The Fresno Teachers Association is seeking answers for why Fresno Unified School District is not funding field trips for elementary schools despite having budgeted for them in its Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).
Fresno Unified did not return a request for comment from The Sun by publication.
The backstory: Fresno Unified eliminated central funding for field TK-6 trips, totaling a $2.2 million budget cut.
A district spokesperson told The Sun last month that individual school sites can fund field trips from their own budgets.
The FTA responded by calling on people to sign a petition urging the district to find a solution to restore funding.
The big picture: On Tuesday, the FTA pointed out in a Facebook post that the district budgeted $2.35 million for field trips in its LCAP.
The line for “District-Funded Educational Trips” in the LCAP puts total funding at $2,353,572.
Zoom in: LCAPs are required by state elections code as part of California’s Local Control Funding Formula.
They are three-year plans that are updated annually to describe goals for all students and actions districts will take, with expenditures.
What they’re saying: The FTA said in its post that the district’s decision to cut field trip funding “looks like a broken promise.”
“The district put the program into its legally required LCAP, and state law required its budget to contain the money necessary to implement it,” the FTA said. “So, if FUSD is now saying district-funded field trips are gone, the obvious legal and financial question is: What happened to the action FUSD committed to carrying out and the $2.35 million its budget was legally required to support?”