This story was originally published by Fresnoland.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer’s plan to open up land for nearly 45,000 homes in southeast Fresno, called SEDA, risks 11 school shutdowns and mass layoffs for Fresno Unified in only its first decade of build out, according to estimates from the district’s financial team and the Fresno Teachers’ Association, shared verbally with Fresnoland.
For the last two weeks, FUSD’s teachers union, FTA, has led the charge pushing the district to forecast the true effects of Dyer’s mega-development on California’s third-largest school district.
Within a decade of SEDA breaking ground, one high school in Fresno Unified is forecasted to shut down, according to estimates provided by district officials, along with two middle schools and eight elementary schools.
And that’s just the estimated impact from only 20% of SEDA’s full build out.
“The shocking thing to me is this is happening in broad daylight,” said Fresno Unified’s Deputy Superintendent Ben Drati. “Is anybody looking out for Fresno Unified in this whole county?”
Within 10 years, the district could lose about $200 million in annual funding that would go towards classroom supplies, teachers, and after-school activities. Teachers and school nurses would likely have to be laid off, said FTA president Manuel Bonilla.
“Fresno Unified will cease to exist the way we know it if SEDA is approved,” Bonilla said.
“A ‘yes vote’ by a councilmember for SEDA is a vote against Fresno Unified’s students, educators, schools and communities,” he added.
The estimated impacts to FUSD schools from SEDA marks a major shift in the citywide debate on the 9,000-acre plan, which is heavily backed by local real estate developers and faces a $3 billion infrastructure funding shortfall, according to a city-commissioned study.
The off-the-cuff estimates of SEDA’s impact have fueled a sense of urgency for Fresno Unified to update their official enrollment projections more quickly – a process the district has begun initiating, Superintendent Misty Her confirmed to Fresnoland.
The district’s current enrollment projections already show a loss of nearly 2,000 students by 2030, down to 60,522 students, according to a presentation shared at the April 23 Board of Trustees meeting.
Last month, SEDA was given preliminary approval by the city planning commission after Commissioner Linda Calandra, the swing vote, changed her vote at the last minute.
SEDA now faces a potential final approval vote by the Fresno City Council at 4:30 pm on Thursday, Dec. 18.
A coalition of labor and community groups said last month they are prepared to launch the “nuclear option” against SEDA, should the city council approve the plan: petitioning for a citywide referendum that could stop SEDA from ever being built, regardless of how the city council votes this week.
Now, SEDA’s nuclear-option coalition just gained a new, powerful partner: the Fresno Teachers Association, representing the largest union in the city.
FTA’s Bonilla and Fresno DRIVE leader Artie Padilla organized and hosted separate meetings in early December across Fresno Unified’s campuses to underscore SEDA’s potential impacts to families residing in the city’s southeastern neighborhoods.
The main source of SEDA’s impact on Fresno Unified, Bonilla and the district have found, stems from the city’s lack of population growth forecasted by the state’s top demographer at the California Department of Finance.
Fresno Planning Director Jennifer Clark has denied these population projections, which are considered the gold standard for planners. Last month, Clark said the state ignores Fresno’s “natural” rate of population growth. But if the state’s population growth forecast for Fresno is remotely accurate, it could have massive ramifications for the city.
With the state saying new Fresno residents will be in scarce supply, FUSD estimates that most of SEDA’s anticipated growth will be satisfied by a brain drain of roughly 1,000 middle-class students from FUSD every year.
“SEDA will take students away from FUSD, taking resources away from existing students to subsidize Clovis Unified,” Bonilla said.
Such an outcome has precedent, said Drati. It would be a repeat of what happened 40 years ago, when Clovis West High School and later Clovis North High School split many middle-class families in Fresno along Herndon Avenue.
Back then, many FUSD families, if they had enough money for a home upgrade, chose to move north of Herndon, fleeing to Clovis Unified’s new campuses.
This time, Temperance Avenue, where SEDA’s new homes would begin, would essentially become the new Herndon Avenue, Fresno Unified officials say.
“What Clovis Unified did to Fresno Unified when they built Clovis West and Clovis North – that same thing is about to happen in southeast Fresno,” Drati said.
Now, many on FUSD’s side, from FTA’s rank-and-file teachers to ex-superintendent Bob Nelson, are calling on Dyer and the Fresno City Council to abandon SEDA before the damage to FUSD is done.
‘When it’s kids and schools, it’s pretty egregious’
To approve SEDA, Clovis Unified’s new $500 million super-campus in Southeast Fresno, called the Terry Bradley Education Center, has been the driving force for the last five years in key conversations with local planners, Mayor Jerry Dyer and most recently the Fresno Planning Commission.
Clovis Unified constructed the school before homes were approved to be built there. Fresno Planning Commissioner Kathy Bray said SEDA should be approved, because it would supply CUSD with the necessary new students to fill the fresh classrooms.
“It would be devastating in terms of what the impacts would be,” said Bob Nelson, the previous FUSD Superintendent from 2017-2024. “When it’s kids and schools, it’s pretty egregious.”
SEDA is being heavily pushed by prominent local developer Darius Assemi, who owns land worth millions of dollars across the street from CUSD’s Terry Bradley Center, according to county property records.
In a closed door meeting with Dyer this spring, Assemi described the new Clovis Unified campus as a “gorgeous, brand-new toy” that would gin up demand for new homes.
Assemi is in a relationship with Fresno Unified trustee Susan Wittrup, Fresnoland has previously confirmed.
Wittrup, along with Trustees Claudia Cazares, Veva Islas, Keisha Thomas, and Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas did not respond to a request by Fresnoland for comment on SEDA’s impacts to the district.
Drati, FUSD’s deputy superintendent, said developers have held sway in the city for far too long.
“Is Fresno Unified at the table, or is it all developers who are making these decisions for us?” he said.
Trustee Andy Levine said SEDA’s suburban sprawl impacts would be unacceptable for the region’s major school district.
“SEDA’s not a good thing for our kids. It’s our responsibility [as trustees] to push back,” said Levine.
“This would be a continuation of the history of sprawl in Fresno that we already know the results of,” he added. “Neighborhoods get left behind. This proposal is absolutely going to have negative consequences for our students.”
District officials and FTA representatives are expected to turn out to the city council’s vote on Thursday on whether to approve SEDA.
“Our hope is that people see what’s about to happen,” said Drati. “Our job is to give facts to the situation.”
A hearing on SEDA is scheduled at 4:30 pm on Dec. 18 at Fresno City Hall, 2600 Fresno St.
Fresnoland’s Danielle Bergstrom contributed to this report.