BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
An effort to recall Palo Alto school board member Shounak Dharap has ceased because the campaign didn’t provide verifiable addresses as the law requires, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters said yesterday.
“We hit a speed bump,” parent Avery Wang said. “We’re not concerned, it’s just a little technicality.”
The recall campaign will need to re-file its paperwork and restart the process, Registrar of Voters spokesman Steve Goltiao said in an email.
Dharap released a statement yesterday on “moving forward now that the recall is over.”
“Tensions have run high recently,” he said. “We’ve all played a part in that, myself included. Now, we all share a responsibility to restore a sense of unity in the community. We disagree. We try to convince each other. And then we keep on living and working together.”
But Wang said yesterday that the campaign will continue its efforts, and recall campaigns often face setbacks like this one.
“From what we’ve heard, it can take a couple tries to be properly verified … We’re all still learning,” said Wang, who is acting as a spokesman for the campaign because many of its supporters are trying to stay anonymous.
To start a recall, proponents must prepare a “notice of intention” that has 30 names, signatures and complete mailing addresses of registered voters in the Palo Alto Unified School District.
Dharap has to be served with a copy, and then proponents have seven days to give the notice to the Registrar of Voters, according to a 41-page guide on recalls.
If the notice is accepted, then the campaign has 160 days to get 7,635 signatures to put a recall on the ballot, the guide says.
A group of parents are trying to recall Dharap after 3-2 votes to eliminate Honors Biology and mandate Ethnic Studies didn’t go their way on Jan. 21 and 23.
Different parents have different issues with Dharap, but some of their main claims are that he’s weakened academic rigor and rushed controversial changes.
Dharap has called the recall a distraction and a waste of taxpayer money. He said recalls should be reserved for blatant abuses of power, not philosophical differences.
“If folks want change, I encourage them to run for my seat next year when I term out. Right now, PAUSD is thriving,” he said.
The ethnic studies vote was just the tip of the iceberg. Palo Alto needs to be done with this guy.
No to the recall. This is an unneeded distraction from the core trustee responsibility of serving students. Stop the chaos, stop the crazy, refocus on serving the kids and do the work. Enough already, I’m glad that four of the five board members do not support this recall, which is a waste of time, energy, and PAUSD monetary resources.
Agree that we need a focus on serving students and addressing issues, But Dharap’s leadership had been a major obstruction for that. Just look at the last month+. Nothing got done except for division and hurt. Dharap called an “emergency” special board meeting Jan 23 for a curriculum that was at best not presented well and included very problematic content. This instead of agendizing and discussing issues that are of top concern to the community. When significant issues arose at that meeting (chaos, lop sided representation of actual community voice, a perceived-racist comment by a top administrator that should have been clarified by the leadership very promptly, a lesson plan by teachers that at best shows extremely poor judgement and included grossly inappropriate content) he created a distraction by immediately engaging in a smear campaign against a newbie trustee. The smear campaign hijacked a full next scheduled board meeting Feb 11. There was no time for actual business and no time even for open forum, which means the community could not even be heard. Dharap is divisive, hurtful, and ineffective. His presence has negative value and we can not afford for simply his term to expire. Unless (better late than never) major steps are taken very soon by Dharap to apologize, reconcile and unite the community and allow elected board members to do their work (address the actual issues, redo the ES vote) we really can not afford for him to stay.
This recall insanity MUST stop. Please stop stoking hate and division, Mr. Wang and other recall supporters. Disagreement on issues and votes does NOT warrant wasting taxpayers’ dollars and distracting the PAUSD leadership – including the school board trustees – from doing their jobs. Our kids must be the priority; it is clear we have lost sight of that. Mr. Dharap was elected twice and he represents the views of many in the community. You may disagree with him, but, obviously, there are different views in the community. Please respect, understand and accept that Palo Alto is not of one mind. Listen and try to understand those who differ in opinion. Stop stoking division and let’s figure out how to move forward. This recall is a farce and distraction.
Maybe you should have thought about this when Dharap wasted taxpayers’ money by insisting on an unnecessary motion and undermining our democracy process via a motion that has no procedural basis. Why wasn’t that a waste of taxpayer’s money and distraction?
Time for this board to govern, our teachers to teach and students to learn. Thank you to the 4 board members who oppose this nonsensical recall. Let’s start healing our community, listening and working together from our own lanes. Onward without the chaos and division.
Now that the recall is not currently proceeding, let’s turn our focus to the proper management and functioning of the district. We need the board to publicly show that they do not condone Trustee Chiu’s actions which harmed a district employee. We need them to restore trust with district staff, and assure staff that they will never again be referenced in any board member’s social media posts of any kind. Our community needs to be assured that no board members will retweet or engage with anything resembling racist accounts, such as “Asians Against Wokeness.” Our board trustees hold positions of power and influence, and with that power comes the responsibility to use it wisely and with care.
I hope all board trustees will unite in doing the work of the district, which is managing our schools for the benefit of our children.
I don’t understand your point. The board member who retweeted the social media post has apologized many times already, both as posted on this website and at the subsequent hearing. You bringing this up again goes against the various point you’re trying to make – that we should be moving on. Maybe logic should be a mandatory course as well.
To restore trust, we need to ban comments from racists and others who oppose the good work of our district. City Council needs to pass a law to prohibit those comments, and the law should be enforced by the police. That will bring the community together for the betterment of our children.
Soon as I understand it you’re opposed to the First Amendment. Remember the first amendment is there to protect speach people don’t like or don’t agree with. That is certainly not something I want my child to be taught. I want them to know that they are free to speak even if they have a point of view that is not popular.
I agree. Free speech is fine as long as it doesn’t go too far. We need guardrails for Chiu and Wang. At this point, I’d favor a ban on further comments from them until some neutral third party could determine if they have abused their free speech privileges. If not the police, perhaps a judge could review their future comments. We need to put the children first.
Mr Dharap can and should resign if he doesn’t want to waste tax payer money.