LYNWOOD — Four Lynwood school board members were served with notice of intent to recall papers during a special board meeting July 15.
Board Vice President Alfonso Morales was the only board member not served.
Board President Jose Solache, along with Maria Lopez and Rachel Chavez personally received their notices prior to going into closed session, but the recall proponent failed to properly serve board clerk Oscar Espinoza, who received his papers from Solache.
For an individual to be properly served, he or she must personally take the papers in his or her hands. Proponents of the recall spared no time, however, and the documents arrived via certified mail to Espinoza’s home the very next morning.
According to the County Registrar of Voters Office, only three school board members qualify for a possible recall, since Chavez’s term ends in December.
Registrar spokesperson Marcia Ventura said that according to the state Education Code, elected officials cannot be recalled from office six months before their term is up or six months after being elected to an official governing body.
Raquel Vasquez apparently filed the notice of intent documents with the county July 16, the day after she served the board members with their notices.
Along with collecting 30 signatures, which still have to be verified by the county as being registered voters in Lynwood, Vasquez’s grounds for the notice of intent to recall the board members are:
• Failure to meet yearly Academic Performance Index standards set by the state. All Lynwood schools rank at least 200 plus points below the statewide API student test score average and have continued to fail annually.
• Failure to meet adequate yearly progress standards set by the U.S. Department of Education. Lynwood schools failed to meet test score goals under federal guidelines and have continued to fail annually.
• Failure to meet yearly California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) goals set by the state. All schools ranked below or far below basic test score requirements.
• Failure to manage public school funds. Vasquez said board members have continued to waste property taxes, lottery school funds and proposition school bond monies for unnecessary consultants and unqualified individuals.
• Failure to safeguard classrooms and students by hiring child sexual predators as teachers and principals within the district. Governing board members have failed to provide a safe and secure zone within our campuses and have repeatedly ignored reliable information from others regarding the illegal private activities of district employees.
Solache, Lopez and Espinoza have until Friday at 5 p.m. to file a rebuttal against the recall with the county.
Solache said he is still deciding whether to file a rebuttal.
“I don’t think this is a community movement,” Solache said. “I’ve been in this community for many years already … and the people who come to the meetings and hold our feet to the fire and criticize us and do everything possible to hold us accountable, aren’t even involved in this recall.”
Solache said Vasquez and others behind the recall did not give board members an opportunity to hear their concerns.
“It’s come out of left field,” he said. “Where is the process? We represent the community. I know who are the critics, and it’s not them, plus they are not attacking one board member individually, they are attacking the board as a whole. … I have a good feel of this community. Those people who signed the petition, have never set foot in a school board meeting.”
Solache said his door has always been open to the community.
“The people in this community know that I give 100 percent and that my door is always open,” he said. “All I know is that I will not be intimidated. My job is to do what’s right for the community and my boss is not any administrator, but the community, so I’m going to focus on doing the right thing.”
Solache has been criticized in the past, along with board members Lopez and Morales, and former board member Guadalupe Rodriguez, for allowing the mismanagement of the district to go on via its top administration. But with the county’s District Assistance and Intervention Team overseeing all school district matters and its acknowledgment that things in the district haven’t gone as they should, it appears, the tables are rapidly turning or as one teacher put it “they’re opening their eyes,” she said asking that her name not be used.
The question is why wasn’t Morales served with a recall notice? A person close to the recall proponents said that Morales wasn’t served with recall papers “maybe because they like Morales, or because his term will be up in December too.”
Morales said he doesn’t know why he wasn’t served with a recall notice but said that he fully supports his colleagues. “All I know is that we all want the best for the students,” he said.
Espinoza said that he was advised to file a rebuttal against the recall, but that his response to the recall didn’t take away from the fact that he thought the charges listed were blanketed with “political motives” that don’t have any basis.
“I’ve been on the board for a year and a half. The charges on the recall are beyond me and in which I do not have any control over,” he said. “I think there are ulterior motives at stake here. I don’t know who is behind this recall, or who is trying to send a message, but when four of five board members get served, then there is something going on. … This seems to me like a scare tactic, but rather than scare me, it just makes me unmotivated.”
Board member Lopez said she will definitely file a rebuttal, saying that if the community wants her out, then not responding would be a sign of disrespect.
“We have to respond to the people, don’t know who it’s from, but we should respond,” she said. “We don’t know if it’s the community, or an interest group, but I’m not worried. For me, it’s been a privilege to be on the board to work for the children. I don’t know what the motive of the people behind the recall is, but I respect their decision.”
Vasquez was not home when a call was placed to her residence. A person who answered the phone hung up after he was told a reporter from The Wave was on phone.
According to the county Registrar of Voters Web site, after a recall petition is approved by the elections office in Norwalk, proponents will have between 60 and 100 days to circulate the petitions. The number of valid signatures required on a recall petition to trigger a recall election is based on a sliding scale based on the number of registered voters. In Lynwood, between 20 and 25 percent of the voters will need to sign the petition to force a recall election.
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