Fresno Unified’s Roosevelt trustee, seeking third term, questions district’s spending amid budget woes

Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas' motivation to run for a seat on Fresno Unified's school board came as an adjunct professor at Fresno State, where she saw that many students in her business communication course lacked basic writing skills .

"These were junior students, but I noticed there were deficiencies in their writing and critical thinking," she recalled. "I didn't want to teach a grammar and spelling course, I'm not an English teacher, that's not what I felt capable of teaching. They were missing fundamentals, and I thought I was not catching the problem early enough," she said.

The two-term incumbent later aired her frustration to her husband, Fresno's District 5 City Councilmember Luis Chavez, who was about to vacate his seat on the Fresno school board.

"So I said, you know what? I'll do it. I want to change this," she said.

Nearly eight years later, Jonasson Rosas is seeking a third term as the board trustee representing the district's Roosevelt region .

Jonasson Rosas served as board president in 2018 and works full-time as the deputy general manager for external affairs at Westlands Water District. She spent years working in non-profits and engaging in civic advocacy.

Jonasson Rosas said she's committed to serving a third term on the school board if voters re-elect her. She shot down speculation that she's eyeing to run for the City Council seat Chavez will vacate to run for Fresno County supervisor.

"I talked with parents and they view education as being able to provide more opportunities for their kids than they had themselves, that's super important to them and they entrust us," she said. "I don't take that lightly, I want them to know that it means a lot to me that they're trusting me with those important decisions."

For Fresno Unified's school board races, The Fresno Bee sat down to talk with every candidate. Here are five questions for Jonasson Rosas. Answers are edited for length and clarity.

You said you joined the board to make a change and improve student literacy. How would you assess progress seven years later?

I would say we are on a more positive trajectory, but I'm hopeful for the future. When I first got on the board, there were a lot more adult problems that needed to be fixed. I think we got a lot accomplished in terms of a better culture, and good working relationships with the board.

The community demands student outcomes, but they also are looking at the "whole child." We invested in things because we thought they were going to have an academic return. So we now need to be better at systematically looking at things. I remember hearing from a principal about some of the challenges they faced — a kid that had just witnessed their dad kill their mom. Expecting that kid to come to school the next day and expecting that kid to learn before they're able to process and overcome that trauma is a very difficult thing. As a system, it would be amazing if the schools could just focus on reading, writing and math, because that means all those other external factors aren't weighing negatively on our kids.

Providing more mental health support and more interventions, will it show up immediately on test scores? Probably not, but it's also necessary. Educational systems have changed and shifted to be more comprehensive. We've done a hugely better job of providing those supports, but we need to pivot back to making sure that the first thing is academic achievement.

What do you see as the school district's biggest challenge?

Everybody understands how vitally important education is to our society, to our well-functioning democracy, or just even the Fresno community, but we're not putting out resources as a community to match the needs. So we end up having to prioritize knowing that we have scarce resources, and we could do so much more. I'm not trying to excuse the fact that our test scores and our academic performances aren't where they should be, however, we do deal with resource constraints.

The reality today is, we're asking the community for $500 million (for the new bond, Measure H ), and our list of needs is about $2.5 billion. We're only taking a tiny bite out of the apple of what our community expects to see when they drop their kids off at school, what our staff expect to have in terms of their teaching environment. It'll take years before we get to things, even when we all recognize that there's a need.

There are all kinds of competing priorities, but portables really stick in my mind as a learning environment that was intended to be temporary. The life span is about 20 to 30 years and we've got portables that are more than 60 years old.

What are your priorities for the next four years?

I've been fortunate over these past seven-and-a-half years to be in a situation where we've had budget augmentations, so we've had the luxury of being able to invest in programs and support for students and families. Now we're in budget contraction . As painful as it is, there's always an opportunity to prioritize and really look at the effectiveness of everything we've been doing — of all the interventions and contracts — to make sure that they're not only meeting the objectives that we hope for our kids but that they're doing it in the most cost-effective manner. If we've got two or three initiatives focused on attendance, which one is the least effective, which is the best bang for your buck, right?

Also kind of related to this area of contraction is making sure that we're making these decisions as far away from the classroom as possible. This year we had some contractions. Next year it's going to look like we will potentially see additional budget contraction. So, we need to make sure that our schools and kids feel this the least. That means being very mindful of the areas we choose to invest in.

What are your principles when it comes to approving or rejecting a contract?

It's easy to think, "That's just $100,000 here, $100,000 there," but every dollar counts because we're resource-constrained. Even if we had multiple millions of dollars more, we still need to be judicious. You can choose to spend $100,000 on a contract for facilities for students or an ideal meeting space for adults. However, we have space for people to meet, and I want to challenge that mindset. You may have room in your budget for it, but it's not necessarily the best use of those funds. If nobody questions that, people will just continue to do the same thing.

I'm hoping when people come to me or come to the board with those types of contracts, they're willing to see it in those eyes. I'm sacrificing all these things that would directly affect student achievement for the adult convenience of meeting in a better place.

There is speculation that you plan to run for Fresno City Council's District 5 seat.

I'm focused on my trustee seat, and I'm happy at my job.