Union Backs Recall of 2 School Trustees

Teachers, counselors and psychologists who work for the county superintendent of schools office have pledged to support a campaign to recall two members of the Ventura County Board of Education, a union official said Wednesday.

“Teachers don’t like it when someone outside their field tells them what they can and cannot teach,” said Larry Keegan, past president of the Ventura County Federation of School Employees.

“And they don’t appreciate it when board members make it clear that teachers can’t be trusted to make the right decisions.”

Keegan’s local represents 118 teachers, psychologists and counselors of the county schools office. The union decided to poll its members to determine if it should join a recall effort that was launched earlier this month against county school board President Wendy Larner and Trustee Angela N. Miller.

Miller and Larner were targeted after they voted in March to bar presentations by Planned Parenthood and AIDS Care at teacher-training workshops on sex education. The pair said that doctors from the community should be brought in instead to talk about sexually transmitted diseases.

But Keegan said he and other teachers view the March vote as censorship that will affect teachers’ ability to present comprehensive sex-education information to their students. Of the 48 union members polled, 46 agreed to endorse the recall effort, he said.

The union will actively work to unseat Larner and Miller by collecting signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot, he said. The decision to join the recall effort was difficult because Larner and Miller have some oversight over teachers, he said.

“I’d rather not be in the limelight doing this,” he said. “But we felt it was necessary.”

Larner, an Ojai resident, said she is not surprised by the union’s vote.

“I don’t claim to represent teachers’ point of view, because I know they are more than adequately represented by their unions,” Larner said. “I represent all the other people out there who don’t have anyone representing them, like parents.”