The people trying to recall the entire school board in the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District have dropped their campaign, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Bruce Porter of Reformation of Santa Ynez High (RoSY) said the group has decided not to file its recall petitions with the county because they’ve already achieve most of their goals.

“It was a calculation of expended energy versus reward,” he said. “ A lot of work had gotten us to this point.”

RoSY missed a July 15 deadline to qualify their recall petitions for the Nov. 4 general election, and Wednesday was their deadline to force a special election at a later date.

Porter said the group had accomplished “95 percent” of its goals and the question was whether moving forward was worth six more months of work and money to get to 100 percent.

“We will get to that 100 percent point,” he said. “It’s just going to take a little bit longer.”

RoSY sought the reinstatement of Norm Clevenger as SYVUHS principal, the replacement of all members of the school board, and the transformation of the administrative culture of the district and high school.

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Clevenger has now taken a new job in Santa Barbara, and the committee believes it can change the school board gradually by encouraging others to run for a seat.

Clevenger was put on paid administrative leave by then-district Supt. Fred Van Leuven on Feb. 14 and a few days later the board unanimously declined to renew his contract for the 2008-09 school year. The actions drew a heated reaction from many members of the public and the school’s faculty association. The lack of a public explanation for the popular principal’s departure has been a point of contention between school officials and the recall proponents.

One of the recall group’s first and most public acts was handing recall notices to all five board members — president Joe Dugan, clerk Holly Lindberg, Jeffrey Little, Sharon Steele and Jack Mochnick — on March 11 immediately after the announcement that the board had taken no action in closed session regarding a request for Clevenger’s reinstatement.

Clevenger has since been hired as principal of San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.

Van Leuven retired in June and Suzanne Nicastro has been hired as SYVUHS principal.

Reached by e-mail Wednesday, Clevenger wrote that he hopes those who signed the recall petitions will agree with RoSY’s decision and that the board will change their ways.

“They should aspire to be a board of responsibility and accessibility to their constituents as well as members of the faculty and staff. Such changes should help to restore confidence in the school board of an extremely successful high school and district,” he wrote.

Dugan, the board president, declined to comment Wednesday on RoSY’s announcement because he hadn’t read it.

The group had to collect signatures from at least 2,406 of the 12,026 registered voters within the district to qualify the recall election. Because all five members were being recalled, five separate petitions were being circulated. Porter said more than 14,000 signatures have been collected since April.

In June, the county estimated a cost to the district of up to $190,000 for a special stand-alone election. The estimate was $10,000 if the recall had been part of the November election.

With enough signatures gathered for the recall and Clevenger taking the new job at San Marcos, Porter said, the debate within the group was about what course of action to take.

He said the group will now focus on two board openings in the November election.

“We certainly hope two new people get voted onto the board who agree the Clevenger affair was bungled and the board needs to be more accountable to the people and under more scrutiny,” he said.

Two candidates have qualified for the ballot — newcomer Jourdi De Werd and Steele, one of two incumbents. Dugan, the other incumbent, has said he will not seek re-election.

Newcomer Mark Ream has pulled papers but had yet to turn in the paperwork to the county as of Wednesday.

Potential candidates have until Wednesday to turn in their nominating papers.

Although the recall will not be moving forward, Porter said the effort was “absolutely worth it.”

“It wasn’t always fun,” he said, but “a whole lot of good came out and it and a whole lot of good will continue to come out of it.”

Julian J. Ramos can be reached at 739-2219 or at jramos@santamariatimes.com.

August 7, 2008