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John Agnew recall, Chattooga County School District, Georgia (2019)
| Chattooga County School District recall |
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| Officeholders |
| Recall status |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2019 Recalls in Georgia Georgia recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall John Agnew from his position as chair of the Chattooga County School District Board of Education in Georgia did not go to a vote in 2019. Agnew was targeted for recall after the board voted 4-1 on January 17, 2019, to change the school district's four-day week schedule to a five-day week schedule starting with the 2019-2020 school year. A hearing on the recall petition was held on May 7, 2019.[1] The judge ruled against the recall petition, ending the effort.[2]
Agnew was one of the four board members to vote in favor of changing the school district's four-day week schedule. He was joined by members Sammy Ballard, Brad Hayes, and Julia Houston, who all defeated incumbents to win election to the board in November 2018. They were sworn into office the same day as the vote and were not included in the recall effort as they had not served long enough to be legally targeted, according to a leader of the effort. John Turner was the only board member to vote against the change, and he resigned in April 2019 in protest over the decision, according to the Times Free Press. Superintendent Jimmy Lenderman, who had been an advocate of the four-day week, retired on April 30, 2019.[1]
Recall supporters
The recall effort was started by Allan Baggett, a Chattooga County resident. He said Agnew violated the board's code of ethics as well as state law when members of the public were not allowed to speak at the board's meeting on January 17, 2019, when they voted to switch the district from a four-day week to a five-day week. He said the lack of discussion constituted a breach of trust.[1]
At the petition hearing on May 7, 2019, Baggett's attorney said that no one could speak at a school board meeting unless they formally requested to do so five days prior to the meeting. He said the board did not publish an agenda for the meeting until the day before, making it impossible for community members to request to speak. "There was no opportunity for public discussion at that meeting on that decision," Baggett's attorney said.[1]
Recall opponents
Agnew said that changing the school district's schedule had been discussed prior to the vote. He said that former board members had discussed the issue in prior years, that he had campaigned on the issue in 2016, and that the three most recently elected board members had also campaigned on the issue in 2018.[1]
Agnew's attorney said the lack of public discussion about the school district's schedule change did not constitute a breach of trust and thus did not meet the legal requirements necessary for the recall to move forward. "They don't want to go to a five-day school system, and they want to recall anybody who does," Agnew's attorney said.[1]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Georgia
To start the recall process, recall supporters had to collect 100 signatures from district voters. The recall application was submitted on March 19, 2019. A hearing on the recall petition was held on May 7, 2019. The judge ruled against the recall petition, saying it could give signers a false impression of what happened. If the judge had ruled in favor of the recall petition, recall supporters would have had to collect signatures from 30 percent of voters in the 2016 election, a total of around 4,000, to get the recall on the ballot.[1][2]
2019 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 20 school board recall efforts against 47 board members in 2019. Three recall elections were held in 2019. The school board recall success rate was 6.4%.
The chart below details the status of 2019 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Chattooga County School District, Georgia
- Recall campaigns in Georgia
- Political recall efforts, 2019
- School board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Times Free Press, "Will Chattooga County be able to recall its school board chair after he returned the school system to a five-day week?" May 7, 2019
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Times Free Press, "Judge dismisses Chattooga County petition to recall Board of Education Chair John Agnew," May 9, 2019
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