South County group wants to recall 3 Lucia Mar school board members. Here’s why
A group of South County residents has launched a campaign to recall three school board members.
Central Coast Families for Education Reform filed notices of intention to circulate three separate recall petitions against Lucia Mar Unified School District trustees Don Stewart, Dee Santos and Colleen Martin.
The notices, filed on April 29, are the first step in the formal recall process. If the petitions are approved by the county elections official, the next step is for the group to begin circulating the petitions for Lucia Mar school district constituents to sign if they would like to recall the three board members.
At least 15% — or 8,302 — of the registered voters within the district boundaries must sign the petition for it to go to a recall election if those signatures are deemed sufficient by the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
A recall election for the three board members would cost the school district an estimated $350,000 out of its general fund, according to Amy Jacobs, the district’s spokesperson.
Michael Mulder, one of the parents spearheading the recall efforts, said that the group “did not enter into this decision lightly.”
A costly recall election will not need to happen “if the board members resign,” Mulder said.
“I think that when you look at the cost, you have to look at, overall, what’s the true cost of not doing this,” he said. “That’s really where I think we ultimately just got pushed over the edge — if we don’t do something, what’s next? And we can’t wait for that.”
Members of the Central Coast Families for Education Reform announced the notice at a press conference Tuesday evening while the Lucia Mar school board held its biweekly meeting — with some school board members inside and others attending virtually.
In a joint statement sent to The Tribune, the three board members wrote that “student success and the health and safety of our students and staff have guided every decision made unanimously by the seven members of the elected Board of Education.
“The District followed the legally required State and County guidelines. We reopened classrooms and campuses as quickly as allowable while prioritizing keeping our students, families, and staff healthy, safe and alive. We are full of gratitude for our community’s resilience, especially our students’ who patiently and gracefully navigated these unprecedented hurdles in true Team Lucia Mar fashion.”
The statement noted that the schools are now open in a hybrid model, and student athletes are practicing and participating in competitions.
“As a Board, we remain optimistic and look forward to partnering with the community to provide our students with a brighter future,” the statement said.
Schools reopening during COVID-19 pandemic at forefront of recall petition
The group wants to recall the school board members for various reasons, the primary one regarding Lucia Mar’s timeline for reopening schools to in-person instruction.
“The board failed the students by not advocating for a return to school as soon as the guidelines allowed,” the three notices say. “Other districts within our county reopened several months sooner than LMUSD.”
“The board repeatedly failed to reopen all schools when allowed by the state,” the notices continued. “The district could have reopened October 6, 2020, but did not begin opening a hybrid format until March 2021.”
This delay in reopening schools to in-person instruction “resulted in low student performance” the recall notices say, adding that “failing grades were up 155% at the high school level at the end of the first semester.”
The notice of intention to circulate a recall petition against board president Don Stewart also noted that he voted against having resource officers in schools.
During the June 9 meeting when Stewart voted against having the school resource officers — from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and Arroyo Grande Police Department — he asked whether those officers are beholden to the same diversity, equity and inclusion training that school district officials and the board must do.
“In watching our graduations, our resource officers showed up in very different ways,” Stewart said during the June 9 meeting. “From my opinion, some showed up as community members, some showed up as the military. So calling it a resource officer is a really interesting title because I’m not sure what the resource is, and if the resource is safety, I’m not sure who’s supposed to feel safe: the children, the adults on campus or the parents at home. ... So I’m conflicted in light of everything that’s going on. It’s no surprise that I don’t like armed officers on our campuses ... but I know it makes other people feel safe.”
That meeting came as Black Lives Matter protests were happening across the United States in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Stewart was concerned about whether the school resource officers were trained to deescalate situations and recognize underlying racial biases.
Before voting “no” to having the resource officers on campus, Stewart added that he appreciates that some of the school resource officers act as counselors for many students and that San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson called out the “bad policing” that caused Floyd’s death.
Santos’ notice says she “referred to parents who express opinions that challenge the board as ‘hateful people’ who should keep their opinions to themselves. This cancel culture has no place on the board.”
That references a comment Santos gave during an Oct. 16 special board meeting, when board members were discussing possibly bringing students back to in-person instruction.
In that meeting, the board voted to bring elementary school students back to classrooms on Nov. 30, and all middle and high school students back on Jan. 11 — although that was later derailed when San Luis Obispo County’s COVID-19 cases spiked late in the year.
During the Oct. 16 meeting, Santos mentioned how her business, Salon Dee, sees lots of customers, and there, “you hear everybody’s opinions.”
Mentioning the comments heard during the school board meeting, Santos said, “and never in my life, and I hope I never see it again, but there’s never been such hateful, hateful people. And children learn from people.
“Yes, it’d be wonderful for these kids to go back, and I understand their problems, but you also have to understand, we are responsible for our staff that are committed to their jobs. We’re committed to the parents. I think it’s time for us as human beings to look at each other and realize we’re all in the same boat. Everybody has opinions. Sometimes we need to keep our opinions to ourselves because everybody’s getting so hateful, and it needs to stop.”
The notice against Martin said she “dismissed failing students as not worth the effort since they are ‘not college bound.’”
Martin works as a college and career center specialist at San Luis Obispo High School. In that job, she is responsible for processing work permits, as well as counseling students about how to either get into college or pursue a career after high school.
In a Feb. 2 board meeting, she said that the burden of distance learning during COVID-19 has been especially difficult for students.
“We just have to encourage kids and families that it’s OK, this was a hard time and we don’t know what your family was going through. So let’s pick up the pieces and move on and let’s graduate,” she said. “I’m hoping that we can not look backwards, and just look forward and help these struggling students in every way we can.”
The Tribune could not find the board meeting when Martin made the comments quoted in the notice.
Jacobs, a spokesperson for the district, said that Lucia Mar was made aware of the notices of intent to circulate recall petitions for the three board members.
“As a public institution, we serve a parent and student population with diverse opinions on the issue of the timeline for school reopening,” Jacobs wrote to The Tribune in an emailed statement. “In its public meetings on the subject, the board has taken into account the safety of students and employees and followed all public health guidelines. Members of the public who are dissatisfied with the decisions of its elected officials have a right to seek to recall elected officeholders.”
In response to the notices, Cody King, president of the Lucia Mar Unified Teachers Association, said in a statement sent to The Tribune that the teachers’ union supports the board members.
“These recall efforts are arbitrary and are a witch hunt based on perceived political ideology,” he said. “Every step of the way the district has pivoted to meet every change that was passed down from the California Department of Education and the health department. Meeting every changing guideline or advisory has been a challenge for students, families, and the educational workforce and I applaud the Lucia Mar Community who came together to get through this and focused our energies on building relationships with students and meeting their educational needs.”
King noted that if community members are dissatisfied with the existing trustees they should run for a seat on the board.
“All of this can be done without creating a distraction from addressing our kids current needs and wasting $350,000 in taxpayer dollars that should be used in classrooms to support our students,” King’s statement said.
This story was originally published May 5, 2021 at 11:01 AM.
