With this new school year, many long-term issues affecting students and educators in Clovis remain unaddressed. For example, many CUSD schools continue to see unsustainable class sizes as well as shortages of instructional assistants. We are building an independent, democratic, Clovis-educator-led, and locally controlled Union with ACE so that we have the equal footing required to achieve these changes we know are important for our students and educators. Unfortunately, these issues (many of them long-standing) will not wait for the California Public Employment Relations Board or Fresno County Courts. We need real solutions to these issues now.

We, the members of the Association of Clovis Educators, have created this Vision Statement to make it clear why we are standing together for change. These six priority issues are a result of hundreds of Clovis educators completing a needs assessment to share their concerns about what we and our students need.

When our ACE Organizing Committee has collected signatures on this Fall Forward Vision Statement showing strong, public support among CUSD educators, they will be shared with the CUSD Executive Cabinet to show that the educators in Clovis stand together in improving the teaching and learning environment for our students.  

By working together, we can make progress on addressing these issues. Join with us in signing the Fall Forward Vision Statement and invite your colleagues to sign it as well.

ACE Fall Forward Vision Statement

We, the Educators of Clovis Unified School District are building our strength to call for the following essential improvements in our schools:

1. INCREASE THE NUMBER OF IAS AND ACADEMIC SUPPORT STAFF:

More IAs means more support for our students and less burnout for our educators. By offering more benefited IA positions and providing more systematic IA trainings, we can support our Sped program, psychologists, SLPs, students, and classroom educators.

2. EXPAND OUR PLANNING AND COLLABORATION TIME:

Too often our preps are lost to competing priorities. We need more protected time to plan and collaborate to develop lessons and programs to best serve our students.

3. IMPROVE SUBSTITUTE COVERAGE:

CUSD can do more to expand substitute coverage despite the teacher shortage. Many districts provide higher per day pay. Increasing compensation for educators who either cover a class during their prep or take in additional students also helps. More subs mean less missed preps and more stability for our students.

4. EXTEND COVID SICK LEAVE:

Our colleagues who have to quarantine or miss work due to the pandemic should have access to additional sick leave. Other districts have this. CUSD educators deserve no less.

5. MAKE STIPENDS COMPETITIVE AND TRANSPARENT:

CUSD educators do so much because we are committed to our students and our professions. Often our commitment is not sufficiently recognized or rewarded. A fairer process for awarding stipends that truly compensate us for our important work will help address burnout and our lack of competitive salaries.

6. PLAN TO ESTABLISH REASONABLE CLASS SIZE CAPS:

In many schools our class sizes are spiraling out of control. We need to develop a plan to establish clear class size caps so we can provide the support our students deserve. Though we don’t expect this fix immediately, we must work together to move towards more manageable class sizes for the good of our students and colleagues.