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The group of Sunol residents who are working on the effort to remove Sunol Glen Unified School District Board President Ryan Jergensen and Trustee Linda Hurley are gearing up to begin gathering signatures to get the recall on the ballot next year.
Erin Choin, a Sunol parent who is on the official recall committee, said while the exact launch date is still unknown, they are preparing the petition for people to sign this month so that they could get the amount of signatures needed in time to place the recall on the March primary election ballot.
She said that even though it is the holiday season and many on the recall group would rather be enjoying time with family, putting in the extra work to make sure they can get the issue on the ballot as quickly as possible is their top priority.
“Too many of us feel that this is so completely important that we’ll go a year with a few less activities and extracurriculars around the holidays to make sure that we don’t spend the next year or two fighting the culture wars or putting up with the falsehood and the lies that Trustee Jergensen and Trustee Hurley bring to our school. It is doing damage to our school,” Choin told the Weekly.
Both Hurley and Jergensen put out statements on the town community newsletter, Inform Sunol, on Nov. 24 where they made their arguments on why voters should not support a recall.
“I remain steadfast in my commitment to the betterment of our school. Let us rise above external influences and focus on what truly matters — the success and well-being of our students,” Jergensen said in his answer of recallee statement. “I urge you to reject this divisive recall and work towards One Sunol — let’s put our focus on our school and students.”
An answer of recallee statement allows an elected official to provide comments on why they disagree with the recall.
“Let’s reject divisiveness, reject the completely false things being said about me, focus on our school, and nurture the bright minds of Sunol Glen,” Hurley said in her statement. “Reject this recall so we can once again unite our community and move forward with the business of education.”
Choin said both of the full statements from Jergensen and Hurley will be printed on the recall petition for the sake of fairness and to comply with the recall codes and regulations.
Jergensen began his four-year term on the three-person Sunol school board after winning the seat in the November 2022 election — he was previously on the board for nearly a year in a temporary appointed capacity. During that same November 2022 election, Hurley claimed a shorter two-year seat on the board.
Since then, there have been several incidents that many critics have pointed to as why the community needs to recall both trustees. Hurley and Jergensen were each officially served with recall notices early last month.
There were times when Hurley weighed in at another school district on a book regarding gender and when she introduced an item on the Sunol board agenda in May to discuss two controversial State Assembly bills; one to out transgender students to their parents and one based in censuring books about gender and sexuality.
But most recently, both trustees faced criticism after the Sept. 12 school board meeting where they passed a resolution that limits the district and its Sunol Glen School to only fly the U.S. and California state flags.
The decision, which they doubled down on in October, was followed by a contentious public debate that centered largely on acceptance of the LGBTQ+ Pride flag, which had been raised on the school flagpole in June — although the resolution does not list the LGBTQ+ flag by name and the board majority denied they were targeting that or any other group.
Since then both trustees have been defending that decision, going on public forums such as Inform Sunol to explain how the move wasn’t to alienate any groups and that they only had the best intentions for the school by making it so that the district wouldn’t be privy to litigation is someone wanted to fly a flag but was not allowed to do so.
“Over the course of my time on the school board, I have strived to put our students and parents first, remove politics from our classrooms, and limit our school’s exposure to expensive litigation,” Jergensen said in his recall rebuttal statement. “I believe that our children’s education should be free from external influences and that parents should play a role in shaping the educational experience.”
“I firmly believe that our small school thrives when politics stay out of the classroom,” Hurley said. “My commitment is unwavering, shaped by a belief that our focus should be solely on our children’s education.”
However, Choin said that as much as both trustees say they want to keep politics out of the school, their actions over the last couple of months have proved otherwise.
She said that even though the atmosphere in the small town has shifted to try and go back to how it was before all the controversy, many parents who she has spoken to have told her the division in Sunol have made them feel “a little bit more nervous and more careful on campus.”
She also said that there has been a lot more discussion about the recall within the community and with the news of 84% of the Sunol Glen teachers and support staff unions showing their support of the recall by adopting separate votes of no confidence resolution, it shows how a large majority of the stakeholders in the school’s community want Jergensen and Hurley gone.
The teachers of CFT Local 1494 at Sunol Glen School adopted their resolution on Oct. 11 while the support staff of CSEA Chapter 862 at Sunol Glen School adopted theirs on Oct. 9, according to the United for Sunol Glen website.
“The actions of Linda Hurley and Ryan Jergensen have created an extremely challenging work environment,” the teachers’ union resolution reads. “Their brief tenure has brought distrust, uncertainty and fear to both the Sunol Glen School and the surrounding community.”
“The actions of Linda Hurley and Ryan Jergensen have created an extremely challenging work environment. We all believe that these problems directly stem from an unwillingness of these two board members to provide effective, competent, compassionate and trustworthy leadership to the school,” according to the support staff resolution. “We believe that these problems have had a corrosive effect on staff morale and have fostered a climate of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty.”
That support from not just the school’s staff but also from the list of longtime Sunol residents, former board members and teachers, local parents and parents who live outside of the community, seemingly contradicts what Jergensen previously said in a statement to the Weekly that it was a “very small number of activist” who were not from the community supporting this recall.
Choin added that while parents who bring their children to the school but don’t live in Sunol can’t contribute to the recall vote, there are as of now 77 such parents who are showing their support for the recall effort — which she argues shows again how many people who are still stakeholders in the school don’t agree with the two board members’ leadership.
Choin finally pointed to a comment from Jergensen in a letter to the editor he sent to Inform Sunol on Nov. 30 where he called the recall “undemocratic”. She said in fact, the recall is the most democratic way for the large majority of Sunolians to voice their discontent.
“There are so many hurdles and checks in place and guidelines to make sure that if someone is going to be removed from office, that it truly was done correctly,” Choin said. “It’s not surprising, but it is insulting, that he would insinuate somehow that the authenticity of this recall is not democratic … This is the most democratic way that the disenfranchised people of Sunol can show that their leadership is not taking them into account and they want to replace their leadership.”
According to the 2023 procedures for recalling state and local officials guide that was prepared by the California Secretary of State’s Office, United for Sunol Glen must get signatures from 30% of those who are registered to vote in Sunol. After that, the proponents could then submit those signatures so that an official ballot can be developed and sent to Sunolians to vote either yes or no to the recall.
Choin said that with Sunol’s population being around 800, the minimum number of signatures they expect to need is roughly 300. She also said that they are, however, aiming for at least 400 with the goal being to get more than that so when it comes time to vote on the ballot, they can show without a doubt that there is a demand for the recall.
The recall group will have 40 days after they officially begin gathering signatures to meet their goal before they can file the petition with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office.
