August 30, 2024 – Residents of Clovis neighborhood Ventana Hills have begun petitioning to change school districts from the current Sierra Unified to Clovis Unified School District. Ventana Hills is part of a proposed 600 acres of land off of Auberry Road that is included in this petition.
Sierra Unified officials unanimously opposed the transfer in a resolution on August 12th, but residents are still hopeful for future negotiations with the district.
Though only 2 of the Ventana Hills residents attend school within Sierra Unified, transferring the 600 acres of land increases the potential of more district transfers in nearby neighborhoods. If that happens, Sierra Unified could lose even more support for their education and programs.
Both sides express dissatisfaction – Sierra Unified expresses a discontent with the proposed financial losses as a result of the transfer, but the residents of the proposed transferred land are unhappy with their current situation.
A Ventana Hills resident, Marc Thurston, explained the difficulty that currently lies behind the community being part of Sierra Unified. Parents expressed concerns about their children attending school in the opposite direction of where they work in Fresno or Clovis.
Ventana Hills parents are driving 18 minutes to Sierra High School in the opposite direction of Fresno and Clovis, whereas Clovis North High School is 14 minutes on the route that many parents take to go to work.
Thurston explained, “Kids these days are involved in a million different things; all of our activities are going to be down either in Clovis or Fresno such as you’re going to gymnastics or soccer or dance.”
However, the proposed transfer could potentially cost Sierra Unified millions of dollars.
Board President of Sierra Unified School District Cortney Burke expressed her reasoning for opposing the transfer. She stated that Ventana Hills homes were built and bought with full knowledge that it would be within Sierra Unified.
According to Thurston, Sierra Unified allows inter-district transfers to accommodate parents in Ventana Hills and surrounding areas.
However, Thurston also says that children from Sierra unified who are transferred to other districts may be moved from school to school on a yearly basis, depending on availability of seats.
He elaborated, “Your child could end up being relocated amongst numerous schools… you want that child to get settled in a school, make friends, build relationships with the teachers and staff.”
On the opposing side, Sierra Unified estimates a loss of about $38 million of assessed value for property taxes from the residents of the proposed transfer as well as major funding from student attendance, among an estimated $1 million in bonding capacity, approximately 4% of the district’s bonding capacity as a whole.
Finance DTA, chaired and managed by David Taussig, conducted a study which dusputed those numbers. The study estimated that Ventana Hills would generate just under $800,000 for Sierra Unified.
Taussig proposes that the project’s property owners could provide a “suitable level of compensation” to Sierra Unified amounting to $8,772 per lot for each of the 91 lots.
Sierra Unified decided to appoint a subcommittee to study the impacts and, the residents hope, to open negotiations going forward to accommodate those living in Ventana Hills and surrounding areas.