Why Clovis Unified wants to create a new school for medically fragile students

The Clovis Unified School Board could create a new school — at least on paper — as soon as next week, but the students probably won’t notice any changes.

On Wednesday, the board will vote to convert the Garfield Center — a special education site for medically fragile students — into a new school.

Clovis Unified usually serves 15 to 30 medically fragile students — some in hospital beds, others with a tracheal tube, many unable to do simple tasks such as using a pencil, most communicating with devices or through their blinking eyes and others with severe health risks, according to Administrator of Special Education Carrie Carter.

California evaluates each public school based on student chronic absenteeism, graduation rates and other data points through the state’s dashboard system. Schools with high rates of absenteeism and numbers of students not graduating can fall into low performing categories based on those metrics, leading to state intervention to improve those areas.

“If you continue to have (high) chronic absenteeism with no improvement, after so many consecutive years of that, the state can dictate how you have to reserve certain amounts of your funds to invest in improvements,” Carter said. “For our students who are medically fragile, that chronic absenteeism is not going to necessarily improve.

“It depends on their health and the risks.”

Because the Garfield Center is a program rather than its own school, the students are considered either Garfield Elementary, Alta Sierra Intermediate School or Buchanan High School students, meaning it affects their data.

“It is part of the data, but there are unique reasons why these students are chronically absent,” Carter said.

Because of their health, many are often absent; something like flu season for some of them is life or death, she said.

No disruptions for Clovis students

With the proposed change to the Garfield Center, it will hold a Dashboard Alternative School Status and no longer impact the Garfield Elementary, Alta Sierra Intermediate and Buchanan High school ratings.

“Knowing the student population and the challenges they face, it makes more sense to have it as an alternative school where the criteria and the qualifications are different so it would better fit that population of students,” Associate Superintendent of Instructional Services Robyn Castillo said during an Oct. 19 school board meeting.

The state would evaluate the same metrics but “accurately reflect the unique needs of our students,” Carter discussed.

For example, a traditional school weighs the number of students who graduate with a high school diploma or not. A school with alternative school status also measures the number of students who earn a special education certificate of completion, thus changing how the graduation rate is calculated.

With chronic absenteeism and achievement metrics, there will be “modified measures” indicating at-risk students, Carter said.

“Being a dashboard alternative school allows for that chronic absenteeism as a result of their disability,” she said. “The state will recognize that some of those measures aren’t going to improve because of their disability and being medically fragile.”

Other school districts, including Fresno Unified, utilize the alternative school status for schools that only serve students with special needs.

With 45 students last school year, FUSD’s Irwin O. Addicott Elementary had a 100% chronic absenteeism rate because of the medically fragile population. Although students tested hundreds of points below standards, the state didn’t assign performance levels in academics. Florence E. Rata High School is another Fresno Unified school that supports the district’s medically fragile children.

In Clovis, the Garfield Center’s day-to-day operations, administration and staffing won’t change.

“The amazing staff who are there working and loving on these kids won’t even notice,” Carter said.

The change isn’t expected to disrupt student routines either. They won’t have to change schools or teachers.

“Other than the way we’re seen by the state,” Carter said, “they’re going to keep doing what they do.”