Grand Jury Finds Fresno Unified Evaluated Just 12% of Employees Over a Decade

A Fresno County Civil Grand Jury investigation into a controversial payout at Fresno Unified turned up something else: the district wasn’t evaluating most of its employees. Just 12% of the entire workforce got a performance review over the last ten years.

The grand jury started looking at a complaint about money paid to a non-union employee who’d quit. That led them to former district spokesperson Nikki Henry, who left last summer after letting AI-generated falsehoods into a district document. Critics called her payout lavish. The grand jury said it followed policy.

But the investigation kept going. “It was discovered that the school district was not rigorously enforcing its policies and procedures regarding personnel evaluations,” the report says. The grand jury thinks that failure “may have contributed to the original issue.”

Advertisement

The district couldn’t — or wouldn’t — confirm the 12% figure, saying the grand jury didn’t explain what data it used. The district also couldn’t immediately provide its own numbers on who’s actually getting evaluated and who isn’t.

Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, says the number suggests teachers are getting reviewed while administrators aren’t. State law and the union contract require new teachers to be evaluated every year, permanent teachers every two years. “That means this report raises even bigger questions about the evaluation of other employee groups, especially management and central-office administrators,” Bonilla said.

He says the report confirms what teachers already know: upper management isn’t accountable the way teachers are. “A majority of our members say evaluations are too often used as a punitive tool instead of an opportunity for support, reflection and professional growth.”

The district says changes are underway. By June 2028, it plans to train all supervisors on evaluations — currently at 0%. It also plans to actually use evaluations when deciding who to hire, promote, or give extra pay, also currently at 0%.

The Breakdown

• The civil grand jury investigated a complaint about a payout to a former employee who’d resigned.
• The investigation found the payout itself followed policy, but uncovered a bigger problem: only 12% of district employees received evaluations over the last decade.
• The grand jury also found job descriptions are outdated and there are no clear performance baselines for evaluations.
• The district can’t comment on the 12% figure because the grand jury didn’t detail its data source, and the district doesn’t have its own numbers ready.
• Teachers union president says state law requires regular teacher evaluations, suggesting the 12% figure means management and central office aren’t being evaluated at the same rate.

What This Means for You

If 88% of employees aren’t being evaluated, the district lacks data on staff performance. The teachers union is already saying evaluations are used to police teachers while management skates.

What to Watch

The district says it’s fixing this, with a 2028 deadline to get everyone trained and evaluations actually used in hiring and pay decisions. That’s two years out. Watch whether the district produces the data it says it can’t comment on yet, and whether it provides actual completion rates by employee level before then.

The bigger question: why does a district need a grand jury investigation to notice 88% of its employees aren’t being reviewed?