Site work is underway at the Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School in southeast Fresno, a project that will not only provide a state-of-the-art campus, but more opportunities for district high school students to learn construction skills and obtain jobs in the industry. The increased opportunities are a result of a project labor agreement (PLA) that includes giving priority to qualified graduating seniors for apprenticeships in construction and strengthens the partnership between high school construction programs and local trades partners.
Details about the PLA and interviews with district leaders and Juan Felipe Herrera are highlighted in a new video. Herrera, a Fowler native whose parents were migrant farmworkers, was the nation’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017 and a former Fresno State professor. Herrera is the artistic cultural advisor in the conceptual development of the school.
Herrera Elementary will open in August 2022. It is being built on 17 acres south of Church Avenue between Peach and Willow avenues. The campus will have a science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics focus, and a dual language immersion program. The school is being built with funds from the Measure X bond voters overwhelmingly approved in 2016.
“Herrera’s the whole package. It’s truly a community school,” said Superintendent Bob Nelson. “With additional green space to accommodate soccer games and a clinic to provide primary medical care to the community, it goes well beyond providing academic excellence for kids. First and foremost, it’s a school with educational opportunity, but we’re also providing amenities that don’t exist in southeast Fresno right now.”