school closures and potential strategies to mitigate them are beginning to take shape in Fresno Unified this school year, Fresnoland reached out to candidates looking to represent families on the district’s board of trustees to explain their stance on school closures in the third largest school district in California.
Across California, many districts are closing schools after a decade of declining student enrollment, a trend seen locally in the state’s third largest school district, Fresno Unified.
School closures had been trending downwards from 2016 through 2023, but now, school districts from Los Angeles to the Bay Area are closing schools to address budget issues worsened by steady downward enrollment in the state, driven by a combination of factors, from migration trends to birth rates to perceived school quality.
Over the last decade, Fresno Unified has lost around 4,000 students and expects to lose approximately the same amount over the next couple of years. The district board has begun to discuss possible school closures, boundary changes and staffing cuts after making cuts, including to 450 positions, to address the budget deficit just last year.
They’re also working on forming a working group of sorts to help them navigate community conversations around enrollment decline, boundary changes, and school closures – a topic that is sure to pick up steam in the new year, with as many as three new members on the board of trustees.
Fresnoland reached out to candidates vying to represent parents and students on Fresno Unified’s Board of Education to ask them about their stance on school closures in the district.
Trustee Area 1 (Edison Region)
Four of the ten elementary schools in the district with the lowest enrollment are in the Edison region, or Area 1, according to a September board presentation. This includes Lowell, Kirk, Jefferson and Susan B. Anthony Elementary, all of which have less than 400 students enrolled, each.
The same presentation also includes Lincoln Elementary as one of the schools that saw the highest decrease in enrollment between the 2025-26 school year and 2026-27, with a drop of 64 students.
Miguel Arias
Miguel Arias, a sitting Fresno City Councilmember, said he was opposed to any neighborhood school closures because of the “financial mismanagement of the district.”
Arias explained that he would instead invest bond funds towards school facility repairs, invest in the district’s specialty programs to attract students and eliminate district offices acquired by the district before cutting schools.
“The district office and its trustee of the Edison region have absolutely run the school district to the ground and have put us put the community in a place where we now have to debate potential school closures,” Aries said, adding “and I would urge the public to pay very close attention to this election because the consequences will include closure of neighborhood schools if we don’t intervene now to turn around the school district and to focus its efforts on students versus lawsuits related to trustees.”
Rizpah Bellard
Bellard did not respond to requests for comment from Fresnoland and has not outlined any plans to tackle potential school closures in the district.
Daren Miller
Daren Miller, a former K-12 administrator and current substitute vice principal, said that while school closures would be unfortunate, he said that it could also present itself as an opportunity for the district to reshape its schools into more traditional sites serving grades one through five in elementary and grades six through eight in middle school.
Miller specifically said that sites could be divided further by having some schools serve students in transitional kindergarten through the second grade to give students and educators the space to completely focus on early childhood education.
“We could reduce our class sizes because we’ll have the space to be able to do that, so we can lower our class sizes to 21 to 25 because the space would be available, so I do believe that closing schools or closing anything that has to do that is a negative, but I also think that it provides an opportunity for long-term success,” Miller said.
DeShunna Ricks
Deshunna Ricks, an adjunct instructor at Fresno Pacific University and CEO of I AM Valuable, said that school closures should be the last resort for the district, noting that students should not have to endure the consequences of decisions made by adults.
Ricks explained that she wants to scrutinize the district budget to ensure that it is completely aligned with student outcomes for success.
“Programs that cannot demonstrate results and ineffective vendor contracts must be cut. The district office does not need more staff. Central office must learn to do more with existing resources, just as our school sites are expected to do,” Ricks said.
Ricks also said that the district should be as transparent as possible if closures are being considered with all community members and staff.
Trustee Area 3 (Sunnyside Region)
The district’s enrollment presentation shows that while Herrera Elementary in the Sunnyside region ranked in the top five schools in enrollment gains, gaining 23 students, the region also had Ewing Elementary rank in the greatest enrollment drops, losing 63 students in the last school year. Herrera and Ewing Elementary currently have 665 and 783 students, respectively.
Valerie Davis
Davis did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fresnoland. Davis’ own campaign does not address school closures as part of her priorities for the position.
Riley Talford
Riley Talford, a supervising juvenile correctional officer for Fresno County Probation and SEIU 521 Fresno County Chapter President, said that closures shouldn’t be considered unless certain factors and their effects on students and families are considered first.
Specifically, Talford said that the district needs to analyze if the student population has fallen below 30% the original design of the school site, transportation and safety for students and whether new schools should be built to adequately serve families from closed school sites.
“Any thought of school closures must be met with rigorous analysis, community input, third party vetting of long term benefits vice short term gain of managed cuts,” Talford said.
Trustee Area 4 (McLane Region)
In the last year, the McLane region saw two of its schools lose the most students out of any school in the district. Pyle and Heaton Elementary each lost over 90 students compared to the previous school year, with Pyle now serving 587 students and Heaton serving 469.
Mirna Garcia
Mirna García, a realtor involved in local housing initiatives, says that the district needs to think inversely and listen to communities to figure out what investments are needed to attract families to the district.
“That means listening to families, supporting educators, expanding programs students are excited about, improving academic outcomes, creating safe and welcoming campuses, and rebuilding trust with our community,” Garcia said.
Garcia also said that the district should focus its efforts on identifying why families choose to leave the district in its efforts to tackle enrollment decline.
Genoveva Islas
Genoveva Islas, who currently serves as president of the FUSD board of trustees, said that she was against school closures.
Previously, Islas has pointed to a strategy of scrutinizing the district’s investments, particularly in charter schools and in their renewals.
Karen Steed
Steed did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story for Fresnoland. Steed’s campaign website does not specifically address school closures or strategies to mitigate their impact.
