It’s a common question that many in the Fresno area ask: Why do many students in the City of Fresno go to Clovis Unified schools? Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, we explore the history of this geographic oddity.
In California, public schools are essentially independent local governments, and generally aren’t run by cities. Sometimes school district boundaries align with city boundaries and sometimes they don’t. And in places like Fresno and Clovis, with ever expanding territories being annexed to each city, sometimes you get some odd results. This includes most of the present City of Fresno north of Herndon Avenue.
Here’s how it happened: In 1899, seven independent elementary schools in Clovis and the rural areas nearby banded together to form Clovis Union High School. The included rural schools like Garfield, Nees Colony, Red Banks, Jefferson Colony, Wolters, and Temperance Colony. In the 1920’s other elementary schools from as far away as Fort Washington and Pinedale joined in and agreed to send their students to Clovis High. At the time, some of those schools (which are now in the City of Fresno) were as far as eight miles from the City of Fresno’s northern border.
In 1959, most of those independent schools voted to consolidate into one government and formed the Clovis Unified School District. For the most part, the district’s territory today covers largely the same geography as Clovis Union High School did in 1932. Only Wolters Colony School would eventually leave to join Fresno Unified. Of course, the cities of Fresno and Clovis have grown greatly in the last 90 years, annexing thousands of acres of former farms, to become new homes, businesses and schools.
The conversion of farmland to suburbia also led to similar boundary oddities in other parts of the metro area. In Fresno's far southeast neighborhoods, some students today attend Sanger Unified schools. On the west side of Highway 99, Central Unified serves thousands of students who live in the City of Fresno. And in a small corner of the City of Clovis, near Peach and Ashlan, some students actually attend Fresno Unified schools.
