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Michelle Maginot and Bridget Watson recall, Sunnyvale School District, California (2021)
| Sunnyvale School District recall |
|---|
 |
| Officeholders |
Bridget Watson |
| Recall status |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2021 Recalls in California California recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall two of the five members of the Sunnyvale School District Board of Education in California did not go to a vote in 2021. Recall supporters did not submit signatures by the filing deadline.[1]
The recall effort began in April 2021. Michelle Maginot and Bridget Watson were named in the notices of intent to recall.[2][3] The deadline to submit the petition against Watson was September 20, 2021, and the deadline to submit the petition against Maginot was October 1, 2021. Both petitions required 7,916 signatures to get the recalls on the ballot.[4]
Both Maginot and Watson were elected to four-year terms on the board in 2018.[3]
To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.
Recall supporters
Recall supporters said the district was too slow to reopen schools to in-person instruction after the number of COVID-19 cases began to ebb in the county.[2]
Recall opponents
In reaction to protests that were held in the district prior to the start of the recall effort, a school district spokesperson released a statement, saying "We know there is no replacement for the high-quality, in-person learning that we provided to our students prior to the pandemic, and empathize with the frustrations that so many parents are feeling right now.[5]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in California
Before the recall petitions could be circulated, they had to be approved by the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. The county approved the petition against Watson on May 21, 2021, and the petition against Maginot on June 3, 2021. Recall supporters would have had to collect 7,916 signatures for each board member in 120 days to get the recall on the ballot. The deadline to submit the petition against Watson was September 20, 2021, and the deadline to submit the petition against Maginot was October 1, 2021.[2][4]
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.
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
- Sunnyvale School District, California
- Recall campaigns in California
- Political recall efforts, 2021
- School board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Bren Lehr, Elections Division Coordinator, Candidate Services Division Manager, County of Santa Clara Registrar of Voters," October 4, 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Daily Post, "Parents in four South Bay school districts want to recall school board members over school closings," May 8, 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sunnyvale School District, "Sunnyvale School District Board Members," accessed May 27, 2021
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Abbey Smith, “Email communication with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters," June 29, 2021
- ↑ CBS SF BayArea, "COVID: Parents Protest To Reopen Sunnyvale Schools, Threaten To Recall Board," accessed May 27, 2021
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