GROVELAND, CALIF. — When the school board in this rural community voted to get rid of popular math teacher Ryan Dutton in September, the students at Tioga High School were so upset, the entire school boycotted class the next day. Then they decided to save his job.
What started as a civics class project soon became much more: a campaign to remove all five board members of Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District.
Believing in their teacher, the students organized a petition drive to hold a recall election in this sparsely populated district near Yosemite National Park. With the help of parents, teachers and even their principal, the campaign turned in about 1,200 signatures last week for each board member -- 910 were needed to call a special election. The students expect to learn this week whether the recall qualifies. If so, an election will be held in May.
Dutton, 31, a former professional football player, lost his job over allegations that he cheated in a course he took last spring at Cal State Fresno. The university cleared him and apologized for "any misunderstanding," but the board has refused to reinstate him.
"We didn't like what was happening in our district," said Elise Vallotton, Tioga student body president and president of the newly formed Students for a Better School District. "Many of us stood up at board meetings and explained our point of view. Obviously, they weren't listening. They didn't do anything to try and help us, and that's why we started the recall."
Despite its name, Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District is hardly unified.
With a long history of political infighting and personal rivalries, it has run through seven superintendents in eight years. When Supt. Mari Brabbin was hired last year, one local businessman greeted her, "Welcome to the Gaza Strip."
The recall campaign has brought that bitterness and hostility into the open.
"It's become a dialogue of the deaf," Brabbin said.
Brabbin, who placed Dutton on leave, is also a target. Parents dug up complaints from her previous job. And a preliminary report from the association that accredits schools found that Tioga's "program this year has been totally disrupted because of the decisions of the superintendent and the school board."
The schism in the district was apparent at a tumultuous meeting of the school board in December. Hundreds of people crowded into the Tenaya Elementary School cafeteria to support the students seeking Dutton's return.
