2 Bay Area School Board Members Recalled

SUNOL, CA — Sunol residents narrowly voted to recall two Sunol Glen Unified School District board trustees in a special election July 2, following a year of bitter controversy. According to results certified last Wednesday by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Office, 52.07 percent of Sunol residents voted to recall School Board President Ryan Jergensen, while 51.5% of residents voted to recall Trustee Linda Hurley.

In an election with just over 500 voters, the difference narrowed down to just over a dozen votes for each: 277 people voted to recall Jergensen, while 255 voted for him to stay. 274 residents voted to recall Hurley, while 258 voted for her to stay.

The next two trustees will be appointed by the Alameda County Board of Education, and will serve until new trustees are elected in November.

The recall effort began in September, when Jergensen and Hurley approved a controversial resolution to ban flags other than the American or California state flag from flying outside the district’s lone school, which many interpreted as a direct attack on the LGBTQ+ community. A group of parents, teachers, former board trustees, and other community members formed a group called United for Sunol Glen, which eventually gathered enough signatures for a special recall election.

In addition to the flag resolution, critics of the trustees also took issue with what they felt were poorly conducted meetings, and the accumulation of over $100,000 in legal fees in just a year, according to a report in Pleasanton Weekly. One meeting in September grew so unruly that sheriff’s deputies had to usher participants out.

84 percent of Sunol teachers and support staff adopted separate votes of no confidence in October. “The actions of Linda Hurley and Ryan Jergensen have created an extremely challenging work environment,” a resolution from the Sunol Federation of Teachers reads. “Their brief tenure has brought distrust, uncertainty and fear to both The Sunol Glen School and the surrounding community.”

“The United for Sunol Glen team, teachers, and staff have been calling on the voters of Sunol to remove Trustees Jergensen and Hurley since the recall effort began nearly 11 months ago,” the organization said in a news release following the vote certification. “These pleas to the community of Sunol were made following the trustees’ numerous acts of bad governance, disrespect of teachers and staff, shutting down of civil discourse, disregard for the financial health of the district, and careless neglect of the welfare of all students in service to their own personal agendas.”

Linda Hurley told Patch she has been "so maligned by certain members of my community that it has made it difficult to move forward." Hurley said that she has received death threats, and many other threats. In a speech at a March school board meeting, Hurley said that the flag resolution was not about the LGBTQIA+ community, but rather about the "legal safety of our school."

"After reading the 49-page Shurtleff v. Boston decision and trying to reach out to several legal firms, I was able to speak to a semi-retired school attorney who told me Mr. Stevens, our attorney, had drafted a legally sound resolution and that for our small school, it was the wisest path to take because we are vulnerable due to the size of our school," she said.

In the speech, Hurley also denied that she created a hostile work environment. She also refuted the allegations that she and Jergensen unduly shut down the September meeting, claiming that an outside group was creating a "volatile situation," and ignored Jergensen's warnings that if anything caused him to bang his gavel one more time, he would end the meeting.

Ryan Jergensen did not respond to Patch’s request for comment, but in a recall rebuttal statement, he said he would not “let the bullies win.”

“Our small town has been through a lot over its 152-year history, but we have always persevered because we have always been united as Sunolians. ... Therefore, it is disappointing to see a very small number of activists — many from outside our community — continue to try to divide us in order to politicize our small school. Our students and staff deserve better than this,” he said.