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Forest Hills Public Schools recall, Michigan (2021-2022)
| Forest Hills Public Schools recall |
|---|
 |
| Officeholders |
Marti Atwater Suzanne Callahan Nicole Meloche-Gregory Kristen Covelle |
| Recall status |
| Signature requirement |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2022 Recalls in Michigan Michigan recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall five of the seven members of the Forest Hills Public Schools Board of Education in Michigan did not go to a vote.[1]
The recall effort began in September 2021. Mary Vonck, Marti Atwater, Suzanne Callahan, Nicole Meloche-Gregory, and Kristen Covelle were named in the recall petitions. The other two members of the board—Maggie Terryn and Kristen Fauson—were not eligible for recall as they had not served on the board for a full year.[2]
Recall supporters said the board had failed to provide consistent transportation for students and had denied requests to live stream school board meetings. The school district canceled dozens of bus routes during the 2021-2022 school year due to bus driver shortages, according to MLive.com. Vonck said that the district was offering some of the highest pay in the county for bus drivers as well as sign-on and referral bonuses and that she was not sure what else they could do. She also said the district was working on adding the capacity to live stream board meetings.[2]
The terms of Vonck, Callahan, and Meloche-Gregory were scheduled to expire in 2022, and the terms of Atwater and Covelle were scheduled to expire in 2024.[3]
Recall supporters
Stefanie Boone was the sponsor of the recall petitions. She said the board needed new leadership.“It would be such a breath of fresh air to have people that are eager and willing instead of entrenched,” Boone said. “Mary Vonck has been on the school board for 17 years. I mean, I think it’s probably time if she doesn’t want to engage and actually try to work toward making change for the voice of the masses, it’s probably time (to step down).”[2]
Boone said she organized the recall effort because parents felt the board was not taking their concerns seriously. “We are frustrated because our voices are not being heard by the people who are supposed to be our liaison to the schools our children attend,” Boone said. “After months and months, years for some, of trying to work with these entrenched Board of Education members to no avail, it has come to the point where we feel that recall of the board members is the only way to make our voices heard.”[2]
Boone said that while she understood the bus driver shortage was a statewide issue, she thought that the school board could do more to recruit new drivers. She also said that the inability to watch school board meetings online was an issue parents had complained about for months. "[I]n this information age, technology age especially with the effects of COVID, everybody is livestreaming, everybody is doing virtual meetings left and right. That’s just commonplace. So to deny that based on funding, that doesn’t make any sense,” Boone said.[2]
Recall opponents
Vonck said recalling five of the seven members of the board would be a disruption to the school district. She said the five members named in the recall petitions had a collective total of 42 years of experience on the board. “New people, without the experience and the history and the background, will have to be brought up to speed and learn, and I’m not sure that they’re going to have any more at their disposal to address the issues than what we have,” Vonck said.[2]
In response to the allegation that the board was not doing enough to recruit new bus drivers, Vonck said that the school district offered some of the highest pay in the county for the position. She also said they offered sign-on and referral bonuses. “I’m not sure what else we can do,” Vonck said.[2]
In response to the allegation that the board had denied requests to live stream school board meetings, Vonck said the district had not had the capacity to do so but was working on it. She said the district was in the process of hiring a director of communications who would be responsible for recording school board meetings.[2]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Michigan
Recall supporters filed the initial recall paperwork with the Kent County Clerk's Office on September 15, 2021. The Kent County Election Commission approved the petition for circulation on September 30, 2021. To get the recalls on the ballot, supporters would have had to collect 6,922 signatures per board member. The number of signatures was equal to 25% of the votes cast in the school district in the last gubernatorial election.[2]
2022 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 54 school board recall efforts against 123 board members in 2022. Recall elections against school board members were held on January 11, 2022, January 18, 2022, January 24, 2022, February 15, 2022, March 29, 2022, April 4, 2022, and November 8, 2022. The school board recall success rate was 7.3%.
The chart below details the status of 2022 recall efforts by individual school board member.
2021 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 92 school board recall efforts against 237 board members in 2021. Recall elections against 17 board members were held in 2021. The school board recall success rate was 0.42%.
The chart below details the status of 2021 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Forest Hills Public Schools, Michigan
- Recall campaigns in Michigan
- Political recall efforts, 2022
- Political recall efforts, 2021
- School board recalls
- States that allow school board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Michigan Advance, "GOP gov. candidate Ryan Kelley turns school board meeting into an ‘election rally,’ parents say," March 9, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 MLive.com, "Parent group files recall petition to remove 5 Forest Hills school board members," October 7, 2021
- ↑ Forest Hills Public Schools, "Board of Education," accessed October 12, 2021
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