The state Supreme Court says an effort to recall two Marysville School Board members can continue. That doesn’t mean it should.
Board members Helen Mount and Ron Young, the targets of the recall, plan to step down when their terms expire next year. Even if recall backers can get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot this spring, the most they’ll gain is getting Mount and Young out of office a few months early.
The bitter feelings that prompted the recall have begun to subside for most citizens. New Superintendent Larry Nyland is steering the district forward, taking on important challenges like old, overcrowded facilities and future employee contracts – not to mention the higher student-achievement standards all districts must meet.
Discussions are underway about the size and scope of a bond issue that could be put before voters in the spring. An active recall campaign and the divisiveness it could generate would endanger that effort – how many voters are likely to approve a tax increase when they perceive the district as dysfunctional?
The effort to recall Mount and Young started about a year ago, but was held back by legal challenges. In the meantime, most of the district has moved on. The emotions stirred by last year’s 49-day teacher strike, the controversy surrounding former Superintendent Linda Whitehead and the rejection by voters of three school board incumbents shouldn’t be encouraged to resurface.
Besides being a distraction from more important matters, a recall, if it makes it to the ballot, would take money from a district that needs every dollar it has. Depending on how many other issues appear on the ballot, the recall could cost the district more than $50,000. That’s about how much was budgeted for election costs this year, and that money was earmarked for a bond measure.
Recall supporters have said Mount and Young could put an end to all of this by resigning. That’s hardly fair. On the sole accusation upheld by the courts as grounds for a recall, they relied on the advice of the district’s attorney. Both have served the district in good faith, and shouldn’t be compelled to leave when they believe they have done nothing wrong.
The Marysville School District needs to look forward, not backward. Education is about the future, not the past. Those behind the recall effort would best serve the district and its children by closing this chapter and helping to write a new, more cooperative one.
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