The Trustees on the Board of the Sunol Glen Unified School District, celebrate how dull their meetings are now, says Erin Choin, a new trustee and parent of three children at the district.
Sunol is a rural town with a population of about 900 people. There’s a post office, a few small businesses downtown, and only one school, which is K –8 with less than 300 students. It’s usually fairly quiet.
Except for in the fall of 2023, when the Alameda County town got national attention because two of three trustees on the school board voted to ban all flags other than U.S. or state flags. That meant the LGBTQIA+ Pride flag was taken down from the school’s grounds.
In a panel discussion at the CFT Convention in San Diego, “Organizing to Win in Sunol Glen,” Chris Wheeler, President of Sunol Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1494, parent Kelly Goldsmith, and Choin talked about how they organized a campaign to recall Trustees Ryan Jergensen and Linda Hurley. The President of the El Rancho Federation of Teachers, Lilia Carreon, moderated the panel, having successfully organized a recall in her own district several years ago.
Wheeler, who has taught at the school since 2011, said usually the board’s function is to deal with operational things like finances and construction, and the educators leave that to board members while they dedicate their time and effort to the students.
But Jergensen and Hurley changed that.
“I mean, at first they just seemed a little quirky and conservative,” Wheeler said. “However, when they started showing up on questionable internet blogs and YouTube videos supporting radical ideologies, our members became increasingly concerned.”
Choin said once they had decided to go ahead with the recall effort, they knew they had to go door to door since due to the nature of the town, social media wouldn’t have worked.
“I sat on many couches while we were trying to get this information out,” she said. “Beyond that there was just an incredible amount of learning and paperwork to do with both the county and beyond and all the hurdles that we had to overcome to put the entire campaign into motion.”
Goldsmith said they went to past trustees, students’ family members, and community leaders to ask for help.
“The key was to identify and engage the key stakeholders in the community who were going to be supportive of our efforts,” she said. “Not only with their voices, but with their actions, with practical actions and practical support for all the really hard work we had to do.”
But there was only so much they could do, they said. That made the CFT’s help crucial.
“To have the support, the expertise, the know-how, and all the resources that CFT brought to us — we could not have recalled without that support,” Choin said. “When we say we are all stronger together, this was absolutely an example of that in action in our district, and we are forever grateful.”
The situation was hard on the school workers, Wheeler said, and he tried to maintain a calm presence as a union president in the face of the anxiety and uncertainty.
“There’s was this sort of surreal feeling of, ‘Is this actually happening? This is so dumb,’” he said. “Verbal exchanges and online vitriol became excessive, divisive, and often threatening. Biographies had to be removed from our school web page. Law enforcement had to come to our board meetings.”
The panel ended with Carreon reminding people to organize and to remember that, sometimes, David beats Goliath.
“The key is have a message, be consistent with your message, and once every one hears that message, they’ll help you,” she said. “Know you are never alone, because CFT is a great support, along with your members and the community. And know that we’re going into a period of difficulty.”
In a conversation after the panel, Wheeler said the negative effects from the two trustees still linger.
“They managed to cause a lot of destruction in a short time,” he said. “They did get recalled, but they still got rid of the Superintendent. Our school suffered and still suffers a significant loss of enrollment. It’s a tough place to hire teachers at this point.”
Rather than talking about issues related to the school at board meetings, Wheeler said the trustees who were recalled brought up issues that were getting attention nationally, such as outing transgender youth and book banning.
Goldsmith thinks this came from people outside the community.
“I think the reason we were hearing talking points being parroted that weren’t relevant to our schools was because they were getting them from someplace else,” she said. “I think the whole point was to be a part of a larger effort of attacking vulnerable school boards to insert trustees and leadership.”
The hardest thing about the process, Choin said, was the fractures they witnessed in the previously tight knit town, with people who had been friends falling out over the issue. She feels this is a microcosm of what’s happening across the country now.
But she and Goldsmith agree that they also learned about Sunol residents’ previously unknown talents and capacity to help during hard times.
“That tragedy brought about a lot of really good relationships, and honestly, we now see that with the 100-year celebration of our school,” Goldsmith said. “We’re all moving forward, and we’re seeing reengagement of some older community members back into our school.”