Information via Reform California
WHAT: With anger building across California among parents and citizens alike as the state approaches the one year anniversary of schools being closed, a controversial school board member who recently was caught on tape making racially divisive comments as she cast her vote to keep her district’s schools closed will now face a Recall petition seeking her removal from office.
A group of outraged parents and concerned citizens will formally announce a recall campaign against La Mesa-Spring Valley School District Board Member Charda Bell-Fontenot. Among the charges being made in the recall petition will be that Bell-Fontenot has irreparably hurt children by keeping schools closed, has callously disregarded parental input, and has created a hostile work environment with her recent offensive comments at a board meeting.
On February 23, the District Board met virtually using zoom video. When the issue of reopening schools came up, Bell-Fontenot became agitated, attacked fellow board members and staff, and declared that asking teachers to return to work in classrooms “seems like a very white supremacist ideology to force people to comply with…you know…to conform…just letting you know…I don’t want to be part of forcing anybody to do anything they don’t want to do – that’s what slavery is.”
The video with these offensive remarks is posted online at www.SchoolBoardRecall.org.
The recall is being launched with the backing of Reform California – the same organization that backed that last successful recall of a state office holder in California and is also currently backing the Recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
WHY: “When school board members won’t follow the science and won’t listen to the cries from parents and children who want to go back to school, it is time to rise up and start recalling those same negligent school board members from office.
Charda Bell-Fontenot not only voted to continue to inflict harm on our children by keeping La-Mesa Spring Valley Schools closed, but her use of false, reckless and racially-divisive smears to attack those that support school reopening has created a hostile work environment. For all these reasons we’re eager to make Board Member Bell-Fontenot the first California school board member to be recalled over the issue of closed schools. If California politicians don’t reopen our schools soon, I predict she won’t be the last.” — Carl DeMaio, Chairman of Reform California
