Good morning! It’s Wednesday, Dec. 3. This is Rob & Omar.
Gray day: More foggy weather and cooler temperatures today with another hazardous fog conditions advisory set to expire at 11 a.m. today. Highs in the low 50s. NOAA
Courting feedback: Fresno-area residents are invited to weigh in on a $750 million project to build the next Fresno County Courthouse. Fresno Bee
Withholding food? The administration plans to withhold SNAP food aid from recipients in most Democratic-controlled states starting next week unless they provide information about those receiving the assistance. ABC30
Sounds fancy: A new resort will be opening near Yosemite National Park next year. KSEE24
Holiday giving: The City of Clovis Youth Commission is holding “Threads of Joy,” a clothing drive benefiting young people. CBS47
1. Test scores up at most Fresno Unified schools
State testing scores in math and English increased at 2 in 3 Fresno Unified schools, Fresnoland’s Diego Vargas reports.
Diego spoke with administrators and educators at a pair of schools with the among biggest jumps in SBAC scores: Hoover High School and McClane High School.
Administrators there attributed a combination of factors to students performing better on the tests this year.
That includes updated phone policies and enforcement, curriculum alignment with SBAC testing and better student engagement.
McClane High School Principal Brian Wulf: “Post-COVID, we were trying to impose things on them and it wasn’t working and we were having trouble and we shifted. That’s why we started seeking out new curriculum, new innovative practices, and we found success.”
2. Clovis set for major apartment rezone
The City of Clovis must make new room for nearly 1,300 new apartments across the city in the coming years, ABC30 reports.
Renee Mathis, the city’s planning director, described about 20 plots scattered, they said, “pretty much throughout the city,” which is expected to significantly increase the city’s population and revamp whole neighborhoods.
And while the rezone will take months — and there are no current projects in the works — many online are already raising concerns over classroom sizes and property values.
The city plans to gather resident feedback in the coming months, but the recent court ruling gives the city little to no wiggle room on where those apartment buildings could go.
3. ‘Sanctuary for our people’
Nearly 200 years after a Native American tribe was thrown off its land near Yosemite National Park, the South Sierra Miwuk Nation has re-obtained nearly 900 acres bordering Yosemite National Park, The Fresno Bee reports.
The land transfer, from Pacific Forest Trust, is considered a major milestone for Indigenous cultural and land restoration in California and is expected to lead to better management and control of wildfires in and around the areas.
The returned lands represent approximately 1.4 square miles of Yosemite National Park’s 1,169 square miles.
Sandra Chapman: “Having this significant piece of our ancestral Yosemite land back will bring our community together to celebrate tradition and provide a healing place for our children and grandchildren. It will be a sanctuary for our people.”
