Two Orange, California school board members were ousted from their positions after a recall election.
Madison Klovstad Miner and Rick Ledesma, the Trustee Area 4 and Trustee Area 7 representatives on the Orange Unified School District Board of Education in California, faced a recall effort on March. According to Ballotpedia, a majority of residents approved the recall, voting in favor of removing them from their positions.
“I just wanted to say a smooth transition of power is part of democracy and while those efforts have been hindered over the last year, I as a board trustee will not contribute to that destruction,” Miner said, according to CBS News.
“It has been an honor to serve this community and I will continue to do as I was prior to this election.”
“I want to thank the OUSD voting community — generation upon generation that voted for me — over 25 years I’ve been on this board, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart,” Ledesma said.
Orange residents questioned the once conservative majority Board after they voted to ban the LGBTQ+ Pride flag and to temporarily suspend books deemed “age inappropriate.”
Furthermore, the Los Angeles Times reported that the “fiercely contested recall election in the Orange Unified School District intensified with the board majority’s approval in the fall of a parent-notification policy requiring educators to inform parents when a student requests ‘to be identified as a gender other than that student’s biological sex or the gender listed on the birth certificate or any other official records.’”
The Orange Unified School District board members last year passed a measure to inform parents when their children identify as transgender.
Smaaladan went on to say, “I think both of those things were in play with our recall. And, having the voters support us really validated what we were feeling as parents.”
Back in February before the recall results, Smaaladan said that “these culture wars are not going to be something that resonates with people here.”
Parental notification policies regarding a student’s gender have been passed in a handful of districts across the state. Several have faced lawsuits and attracted controversy at school board meetings.
Fox News’ Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
The post Conservative California school board members ousted after trans-related parental notification policies appeared first on Fox News.