MILWAUKEE — Leaders with the MPS School Board Recall Collaborative said they are on par to gather the signatures needed to recall four Milwaukee Public Schools board members.
Saturday, they held a drop-in event to get new volunteers canvassing the city up to speed on their efforts. Following MPS’ major budgeting shortfalls and delays in financial reporting, group leader Dr. Tamika Johnson said the collective’s goal is a board overhaul.
“If it were up to us, we would swipe every last one,” Johnson said. “Except for about two of them on the board.”
“Nobody on the board said 'hey where’s this money for the northside schools,’ that have broken windows and no air conditioning,” she added. “They’re not learning how to read, their math scores are really—nobody was making a fuss about that but yet the funding was missing.”
She said the overhaul starts with getting Member at Large Missy Zombor, President Marva Herndon, Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi, and Erika Siemsen out of office.
The four are school board members the collective is both at odds with and are currently eligible for recall. It’s a move that would require the collective to secure more than 63,000 signatures by August 13th.
“It’s not daunting at all because the community wants this,” Johnson said. “We’ve been very successful so far and we have more people volunteering to get the job done because they too want a change.”
Though she wouldn’t give an exact total, Johnson said the group was very close to reaching the number of signatures needed city-wide. She said they’re now focusing their efforts on the individual districts.
According to the Milwaukee Election Committee, to trigger a recall Herndon requires 5,137 signatures from residents in District 1. The group will need 6,809 signatures from District 2 to recall Siemsen and 7,759 signatures from District 5 for Gokalgandhi.
Zombor, as the Member at Large, requires 44,177 signatures from residents citywide for a recall.
Should they succeed group leader Chantia Davis said they’ve got a few people in mind to fill those four spots but they’re being tight-lipped about that too.
“We don’t just want to put anybody in office,” Davis said. “We really need people that’s going to help reorganize and restructure MPS.”
TMJ4’s Tahleel Mohieldin asked Johnson if she would put in a bid of her own to get on the board. Her response was “maybe”.
TMJ4 has reached out to board members about ongoing recall efforts but did not immediately hear back.
In mid-June, TMJ4’s Meghan Lee went to several board members' homes. No one answered. However, she did run into Siemsen outside. Lee asked how she felt about the recall effort.
"I understand the community's frustration over the situation and their concern, and I welcome that," Siemsen said. "It's a democratic process and if people want to attempt to recall that's perfectly understandable.
Saturday, collective members also shared plans to push the school board to prioritize community feedback when selecting a new interim superintendent.
Former superintendent Keith Posley resigned from the position following community pressure highlighting what many called a lack of transparency and mismanagement of funds within MPS under his leadership.
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