{"id":343966,"date":"2026-06-03T03:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T03:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343966\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T03:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T03:34:09","slug":"fresno-county-office-of-ed-superintendent-controversies-collide-in-fresno-county-schools-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343966\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno County Office of Ed. Superintendent: Controversies collide in Fresno County schools race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Voters in Fresno County will cast their vote to see who will advance to the November ballot for the next Fresno Office of Education superintendent: incumbent Dr. Michelle Cantwell-Copher, Dr. Eimear O&#8217;Brien and Dr. Johnny Alvarado.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Under California&#8217;s jungle primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the November general election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/fresno-county-office-education-race-013357308.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Fresno County Office of Education race heads to June primary with 3 candidates;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Fresno County Office of Education race heads to June primary with 3 candidates&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fresno County Office of Education race heads to June primary with 3 candidates<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr. Michelle Cantwell-Copher is seeking a second term. Her priorities include school safety partnerships with law enforcement, improving reading and math scores, and reducing costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Cantwell-Copher has faced criticism over the closure of Kids Caf\u00e9, which was opened by her former boss and county superintendent, Jim Yovino, who now supports her opponent, Dr. Eimear O&#8217;Brien.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr. Eimear O&#8217;Brien, a former Clovis Unified superintendent, is focused on improving reading skills, increasing family engagement and investing in student learning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She is also endorsed by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">O&#8217;Brien has faced criticism over decisions made during her time at Clovis Unified, including pandemic reopening timelines for schools and spending too much money building Clovis South.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr. Johnny Alvarado, most recently an assistant superintendent in Parlier Unified, says he wants to strengthen classroom management, family engagement and academic success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/questions-swirl-fresno-county-superintendent-014650498.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:faced scrutiny in recent weeks;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;faced scrutiny in recent weeks&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced scrutiny in recent weeks<\/a> over his work history and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/dr-alvarado-admits-lied-action-005636221.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:later acknowledged he was not truthful;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;later acknowledged he was not truthful&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">later acknowledged he was not truthful<\/a> in a previous interview with Action News about his past employment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters in Fresno County will cast their vote to see who will advance to the November ballot for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[52816,141412,112,622,114,113,141413,126587,141414],"class_list":["post-343966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-clovis-unified","tag-eimear-o39brien","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-county","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-office-of-education","tag-johnny-alvarado","tag-michelle-cantwell-copher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343966","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=343966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}