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QuickTake:
After three members of the Springfield Public Schools Board of Education voted to approve midyear teacher layoffs in January, three Springfield residents announced plans to recall them. But two of them dropped their recall efforts, and the third did not get enough signatures to put a recall on the May ballot.
A recall effort against three members of the Springfield school board will not appear on the May 19 ballot.
Organizers dropped their campaigns against two of the board members and did not gather sufficient signatures to put the third member on the ballot.
Devon Lawson, Ky Fireside and Abraham Constantino filed to recall board members Ken Kohl, Heather Quaas-Annsa and Nicole De Graff after they voted to approve midyear teacher layoffs in Springfield schools.
Fireside’s effort to recall Quaas-Annsa, the former chair of the school board, became moot after Quaas-Annsa resigned from the board, citing threats to her family.
After petitioner Lawson applied for Quaas-Annsa’s seat on the board, he dropped his effort to recall Kohl. In his March 9 interview for Quaas-Annsa’s seat, Lawson praised Kohl’s respectful reply to an email Lawson wrote challenging one of Kohl’s positions.
Lawson said Kohl’s way of handling conflict was how disagreement among board members should work. (Lawson did not end up being the board’s pick for Quaas-Annsa’s seat. The board chose Bob Brew instead.)
Constantino, who did not respond to questions from Lookout Eugene-Springfield, continued with his petition to recall De Graff. But Constantino did not collect the 4,826 signatures needed by April 16 to put the recall on the May 19 primary election ballot, Fireside told Lookout.
Fireside, who uses they/them pronouns, said they were specifically focused on recalling Quaas-Annsa because of her role as board chair. They said they were happy that Light was reelected board chair following Quaas-Annsa’s departure.
“He’s got this great wealth of experience and institutional knowledge,” Fireside said.
Light voted against the midyear teacher cuts, along with vice chair Amber Langworthy.
Fireside said their efforts will now be focused on finding a “progressive” candidate to run for De Graff’s seat next year. De Graff’s term expires June 30, 2027, and she has not said whether she plans to run for reelection. De Graff is currently running in the May 19 Republican primary for the District 6 Oregon State Senate seat. When asked about the recall effort, she said it was “all part of the democratic process.”
“My focus remains on doing the work of supporting students, staff and strengthening outcomes in Springfield,” she said.
Fireside is also running in the May primary as a Democrat for the District 7 Oregon House of Representatives seat. They are a political activist and union supporter. Fireside said while they don’t have children and are not an employee of the district, the layoffs still mattered to them as a Springfield resident. The main reason they got involved in the recall efforts was because of their desire to support teachers union members.
“It still affects me for my neighbors to lose their jobs,” Fireside said.
