School district votes out board members who banned Pride flags in schools

Two school board members voted to ban flags that were not the U.S. flag or the California state flag after the superintendent and principal of a school flew a Pride flag. This week, both of those board members were voted out.

Ryan Jergensen and Linda Hurley, members of the Sunol Glen Unified School District, lost in a recall election after passing a policy last year that forbade the display of all other flags in district schools.

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Molleen Barnes, the superintendent and principal of the K-8 Sunol Glen School, decided to fly the Progress Pride flag on the campus of Sunol Glen, just under an hour’s drive south of San Francisco. The rainbow flag includes additional chyrons representing queer people of color and transgender people.

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Shortly after flying the flag, Jergensen and Hurley approved the policy banning Pride flags. A third school board member, Ted Romo, said his fellow members were engaging in “censorship” and voted against the policy. Romo, unlike Jeregensen and Hurley, kept his seat.

Jergensen and Hurley each lost their recall by less than 40 votes, with 254 to 218 voting against Jergensen and 249 to 223 against Hurley. Chris Bobertz ran against Hurley for her seat several years back, losing by only 26 votes. Bobertz is a member of the pro-recall group United for Sunol Glen, and helped with the campaign. While he’s happy about the outcome, he wishes it had been by a wider margin.

“[It is] not like the definitive outcome that I guess we were looking forward to, but we are hopeful. Above all we’re looking forward to getting past this and moving to a more boring way of life, the way that things were before all this,” Bobertz said.

Once the recall votes are certified, the Alameda County Board of Education will appoint temporary replacements for the open seats until a new election can be held.

Matt Sylvester led the recall campaign. Sylvester told the San Francisco Chronicle, “They pulled a fast one on us with the flag ban resolution. It was sneaky behavior, and then they pushed it through without listening to people. There’s been no compromise. This recall is about making a point that we will not stand for this.”

The recall of school board members voting against LGBTQ+ expression and rights has become common.

In March, California voters ousted two school board members in Orange County who supported a policy that forced educators and counselors to out trans students to their parents. In Florida, a group of queer teens was able to get two anti-LGBTQ+ “lunatics” off of their school board, one of whom once called the police to investigate school libraries for offering LGBTQ+-themed books.

In April elections in Oklahoma and Missouri, anti-gay school board candidates lost their elections as well.

Sylvester feels strongly about the upcoming election, saying, “As long as the people who have supported us go out and vote, statistically speaking, we should be sound.”

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