{"id":344563,"date":"2026-06-03T10:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/344563\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T10:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:46:17","slug":"incumbent-leads-race-to-head-fresno-county-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/344563\/","title":{"rendered":"Incumbent leads race to head Fresno County schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Incumbent Michele Cantwell-Copher will face off against another candidate in November to head Fresno County schools.<\/p>\n

As of 11:15 p.m. Tuesday, Cantwell-Copher had about 42 percent of votes.<\/p>\n

While Cantwell-Copher holds the lead, her contenders\u2019 results are still neck-and-neck.<\/p>\n

Eimear O\u2019Brien currently holds the second-most votes at nearly 30 percent, while Johnny Alvarado has 28 percent of votes.<\/p>\n

All precincts have reported their results. If a candidate had gotten more than 50 percent of the vote, they would\u2019ve won the seat.<\/p>\n

The two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election in November.<\/p>\n

Cantwell-Copher was elected as the chief of Fresno County schools in June 2022.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien served as the superintendent of Clovis Unified from 2017 to 2023, and Alvarado has worked at seven different districts across Fresno County.<\/p>\n

The Fresno County Superintendent of Schools oversees the local office of education and 31 school districts across the county.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the state superintendent of public instruction heads the California Department of Education and oversees the state\u2019s public education system.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published June 2, 2026 at 8:34 PM.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Fenley<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Nick Fenley is a reporter covering education, lawsuits, breaking news and more for The Fresno Bee. He\u2019s originally from the Imperial Valley and has been with The Bee since 2025.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incumbent Michele Cantwell-Copher will face off against another candidate in November to head Fresno County schools. As of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-344563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344563","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=344563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}