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John Crabtree recall, Visalia Unified School District, California (2020)
| Visalia Unified School District recall |
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| Officeholders |
| Recall status |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2020 Recalls in California California recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall John Crabtree from his position as president and Trustee Area 4 representative of the Visalia Unified School District Board of Education in California did not go to a vote in 2020. The petition was approved for circulation in August 2020. Recall supporters had to collect 2,411 signatures by November 18, 2020, to get the recall on the ballot.[1] They did not submit any petition signatures by the deadline.[2]
The effort began in June 2020. Recall supporters listed the district's deficit, the board's decision to not build a fifth high school, and Crabtree's negligent leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic as reasons for the recall effort. Crabtree responded by saying that the district would not have a deficit if new student projections proved accurate, that the high school plan was canceled in the design phase due to cost increases, and that it was difficult for the district to build a virtual program from scratch at the end of the school year in response to the pandemic.[3]
Crabtree was elected to the board in November 2013 and re-elected in November 2018. His term was scheduled to expire on December 9, 2022.[4]
To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.
Recall supporters
The petition included the following reasons for recall:[3]
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1. Knowingly adopted a budget with over $4 million deficit in 2019-20 with no published plan to reduce costs to balance the budget in 2020-21. |
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Recall opponents
Crabtree responded to the allegations in the recall petition as follows:[3]
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1. Budget was passed with deficits, pending allocation of revenues from the usual sources. District was not in a deficit when accounting for new students, which aren’t part of the budget pending outcome of that growth. New administration had several challenges to cutting cost which came later. District is no longer in deficit with recently passed budget. |
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Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in California
Recall supporters filed the notice of intent to recall with the Tulare County Registrar of Voters on June 23, 2020. Crabtree filed his response to the recall petitions on June 26, 2020.[3] The county approved the petition for circulation in August 2020. To get the recall on the ballot, supporters had to collect 2,411 signatures (20% of registered voters) from the school district's Trustee Area 4.[1][6] Recall supporters did not submit any petition signatures by the deadline.[2]
If the petition had been submitted by the deadline, the county would have had 30 days to verify the signatures. If enough signatures had been verified, the school board would have had 14 days to schedule the recall election between 88 and 125 days after the date the county verified the signatures.[1][6]
Ballotpedia covered 35 coronavirus-related recall efforts against 94 officials in 2022, accounting for 13% of recalls that year. This is a decrease from both 2020 and 2021. COVID-related recalls accounted for 37% of all recall efforts in both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, there were 87 COVID-related recalls against 89 officials, and in 2021, there were 131 against 214 officials.
The chart below compares coronavirus-related recalls to recalls for all other reasons in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
2020 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 29 school board recall efforts against 64 board members in 2020. Four recall elections were held in 2020. The school board recall success rate was 7.8%.
The chart below details the status of 2020 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Visalia Unified School District, California
- Recall campaigns in California
- Political recall efforts, 2020
- School board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Sun Gazette, "Recall of VUSD president moves forward," August 12, 2020
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Tulare County Elections," November 24, 2020
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 The Sun Gazette, "Parents begin process to recall VUSD president," July 8, 2020
- ↑ Visalia Unified School District, "School Board Members," accessed July 14, 2020
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Visalia Times Delta, "Parents begin effort to recall VUSD board president, citing budget, coronavirus response," July 9, 2020
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