SRVUSD Recall: PTA Council Pulls Study After Backlash

SAN RAMON VALLEY, CA — The San Ramon Valley Council of Parent Teacher Associations removed from its website a report outlining the potential consequences of a school board recall election amid public outcry.

The council urged the community to use alternative sources of information to make a decision about whether a recall election should be held for San Ramon Valley Unified School District board President Susanna Ordway and members Ken Mintz and Rachel Hurd.

They were targeted for recall after trustees unanimously voted in December to postpone a Jan. 5 return to class, citing troubling COVID-19 statistics. Two other board members — newly elected Shelley Clark and Laura Bratt — were protected from recall efforts by state law, which said a recall can't be launched against an elected official if she has held office fewer than 90 days.

"It has come to the attention of the SRV Council of PTAs that the recent study about the recall is being perceived in a political manner," the council wrote on its website. "While the Council did not take a position, and the intention was only to provide information so that voters could make their own informed decisions, the PTA does not want the study to be politicized or detract from the work of the PTAs in this district."

The San Ramon Valley Council of PTAs on Feb. 16 released its study on the potential effect of a recall election. The council outlined several possible consequences, including that the special election could cost the school district around $650,000. The report also said the loss of existing members could result in a harmful loss of institutional knowledge and suggested that taxpayers might have to fork over more money if the district's bond rating took a hit because creditors determined public support for education was lacking.

The report concluded by saying "all community members [are encouraged] to make an informed decision as to whether or not to sign the recall petition."

But backers of the recall effort raised questions about whether the report was impartial or legally permissible, given the council's nonprofit status.

Ordway and Hurd are advisers to the council of PTAs. Ordway also chairs the council committee that handles scholarships and awards. Hurd chairs its communications committee.

Ordway and Hurd had no involvement in the report, council board President Lisa Gross said in an interview. They left the room and did not vote when the report came before the board.

Critics also said it wasn't the council's place as a tax-exempt nonprofit to engage in matters related to an election. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service allowed nonprofits to engage in nonpartisan voter education efforts but added that "all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

A group of recall supporters known as Parent Power SRV emailed Gross a week after the council released its report. It called on her either to pull the report or to "consider supplementing the report to offer a balanced version of the implications of the recall effort." The group alleged that the report would not withstand IRS scrutiny and threatened to file a complaint with the IRS if no action was taken.

Gross said the letter did not play into the council's decision to scrub the report from its website Friday.

The council continued to stand by its study and believed it was completed in an impartial manner, pursuant to all PTA processes and procedures, she said. Gross believed others in the community turned it into a political matter. "It was simply to put out information so that people could make an informed decision," Gross said.

Recall organizers continue to gather signatures in hopes of holding a special election to decide the fate of Ordway, Hurd and Mintz.

View a copy of the since-deleted report here.

Read more:

• San Ramon Valley Schools Recall: Parents Organize Opposition
• Some Parents Want SRVUSD School Board Members Recalled

Correction: A previous version of this story included a typo in board president Susanna Ordway's first name.