Petition certified to recall school board trustee. Here’s what happens next.

POCATELLO – A group of neighbors have around 50 days to gather well-over 800 signatures to get a vote to recall a school board trustee on the ballot for the next election.

After a group of neighbors submitted 20 required signatures, Bannock County officially certified a petition to recall Pocatello/Chubbuck School Board Trustee Raymond Knoff on Monday. The organizers now have until March 31 to submit at least 853 qualifying signatures in order to give the elections office enough time to put the recall vote on the May ballot.

“To get the ball rolling to create some change, we decided that this (recall effort) would give us the most immediate voice to do so,” said Kim Bernt, an organizer of the petition to recall the trustee.

Bernt is one of around 40 people who will spend the coming weeks canvassing Zone 4, which Knoff represents, for signatures of people who agree with the recall effort. While their official deadline is April 21, the election office staff wouldn’t have enough time to verify all the signatures before they have to put together May’s ballot.

But they wouldn’t have to start over. If the organizers are still gathering signatures in April, the recall vote would go to the next scheduled election in November. The elections office has 15 business days to verify all the gathered signatures.

Assuming all of the organizers sign the recall petition, this leaves them with around 813 signatures left to go, but some of the signatures may not be eligible. This could be if the person signing doesn’t live within Zone 4, or if they provided incorrect information.

This is why the organizers intend on gathering more than the required amount of signatures. Their goal is to gather 1,500 signatures, Bernt said.

“Hopefully we’re going to overshoot,” Bernt said. “Our hopes and intentions are that the school board can create some change during this process.”

This petition follows a decision by the school board to close a nearly century old school, Washington Elementary School, at a January school board meeting, following a recommendation by a committee formed to evaluate district enrollment areas. While two voted against the proposal, Knoff was one of the three trustees to vote in favor.

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On the petition, the organizers listed their reasons for launching the recall effort as follows:

1. Trustee Knoff has refused to do his due diligence as a Trustee of Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25.

He has refused to consider all possible options to avoid the closure of Washington Elementary School including giving citizens a voice through a bond. He has outsourced his governing responsibilities to District Staff.

2. Trustee Knoff has not fostered a cooperative environment and has increased a loss of trust between Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25’s Board of Trustees and its patrons and the taxpayers.

3. Trustee Knoff has willfully acted against the long-term planning of peer taxing entities such as the City of Pocatello causing undue burden to City staff and leaders.

4. Trustee Knoff has willfully acted against the interests of those he was elected to represent.

most egregiously, he has caused undue harm and burden to the most vulnerable learners in his zone, specifically the unhoused children at Aid for Friends who are now made to attend a school four times the distance previously required.

While a number of the neighbors of the Historic University District Neighborhood formed a group called the Washington Elementary Advocates after the committee presented its proposal to the school board, the recall effort was not put forward by it.

“We were extremely disappointed with the school board’s decision… as a committee, we felt like we were at a crossroads,” said Ryan Cameron, a spokesperson for the group.

While some of its members wanted to pursue a recall, the committee ultimately decided the best way forward in continuing to advocate for Washington was to maintain a “collaborative approach with the school district,” Cameron explained.

Bernt is not sure how many of the organizers of the recall effort are also members of the Washington Elementary Advocates, but she herself is not a member. She hopes that the recall effort will persuade the trustees to find ways to address issues that are leading to declining enrollment.

“Our biggest concern right now is that there’s not a comprehensive plan moving forward of actually how they’re going to resolve the problems that they say are occurring in the district,” Bernt said.

EastIdahoNews.com was not able to contact Trustee Raymond Knoff before publishing this article. PCSD 25 was not able to provide comment on the matter.

If the organizers gather at least 853 signatures, then the elections office contacts Knoff, and he has five days to decide whether or not he’ll resign, with the recall vote going on the ballot if he doesn’t. In order to be voted out of office, the votes in favor have to be equal to or exceed the amount of votes he received in his last election. This means that 951 or more votes in favor of his recall would be required.

“If that’s how far it has to go, we’re willing to take it that far,” Bernt said.