Parents petition to recall three Pocatello/Chubbuck school board members

POCATELLO — Three local parents have filed a petition with the Bannock County Elections Office to recall several members of the Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25’s Board of Trustees.

The parents filed the petition with the Bannock County Elections Office Friday after the board made the decision to continue with a hybrid learning model in its schools due to COVID-19. The decision means that for the remainder of the trimester, middle and high school students will continue with a schedule that includes online and in-person learning.

The board members the parents are seeking to recall are Jackie Cranor, Janie Gebhardt and Dave Mattson, according to the Idaho State Journal. Those board members were chosen because it will take fewer signatures to recall them based on the population of the zones they represent, the parents told the newspaper.

Jesse Ward is one of the parents who signed initiated the petition.

“We just want a full time option,” Jesse Ward says. “We don’t want to take away what [other parents are] comfortable with. We fully support them and what they feel is best for their children. Just as much as we’re pressing for this full-time option, if we have a group of parents that comes and they want to continue with those other options, we’re in support of that.”

Besides the frustrations with the learning model, the parents also told the newspaper that the board is unable to fully represent “its electorate on on a number of issues, including the 2018 school boundary issue and the board’s recent decision to retire the Pocatello High School Indians mascot.”

RELATED: Pocatello-Chubbuck schools will drop Indians mascot in June

The deadline to add ballot questions, such as a recall, to the Nov. 3 presidential election has already passed. The May 2021 primary is the soonest the recall could appear on the ballot.