Fresno Unified School District Superintendent Misty Her admitted that a dossier on the Fresno Teachers Association featured a litany of fabricated inflammatory quotes attributed to union leaders.
Her said in an interview with The Sun on Thursday that she directed her staff to assemble the document to highlight trends and patterns over time that showed how her relationship with FTA leadership had deteriorated.
The backstory: Wednesday, FTA leadership unveiled a document given to them by Her during a meeting on May 7 that involved FTA President Manuel Bonilla and Executive Director Louis Jamerson.
- That document – titled Instances of Fresno Teachers Association (FTA) Leadership Targeting Superintendent Misty Her – highlighted 39 instances from August 2023 to May 2025 for FTA leadership allegedly targeting Her with inflammatory comments. That included quotes from seven news reports, three social media posts and 29 FTA emails.
- Each instance in the document had a quote that was allegedly said by Bonilla or written in an email or social media posts, but none of those quotes could actually be found. The document linked to stories with the hyperlinks ending with “utm_source=chatgpt.com,” showing that it was crafted with artificial intelligence.
The big picture: Her confirmed the legitimacy of the document in her interview and also confirmed that she was the one who handed it to FTA leadership on May 7 in an off-the-record meeting.
- She said the document was the result of months of a back and forth on social media between the union and the district, which led to a comparison between herself and Jamerson posted by the district. Jamerson asked for a meeting to clear the air, prompting Her to direct the district’s Chief Communications Officer, Nikki Henry, to compile a document to share with the FTA and show why they needed to rebuild the fractured relationship.
- “I also wanted to see trends and patterns overtime of why, when and how we got to the place that we got where we started not communicating well with each other and then where the tensions were,” Her said. “The document was for me to use as a timeline for working together and learning from past mistakes that we made so that we can move forward together.”
Using AI: Her confirmed that Henry used AI to help generate the document, adding that it is almost the industry standard for communications leaders to use AI.
- The California School Public Relations Association (CalSPRA) and the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) have been advocating for school communications executives to use AI for work.
- The problem was that none of the AI-generated quotes were ever said by the union representatives to whom they were attributed.
- “We did not verify,” Her said. “Our error was that we didn’t verify the work, and we take full responsibility for it.”
- Her said Henry took full responsibility for the matter but declined to answer when asked if Henry had been reprimanded, since it is an internal personnel matter. Henry was still listed on FUSD’s website as the Chief Communications Officer on Thursday afternoon.
Personal attacks: Part of the dispute between Her and the union centered on Her saying that she has been personally attacked for nearly two years.
- “I also created the document because there were things that were happening to me that I wanted to also make sure that I was safe, because things were being sent to my home,” Her said. “Whenever I would go into public, people were coming up to me and mentioning things from the stuff that they were posting. While I’m not holding them responsible for the post, I would say the post incites certain feelings and certain things about me.”
- Her said she has received hate mail that included racist remarks attacking her for her Hmong ethnicity and saying she’ll get deported soon, for example.
What we’re watching: The incident comes at a time just months ahead of scheduled negotiations between Fresno Unified and the FTA on a new collective bargaining agreement for the district’s teachers.
- Her said she will work with the FTA despite this latest incident because the relationship needs to work for the students.
- “When our educators get what they need, then our students get what they need,” Her said.
- Her added, “I will publicly apologize for this. It’s very unfortunate, but I will go to the table with them as much as I need to until we are able to arrive at a place where we can work together and we can move forward and do what’s right.”
- She called on the FTA to not weaponize the document against her.
- “I hope that we can get past this and get back to the most important things, which is teaching our kids to read, write and give them the life skills that they need to thrive,” Her said.
