The movement to recall three San Francisco school board members reached 70,000 signatures on Monday.
This milestone means that an election for new board members is likely to occur either late this year or early next.
"The biggest thing we’ve seen the school board fail to do is actually focus on running the school system effectively and educating our kids," said Siva Raj, a parent and one of the organizers of the recall.
Raj began the recall campaign with other frustrated parents in February this year, after seeing their children struggle with distance learning.
"The school really had no plan or no intent to actually bring high school kids back," said Raj. "They [the board] were kind of very dismissive and almost started to treat parents as the enemy." The board spent most of the time this last year renaming schools and not focusing on the issues that parents felt were more critical, like getting kids back to school safely, said Raj.
Raj said they will submit the signatures for the recall of school board President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Alison Collins on Sept. 7.
More than 70,00 people have signed a petition to recall school board members López and Collins, while nearly 67,000 have signed to oust Moliga, according to Raj.
To qualify for the ballot, the campaign would need 51,325 valid signatures supporting the recall for each board member, or 10% of registered voters.
City officials will have 30 business days to determine whether there are enough signatures.
The next step in the process, said Raj, while they wait the 30 days, is to find good candidates to replace the board members.
The organization doesn’t have any candidates in mind as of right now. They’re hoping that the community of parents and teachers in San Francisco will help in the process, but ultimately Mayor London Breed will make the decision. "We’d like to be able to offer some good candidates for the Mayor to consider," said Raj.
The four other board members are not eligible for recall yet.
"We want to see better leadership that can actually bring the focus back on education," said Raj.
