Students and coaches are recognized for achievements at the Clovis Unified School District board meeting Wednesday, April 3, 2024 in Clovis.
ERIC PAUL ZAMORA
ezamora@fresnobee.com
After November’s election, the governing board serving parents and students in the Clovis Unified School District will remain unchanged, as all three incumbents are running unopposed.
Clovis Unified is a staple in the Central Valley for outstanding academic performance and athletic programs. With a growing student population of 43,200, it’s now the 11th-largest school district in the state.
In contrast to many other large school districts in California, which are struggling with budget shortfalls due to declining enrollment, Clovis Unified enjoys a stable financial position and continues to build schools to meet the needs of families moving into the area.
The district is also unique as it’s considered the largest non-unionized school district west of the Mississippi River since the founding superintendent, Floyd Buchanan, established a deep-rooted anti-union culture. But the situation may soon change.
In the summer, over a thousand teachers filed a union petition with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board, a move that could end the district’s 66-year “union-free” history.
The Fresno Bee talked to three incumbents, who shared their goals and priorities for the next four years.
Area 1: Clinton Olivier
Olivier is nearing the end of his first term. Joining the school board in 2022, Olivier previously served as a councilmember on the Fresno City Council for eight years. He’s currently the chief executive officer for the Central Valley Business Federation, and often appears on radio as a fill-in host.
The highlights of the last four years include hiring Corrine Folmer to lead the district following the retirement of former Superintendent Eimear O’Brien, and addressing the homelessness issue around Pinedale Elementary, Olivier said.
“There had been incidents with them threatening kids. They were coming onto the campus and causing vandalism, leaving trash on the campus,” he said.
He was very proud to be able to leverage his connections at the Fresno City Council and the Fresno Police Department to work together to provide relief to the neighborhood, since Pinedale Elementary is located in the City of Fresno.
In the next term, he will continue to be responsive to neighbors and carry their concerns to the board, where the community can fix those issues, Olivier said.
Olivier said he has been very happy with Folmer’s performance as the superintendent, and he’s pleased that the district will have solid and continuous leadership during his second term.
“I want to continue to focus on test scores. They’re still not where I would like them to be coming out of the pandemic,” Olivier said. “There’s still some recovery to be done in terms of getting those test scores back up and combating any learning loss that occurred during the lockdowns.”
He will support the upcoming facilities bond because it brings value that families expect.
“I have always been skeptical of the government’s bonding to get things done. But I have seen firsthand that the people in Clovis Unified are doing it right,” Olivier said. “Taxpayers continue to approve bonds for Clovis Unified because they see the result of correct fiscal management, in addition to a beautiful finished product.”
Area 3: Tiffany Stoker Madsen
Madsen was a Clvosi Unified student for all of her schooling and graduated from Clovis West as valedictorian. After earning degrees from Brigham Young University and U.C. Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, she practiced labor and employment law. She’s now a mother of five Clovis Unified students.
Madsen was elected to the governing board in 2018 and is running unopposed for her third term. She’s the current board president.
With each decision, Madsen said she asked herself three questions: What is best for students? How does it impact teachers and staff? Will families and community support it?
The tough decisions in her eight-year tenure include combating burdensome mandates from Sacramento that stifle student achievement and ensuring teachers have the tools to elevate students, she said.
“As a Clovis Unified alumni and parent, I believe in our mission of educating children through mind, body, and spirit and will lean on our district and community values to prepare our next generation of leaders,” she said.
Madsen said local control is her priority, such as local control of curriculum and classroom teaching, she said.
In her next term, she will also continue to advocate for transparency, support parental involvement in education, and expand vocational education programs, she said.
Area 6: Deena Combs-Flores
Combs-Flores brought two decades of teaching and school administrative experience to the governing board.
Assuming office in 2022, Combs-Flores said the most challenging task during her first term was redrawing school attendance boundaries. The district built the Terry Bradley Education Center because Clovis East High School was overcrowded, she said.
“But you can’t do that every single time that you have overcrowding in a school, you also have to look at ways to balance things out,” she said. “The district is very good at having community panels or doing community surveys to make sure that we have a consensus among our stakeholders. I thought they did a good job with that.”
At board meetings, Combs-Flores is one of the trustees who asks a lot of questions. She told The Bee that her considerations were primarily based on cost-effectiveness.
“The other thing that absolutely drives my decision-making is that, is this really a decision we need to be making? Or is this a decision that, for example, maybe the teachers need to make, with the unionization?” she said. “But in the end, what drives our decisions too, is whether it’s best for kids. That’s who we serve.”
In her next term, Combs-Flores said she will continue to try to do her best for students and families, including advocating for parental rights and supporting a new bond to fund new schools. She said she’s very conservative and normally doesn’t support new taxes, but this is the only way to fund school facilities.
Recently, Combs-Flores left school teaching and now works at a private curriculum company. She said she might consider retiring in the next few years, but she’s still very passionate about being an elected official.
“We have a lot of people out there that complain about government, but the only two ways you can truly have a say are voting, and number two, getting involved with public office,” Combs-Flores said. “So that’s my way to contribute to society and to the community. So far, I think the majority of the people that I’ve talked to, they’ve been happy with me as a board member.”
The Fresno Bee
Leqi Zhong is the Clovis accountability/enterprise reporter for The Bee. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a Master’s degree in journalism. She joined The Bee in 2023 as an education reporter. Leqi grew up in China and is native in Cantonese and Mandarin.