Valley Public Radio

On this week's Valley Edition : How is Fresno managing the challenge of a homeless encampment downtown in the face of limited shelter beds? Plus, the struggle to educate enough nurses to replace those driven out of the profession by pandemic stress. And how the drought is impacting small farmers right now.

It's 7 a.m. and the sidewalk along this industrial intersection at H and San Benito is crowded with tents covered in tarp. A 60-year-old man named Gary starts to break down his shelter. He works methodically, folding his tarp and moving the things he wants to keep to the opposite side of the street. He walks with a limp. He says he just healed from a broken hip and only recently started walking again. “I only started walking 4 weeks ago,” he says, standing over a heap of plastic bags. Leonard Allen True, 55, takes a broom and sweeps a section of the sidewalk. “These people vacated so I'm just sweeping, helping out the cleanup day,” he says. The middle of the street is piling up with debris and unwanted belongings. Today is clean up day and city crews are standing by. H. Spees, director of Fresno's Housing and Homeless Initiatives is on-site to check in on the cleanup operation. “Today, we're simply asking people to move their stuff, downsize, whatever they don't want, they can put in

The physical and emotional toll of treating COVID-19 patients is driving many nurses to leave the profession, and it's raising alarms about the state's capacity to educate their replacements. To learn more about why nursing programs are so impacted, and how to fix them, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Catherine Kennedy, a registered nurse and a president of the California Nurses Association, Ashley A. Smith, a reporter with EdSource, and Keisha Lewis Nesbitt, director of nursing at Fresno City College.

Photojournalist Ryan Christopher Jones spent five years documenting one Fresno family's transition from poverty into the middle class. His images were recently published in “The Atlantic.” Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke to Jones about how the project evolved from its initial concept of exploring the growing tech scene in Fresno, into an examination of social mobility.

June Moua started growing cherries, tomatoes and grapes in east Fresno County 10 years ago. Now she grows a few different types of crops. But her most profitable are the water-intensive Asian greens like mustard greens and bok choy. “Every other day you have to water to keep going, otherwise it won't work,” she says. “They're just going to die.” She says she learned how to farm from her father when she was younger. Since then, she's learned even more through trial and error. She enjoys bringing these Southeast Asian crops to farmers markets in Los Angeles, but the drought has put her in a tough position. “It's a challenge like, ‘what are we going to do?'” she says. “Are we going to plant or are we not going to plant?” Moua gets her water from a well. She says before the drought, water would flow effortlessly from the well through a pipe into her fields. But since August, she's had to turn her water pump on and wait. Sometimes it takes up to half an hour. “You just have to sit here and

Local organizers rallied outside the Department of Pesticide Regulations in Clovis Tuesday to demand immediate pesticide reform following a study published this summer that found certain pesticides used in California were linked to childhood cancer. The study , conducted by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health linked 13 pesticides to childhood leukemia and brain tumors in children whose mothers lived within 2.5 miles of the pesticide application while pregnant. “The researchers found that the pesticides increase the chances of a child getting cancer by one and a half to three times higher than if mothers were not exposed to the pesticides,” says Candy Zaranyika, a member of the Coalition Advocating for Pesticide Safety in Tulare County. Advocates delivered the study along with a list of demands to the state agency. They're calling on county ag commissioners to notify residents when these chemicals are being used. “We want to stop pesticide secrecy,” Zaranyika says. “ We demand the

The first thing you notice in the livestock pavilion at the Big Fresno Fair is the sound. There are the animals, of course: The cows and goats being steered to their enclosures, the squeals of hogs less than excited about being bathed, and the blow dryers fluffing up freshly shorn sheep. But behind all that is the thrum of an excited crowd: The hurried footsteps of polished boots, the P.A. announcements calling classes of presenters to the show rings, and the cheers of proud parents. Though many of the fair's 600,000 visitors may have been drawn to the fried Oreos, cinnamon buns or Smokey Robinson on the main stage, the draw for hundreds of students was the opportunity to show off their agricultural business skills at the annual livestock show and auction. And they were so glad to be back after a year nearly lost to the pandemic. Among the more than 800 middle and high school competitors this year were Nicholas and Nathaniel Bonomi of Sanger. The 14- and 16-year-old brothers spent the

Nestled in the northeast part of Sequoia National Forest 8500 feet up, the Buck Rock Fire Tower sits atop a 250 foot rock face, jutting over an expansive view of the forest and the Sierra Nevada. The tower is situated between Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, giving it a prime view of smoke columns. A woman who goes by the name Michigan staffs the lookout full-time. “We are a first-line early fire detection resource,” Michigan says. She says the lookout is an important tool during fire season. “I can see it, I can tell if it's really a smoke. I can tell if it's a legitimate smoke.” she says. From the tower, Michigan watched the KNP Complex grow, even as the fire got closer. “I could see flames on that ridge,” she says pointing to a ridge at eye level to the tower. “I had embers falling on the roof and on the stairs from a fire that was still four and a half miles away.” Michigan had to flee the tower on October 4. Since then, the building had been wrapped with the same foil used

If there's one thing Leland Decker will teach you, it's this. People who love to be around horses, they really love to be around horses. There's no gray area. “My work is horses, my spare time is horses, my hobby is horses,” he says. His vacation is horses. “I don't have a boat. I don't have a camper. I don't play golf. I don't play tennis. I don't go fishing. I don't go hunting,” he says. He built the horse track on his 30-acre property. He welded the pipe fencing around it He trains young riders to exercise the horses. “All right they're gonna go around again and then they're going to pull up and then go to the gates,” he says as two horses turn the corner on the track. For decades, he galloped the horses himself, into his 50s. But at age 72, his well worn cowboy boots stand firmly on the ground. “About the time you get the experience and your brain's working really good, the body's wearing out,” he says laughing. “So that's why I have these guys that are younger but I watch what's

Joe Del Bosque has owned his farm west of Mendota for 36 years. He's grown cherries, tomatoes and asparagus. But the crop closest to his heart is melons. His dad began growing melons in the Mendota area in the 1950s. “They've been in my blood for all my life, you know, so I feel a very intimate relationship with melons,” he says. He now owns 2,000 acres of land on both sides of Interstate 5. Typically, Del Bosque and other farmers on the west side of Fresno County receive their water through the Central Valley Project. That water flows from northern California to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and gets pumped through a network of canals. Three decades ago, Del Bosque and other farmers on the west side began experiencing water cutbacks. They had to change how they watered crops. But now, conditions are getting worse and growers are making hard decisions about water and their crops Farmers adjusting to water restrictions in west Fresno County On a windy Tuesday morning, Del Bosque

On this week's Valley Edition: An effort to change how Native American students, and their histories, are understood in California's schools. Plus, the Newbery Award winning author who calls the Valley home releases two new children's books. And the city of Taft's celebration of black gold: Oildorado. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

While working as an elementary school teacher in the Central Valley, Marie Casao was disturbed by how her fellow educators taught indengous history to their students. So after earning a master's degree in education from Fresno State, she curated a curriculum of resources for teachers looking to challenge stereotypes about Native Americans in their classrooms. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Casao about the project.

Since 1989, October has been designated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. But misperceptions about domestic violence continue to permeate our culture. To learn more, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Tracey Salisbury, assistant professor of interdisciplinary and ethnic studies at California State University, Bakersfield.

Margarita Engle, the celebrated author and poet who calls the Central Valley home, published two new books in 2021. The first, “Your Heart, My Sky,” is a young adult novel written in verse. The second is a children's picture book titled “A Song of Frutas.” Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with her about how both books were inspired by her Cuban-American heritage.

Larry Warkentin brings us this week's story on Valley Writers Read. "A Coat of Many Patches" is about a guy named Young Pete, who jumps on a freight train to go to Albuquerque so that he can find some work and send home some money to his struggling parents.

A really intriguing story awaits us on this edition of Valley Writers Read. Janet Nichols Lynch's "Why I'm Calling 911" is about an elderly saleswoman who becomes a little too pesky.

We have another story from Bonnie Hearn Hill on this edition of Valley Writers Read. In "If It Bleeds", a reporter named Corina Vasquez is assigned to cover the murder of the town's mayor. During her investigation, she uncovers many twists and turns that leave her and the audience guessing.

He have two science fiction stories by Howard Hendrix on this edition of Valley Writers Read. Our first story is titled, "The Son of the Sun". It is a myth about the possible origins and beginnings of man's trek on the planet earth. Our second story, "The Self-Healing Sky" is about the possibilities of the endings of our society and who will come after us.

There are two fast-paced short stories on this edition of Valley Writers Read. Don Moody's "The Oklahoma Boys" is about two young men who build their own bi-plane and share in some adventures together. Wayne Damron's "Bynum" is about a grandfather who has to overcome an encounter with a rattlesnake to retrieve his watch that was dropped under the porch.

Paul Hernandez brings us this weeks' story on Valley Writers Read. In "The Reflection", a guy named Gordon is struck by lightning while trying to cross the street in a thunderstorm.

Early Thursday morning, gymnast Sunisa Lee became the first Hmong American to win a gold medal for team USA. And just as her hometown community in Minnesota cheered her on, the San Joaquin Valley's Hmong community was watching as well. Geri Yang-Johnson of Fresno has never met Sunisa Lee, but as a fellow Hmong-American, she says Lee feels like a little sister. That's why she got up at 3:45am on Thursday to watch Lee compete. “Sunisa Lee represents all of us,” she said. “All of Hmong America was up early this morning cheering her on, and cheering team USA on in gymnastics.” Yang-Johnson says Lee has also been an inspiration for her 2-year-old daughter. “She wants the braid and the bun in the morning, she said she wants Sunisa hair, she's going around telling people she's in gymnastics even though she's not,” she laughed. Blong Xiong, Executive Director of the Asian Business Institute and Research Center in Fresno, says his phone has been blowing up all day with text messages and

Mohamed Ahmed has worked behind the register of the Food King in Fresno's Tower District for more than a decade. He's the owner, and he says many of his customers are regulars coming in every week for basic staples or beer. He expects to see them, but the pandemic changed routines and put added stress on his business. As part of our occasional series on how people are processing the magnitude of the pandemic, FM89's Alice Daniel spoke with him and produced this audio postcard.

As the Delta variant has made its way to the most prevalent COVID-19 variant in the state, other indicators of the pandemic have been rising as well. Statewide, case rates and positivity rates are four to five times higher than they were a month ago, and hospitals are slowly seeing a rise in COVID-positive patients as well. That's partly why, earlier this month, Los Angeles County became the first to reinstate a mask mandate for all people, regardless of vaccination status. Health officials in Fresno County have also joined many others to strongly recommend that people vaccinated against COVID-19 people to mask up indoors, though they stopped short of a mandate. How concerning is the Delta variant, and what are the implications of rising cases for fully vaccinated people? FM89's Kerry Klein answers these questions and more, featuring excerpts of media calls with Fresno County's Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra.

Now that most pandemic restrictions on houses of worship have been lifted, the Sikh Institute of Fresno looks much like it did pre-COVID. On a recent Sunday at this 3-story, salmon-colored temple known as a gurdwara, people stream in and out of the main worship hall, some wearing traditional saris and kurtas, others in t-shirts and jeans. While they circle the altar, a trio of men playing harmoniums and tabla drums sing hymns known as kirtan in the Northern Indian language of Punjabi. Outside, families wait in long lines for bubbling trays of vegetable curry, lentils and roti on the way to the langar hall, a cafeteria where they can eat and catch up with friends. But on this day, classrooms decked out with chalkboards and bright posters that are typically used for Punjabi school have been repurposed. Sitting in one of them is 13-year-old Navleen Kaur. “A lot of people are getting sick, and for them we are getting the vaccine,” she said. This room is the observation area of a pop-up

Last week, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, is unconstitutional. For now that means new DACA applications will not be approved, but DACA renewals will still be processed. It was the latest blow to the program, which allows more than 600,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to receive work permits and protection against deportation. To find out how local DACA recipients are responding to the ruling, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke to Jessica and Grisel, two sisters who asked to be identified only by their first names. Their childhood friend, Gelasio Rodriguez, also joined the conversation. He started by talking about his journey to the United States.

The city of Hanford in Kings County is celebrating its 130th birthday, and residents have filled the weekend with activities and events commemorating the milestone. To hear more about the celebration and how the city was founded, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Brad Albert, Hanford's parks and community services director.

Last week, an unidentified Yosemite park ranger shared on Facebook the heartbreaking account of a mother bear mourning the loss of her cub after it was hit by a speeding vehicle. The post went viral, and drew national headlines, calling attention to the danger posed to wildlife by speeding motorists. To get a better sense of the magnitude of the issue, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Yosemite National Park ranger Jamie Richards.

On the next Valley Edition: Now that pandemic restrictions on places of worship have lifted, some temples serving Punjabi Sikhs have partnered with COVID-19 vaccine clinics. Plus, w hat happened after a brush fire tore through four immigrant-owned businesses in a Tulare County community. And the danger reckless driving poses to wildlife in Yosemite. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

Ezize Hassan walks through the remains of his trailer home and the minimart that his family has owned for more than 50 years in the Tulare County community of Poplar. As he surveys the destruction, he recalls that on July 9, a power line running through a tree in between his property and his neighbors' sparked. “It caught fire on this tree, the first tree,” he says pointing to the pine trees that towered over the ashy remains. “It flamed up from up top; starting going down. Once it hit the floor, the CVA, their garage caught on fire.” The CVA is The Central Valley Empowerment Alliance. It is a community based organization that was supposed to hold a youth vaccination event that day, according to Executive Director Mari Perez-Ruiz. No kids were injured but the supplies intended for them were destroyed. “We expected over 400 students to come from all over the area,” she says. “We had backpacks filled with supplies, lunch boxes, and over $100,000 of clothing from Forever 21.” While the

A project is underway throughout July to remember when the now dry Kern River flowed through the city of Bakersfield. The organization Bring Back the Kern is collecting photos, videos and stories of the once moving river for an upcoming exhibit. Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke with the project's organizer Miguel Rodriguez about what the river once meant to the community and why he wants to bring it back.

On the next Valley Edition: With the recent excessive heat wave and the drought, small farmers worry about the survival of their crops. Plus, the legislative effort to overturn a state law that allows some workers with disabilities to earn less than the minimum wage. And Fresno's Cambodian community launches a weekly night market. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

A new book from journalist and author Amy Wu explores how a growing number of women are blending agriculture with technology to find new solutions to feed the world. Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke to Wu about her book, “From Farms to Incubators: Women Innovators Revolutionizing How Our Food is Grown,” and how women are bringing a diversity of perspective to the agricultural industry.

Since 1938, employers in California have been able to apply for a certificate that allows them to pay employees with disabilities less than minimum wage - in some cases as little as $2 an hour. Some say the program, called 14(c), creates opportunities for people who otherwise could not find employment. Others say it is exploitative, and a state bill has been introduced to end the practice. To learn more, Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke with Wesley Witherspoon, chair of the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, Vivian Haun, senior attorney with Disability Rights California, John Bolle, executive director of VistAbility and Shawn Kennemer, executive director of Bakersfield ARC.

California's 2020 wildfire season was indisputably historic: Fires burned a record-high 4.3 million acres in the state, and five of the blazes went down among the 10 largest in our recorded history. Many were touched off by widespread lightning sieges, which hadn't occurred at such a high rate since 2008. Likewise, this confluence of events led to unusually high levels of acrid smoke blowing into the Valley, at times from all directions. Throughout the region, the air quality index (AQI) in September and October of 2020 reached higher levels and for longer periods of time than almost any other year in the last two decades. In this interview, FM89's Kerry Klein crunched some historic air quality data and compared notes with Jon Klassen, Director of Air Quality Science & Planning with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The crowd is slowly filling in on this Friday, as triple digit temperatures blaze the grounds of Fresno's largest Cambodian temple at Clinton and Valentine. Guests are taking refuge in corners with shade, watching singers perform on the main stage. Other visitors braving the sun are lined up at vendor booths, set up in rows along the main courtyard. The smell of cooked meats fills the air. Danny Kim says this is all familiar to him. “I travel to Cambodia a lot and night market is the most popular thing in Cambodia.” Kim is a Fresno police officer and board president of the Khmer Cultural Preservation Society. The non-profit has been in talks with the Cambodian Buddhist Society at the temple to bring an event like this to life since 2019. The plan was delayed because of COVID, but was finally launched two weeks ago. “This is like traveling back to Cambodia, I mean you can come in and you can feel like you are at home. Especially for the Cambodian community, right?” Kim said. But not

Pete Oliver likes to say that his small green Army jeep is older than he is, and he's 76. But it still runs well after a few starts, and he uses it to drive around his small farm west of downtown Fresno. On this day, he takes the jeep out to where his watermelons are fading in the heat. “See that little light area in the middle of the melons there,” he says pointing to white spots on the leaves that have been baked by the sun. Oliver has farmed for most of his life. His parents bought a farm in Kingsburg when he was just a baby. By age 7, he was picking cotton for them; he knows how hot San Joaquin Valley summers can get. But this heatwave, he says, is close to unbearable. “The sun is just really, really beating down,” he says. “It's hot out here now and it's probably 12 o'clock. At 2 or 3 o'clock, it's really smoking out here.” Oliver and other farmers worry about the high temperatures July is bringing and whether some of their crops, especially their melons, will survive the

Gladys Dick McKinney has just made a quick stop for strawberry jello at the Dollar General on Highway 180. She's making a cake for her brother's birthday but before she heads out, she takes a minute to talk to me about the proposed name change and even asks me to sit in her air conditioned car. She says she's lived here all of her life and doesn't mind the name. “As far as Squaw Valley offending me, that name does not offend me. And I'm a Indian woman, a mother,” Dick McKinney says. Dick McKinney is part of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians. She says she first heard of the effort when it was scheduled for discussion at an Orange Cove city council meeting in January this year. “We're not even in their district. That's a city, we're county,” she says. The discussion was postponed, but not before it caused an uproar on social media because it surprised so many locals. Dick McKinney says she understands that the term may hold different meanings in other tribal regions. “What does that have

On the next Valley Edition: Rural communities throughout California lack vital healthcare infrastructure: how some local counties are grappling with vaccine deserts. Plus, the political fight to bring safe drinking water to San Joaquin Valley communities. And how to prepare for yet another summer of dirty air. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

In 2020, the Creek Fire and other blazes throughout California billowed so much smoke into the San Joaquin Valley that, at times, the sky turned brown and ashes accumulated on cars and sidewalks like snowflakes. We know long-term air pollution is bad for our health, but what can we expect from these short-term bursts of wildfire smoke? In this interview, FM89's Kerry Klein sat down with Kevin Hamilton, executive director of the Central California Asthma Collaborative, to discuss the air quality impacts from wildfires and learn what we can do now to prepare for smoke later in the fire season.

When the one working well serving the unincorporated community of Teviston in Tulare County stopped working last month, the roughly 1,000 people who live there were left without running water in the middle of a drought. As the community waits for bureaucracy to clear the way for the well to be repaired, State Senator Melissa Hurtado has been pushing for a legislative fix to the Valley's water infrastructure. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with her about the status of the bill she authored, and what's next for the people who call Teviston home.

As City Councilmember Tyler Maxwell and I get on the FAX bus at Shaw and Cedar, a cool blast of air greets us. Our fare is free but that ends in September. Maxwell says the zero fare experiment was helpful during COVID, especially for low-income residents without cars. FAX busses returned to full capacity last week. “I can't tell you how many stories my office has gotten over text, email, phone call, just saying what a huge relief this has been for so many families, especially during the pandemic,” he says. But the free fare policy is changing, he says, because he and other council members were unaware of a contract that the city entered into before the pandemic, for a grant to purchase ticket vending machines, which dispense paper tags. The contract is valid for another 8 years. “If you don't use machines for their effective life, you're on the hook for about the tune of $18 million,” Maxwell says. Maxwell and other council members are still weighing the benefits of zero fare; if it's

As drought settles over the San Joaquin Valley, a new report warns of other circumstances that could result in entire communities losing drinking water. More than a million Valley residents could lose their public water in coming decades under the sweeping groundwater legislation known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), according to the paper published earlier this month by the non-profit Pacific Institute. Signed into law in 2014, SGMA aims over the next two decades to reduce California's groundwater deficit by balancing water pumped out of the ground with the amount replenished . The groundwater overhaul called for the state's groundwater basins to be divided into hundreds of local governing boards known as groundwater sustainability agencies (GSA), each of which has created its own sustainability plan to ostensibly meet the needs of all of its water users. The report argues, however, that many of these plans will leave more vulnerable communities behind, made all

On the next Valley Edition: When was the last time you really listened to someone with a different political view? We introduce our collaboration with StoryCorps' One Small Step. Plus, author Mark Arax discusses how history intersects with race and real estate in the city of Fresno. And how the pandemic forced one LGBTQ entertainer to assess his mental health. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

Wherever you are in the Valley, you've likely been enjoying the reprieve from the heat wave that left us all sweaty and guzzling water earlier this month. Beginning Saturday, unfortunately, most of us are in for another round of triple-digit days, this one even longer. So how can we stay safe in such oppressive heat? In this interview, FM89's Kerry Klein learned how to prevent and keep an eye out for heat-related illnesses from Dr. Rene Ramirez, an emergency physician at Community Medical Centers and faculty member at UCSF Fresno, as well as the Public Health Officer of Calaveras County.

Paul Hernandez designs and sews his own costumes and entertains audiences through the art of drag with his alter ego Leilani Price. He also does his own makeup before performing at LGBTQ night clubs like Fab in Fresno's Tower District. But the pandemic ended those performances for over a year forcing Hernandez to slow down; he's also a community activist and has a day job in health administration. Spending so much time at home gave him a chance to evaluate his mental health. As part of our occasional series on how people are processing the pandemic, FM89's news director Alice Daniel spoke with him and produced this audio postcard.

T ake a minute and think back to the last time you really listened to someone whose political opinions were very different from your own. Was it a few weeks ago, a few months ago, was it ever? Valley Public Radio and the public history project StoryCorps are inviting you to meet the challenge. It's called One Small Step ; meet a stranger with a different political view for a personal, 50 minute conversation about your lives. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock speaks with FM89's News Director Alice Daniel and producer Sonia Mehrmand about the initiative.

Writer Mark Arax has been working to uncover some of the forgotten history that explains how many neighborhoods in Fresno were established. What he discovered was that some of the city's largest housing developers used restrictive real estate covenants to prevent Armenians and people of color from living in certain neighborhoods. Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke with him about the legacy of this practice and what it might mean for Fresno's future.

On this final episode of the 2021 season of Young Artists Spotlight, we feature more performances from Claire Vega, Emma Woodward, Rowan Crass, Emma Sigala and others. Support for Young Artists Spotlight comes from the Bonner Family Foundation and the California Arts Council's Arts in Public Media grant.

After over a year online, Madera South High School adopted a hybrid schedule in April so students could return to classrooms a couple of days a week. But inside Rodia Montgomery-Gentry's 12th grade economics class in early June, it felt like school was already out. Desks with plastic dividers lined the room but there were only three students. “Everyone, would you mind turning on your camera? It's our last day might as well,” Montgomery-Gentry is heard addressing students on her screen. Most of the students Montgomery-Gentry was talking to were still online. Out of 27 logged in, eight had their cameras turned on, but most of those cameras were pointed at the ceiling. “The students have heard, probably every single class time, me announce, you know, ‘So and so are you here? Put in the chat if you're here. And mic yourself if you're here.' Nothing,” said Montgomery-Gentry. It was a challenging year for Montgomery-Gentry and other teachers. Just because students were officially in

On the next Valley Edition: A state law requires schools to track attendance during the pandemic, but the frustrations of teachers and students at one Madera high school tell a different story than the numbers. Plus, we discuss how school districts are planning to make up for the learning loss students experienced during the pandemic? And a local historian tells us why he thinks Juneteenth should be a national holiday. Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

To learn how school districts plan to make up for the lost learning that occurred for many students in the past academic year, Valley Edition Host talked with Alyson Crafton, director of student services for Madera Unified, Natalie Wheatfall-Lum, director of P-16 education policy at The Education Trust-West, and Heather Hough, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). Also joining the conversation from Fresno Unified were Jeremy Ward, the assistant superintendent of college and career readiness and Heather Allen, executive officer for the district's instructional division.