{"id":298822,"date":"2026-05-04T06:53:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298822\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:53:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:53:41","slug":"your-guide-to-the-fresno-county-superintendent-of-schools-primary-election-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298822\/","title":{"rendered":"Your guide to the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools primary election race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three longstanding figures in the local education scene are running for Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in the June 2 primary election.<\/p>\n

The candidates are incumbent Michele Cantwell-Copher, former Clovis Unified Superintendent Eimear O\u2019Brien and former Parlier Unified assistant superintendent Johnny Alvarado.<\/p>\n

The county superintendent of schools leads the County Office of Education and is responsible for monitoring the 31 school districts across Fresno County. They help support district superintendents. The California County Superintendents website<\/a> lists fiscal oversight, goal monitoring and directly supporting smaller districts as some specific duties.<\/p>\n

Michele Cantwell-Copher<\/p>\n

Michele Cantwell-Copher was elected as Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in June 2022, and she\u2019s seeking another four-year term. Prior to being elected, she was an educator for more than 35 years.<\/p>\n

At a forum last month, Cantwell-Copher highlighted learning gains during her time in office, noting that Fresno County has \u201csome of the highest test scores in the state of California in terms of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her tenure, the closure of the Kids Caf\u00e9, an eatery that employed students with special needs, was one controversy that emerged. On her campaign website, Cantwell-Copher says the caf\u00e9 was in a $350,000 annual deficit and shifted focus on produce stands.<\/p>\n

Cantwell-Copher\u2019s endorsements include Fresno Unified Superintendent Misty Her, Sheriff John Zanoni and Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua.<\/p>\n

\"Fresno<\/p>\n

Fresno County Superintendent-elect Michele Cantwell-Copher reads from the book \u2018Is Your Mama a Llama\u2019 to children during the seventh Feria de la Educaci\u00f3n at Fresno State on Oct. 22, 2022.<\/p>\n

Eimear O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Eimear O\u2019Brien served as the superintendent of Clovis Unified from 2017 to 2023. She served a two-month stint as interim superintendent of Central Unified in March 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a call from the president of the board here to say we\u2019re going to need a superintendent,\u201d O\u2019Brien told The Bee in June. \u201cI thought, \u2018What does this say about me if I don\u2019t help?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien has identified getting students reading at grade level by third grade as one of her main goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 60% of our third-graders aren\u2019t reading at grade level. That\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d she said during last month\u2019s forum.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien\u2019s endorsements include Mayor Jerry Dyer, District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp and Clovis Unified Superintendent Corrine Folmer.<\/p>\n

\"Superintendent<\/p>\n

Superintendent Eimear O\u2019Brien will retire at the end of the school year.<\/p>\n

Johnny Alvarado<\/p>\n

Alvarado has worked across seven Fresno County districts, including leadership roles at Parlier Unified and Fresno Unified, per his election website.<\/p>\n

In his candidate statement, Alvarado said he aims to address social promotion, or the practice of passing students to the next grade even if they didn\u2019t fully meet academic standards.<\/p>\n

During last month\u2019s forum, Alvarado said the county\u2019s high rates of students who test below grade level is \u201ca problem that we need to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarado\u2019s endorsements include Reedley Mayor Matthew Tuttle, Congressman John Duarte and the Fresno County Republican National Hispanic Assembly.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

Dr. Johnny Alvarado addresses a question during the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Candidate Forum Thursday night, April 2, 2026 in downtown Fresno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three longstanding figures in the local education scene are running for Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3639,52816,126585,126586,112,622,114,113,14569,126587,126583,126584,62691],"class_list":["post-298822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-california-county-superintendents","tag-clovis-unified","tag-county-office-of-education","tag-eimear-obrien","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-county","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-unified","tag-johnny-alvarado","tag-michele-cantwell-copher","tag-parlier-unified","tag-superintendent-of-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}