School Recall Effort Dies but Board Still Targeted

A threatened recall move against the Newport-Mesa Unified school board has been dropped, but residents will try to keep all the board members from being reelected, a leader in the aborted recall said Tuesday.

A furor over the school board’s swapping of the principals of Corona del Mar High and Newport Harbor High triggered the proposed recall. Preliminary plans for a recall of all seven school board members were announced by Newport Beach businessman Brian Theriot on Jan. 13, the day after the school board approved the controversial swap of the principals of the two archrival schools.

But on Tuesday, Theriot said that a citizens’ committee has decided not to pursue recall, partially because of the expense of a special election to the school district.

“What we’ll do now is make sure all the board members are defeated when they come up for reelection,” Theriot said. The next Newport-Mesa Unified school board election is in November, 1989, when four of the seven seats are up for election.

School board President Jim de Boom said Tuesday that he believes that school district controversies should be debated during regular elections.

“That’s the appropriate time,” he said. “I’ve always said that school board elections are the appropriate time to discuss issues facing the schools.”

De Boom added that he does not feel threatened by Theriot’s pledge to keep the issue of the transferred principals alive. De Boom said he and the other board members still feel that they made the correct decision in unanimously voting to move the two principals.

The dispute erupted in December, when students and parents learned that school district Supt. John Nicoll planned to exchange Newport Harbor High Principal Tom Jacobson and Corona del Mar High Principal Dennis Evans in June. Nicoll said he thought that the move would be good for the schools and the men, although neither principal wanted to move and students at both schools vehemently protested.

Evans has been principal at Corona del Mar for 17 years, and Jacobson has been principal at Newport Harbor for 12. The school district has no set policy on how many years a person may serve as principal at the same school.

Nicoll and the school board said that after so many years at the same school, change would be good for the two men.

But an overflow audience of parents and students urged the school board at its Jan. 12 meeting not to approve the transfer. The board, however, unanimously sustained Nicoll’s request that the principals be reassigned.

Theriot announced plans for a recall action the day after the board’s vote. On Jan. 19, the recall movement appeared to pick up steam after a protest by about 1,000 Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar students. The students left their high schools during class hours to demonstrate in front of school district offices.

A parents-community committee headed by businessman James Warmington subsequently decided to try to negotiate with the school board. Warmington said he hoped to get the board to reconsider its move, but the negotiations were unsuccessful.

“We met with the committee, but the board decided it had no reason to reconsider its action,” De Boom said Tuesday.

Esther Fine, a Newport Harbor High parent, said Tuesday that she is “very disappointed” that the negotiations broke down. Fine also said that she and other parents still wonder “what was the real reason” for the swap of the two principals.

“We still haven’t been given a good reason,” Fine said. “We feel like we still haven’t been told the truth.”