Notices of intent to recall three members of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District Board of Education have been received by the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder Office, which has confirmed that at least 20% of voters will need to sign the petition in order to initiate a special recall election.

Launched by a group of San Ramon Valley parents over the district's decision to postpone the restart in-person learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic, applicants are seeking to recall Board President Susanna Ordway, Board Member Rachel Hurd and Board Member Ken Mintz.

In order to force a special election asking voters if these board members should be recalled, Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder Debi Cooper said petitioners will need to acquire at least 20% of signatures from registered voters in each of the board member's home districts.

Mintz's Trustee Area 1 for example has 23,907 registered voters, according to Cooper, so petitioners would need to receive signatures from at least 4,782 residents for a special recall election to be called in that district.

SRVUSD's Trustee Area 4 would require at least 3,886 of the area's 19,427 registered voters to sign on in order to call a vote to recall Ordway -- that district's representative.

Over in Trustee Area 5, petitioners seeking to recall Hurd will need 4,380 signatures from the area's 21,897 registered voters in order to force a special election.

It should also be noted that the aforementioned figures could change slightly depending on when the recall petition is filed, according to Cooper, who said that updated figures will be made available after the district's next registration report in February.

"We are using the registration figures from the last report to the Secretary of State in late October -- used for the November election. Once we do our next registration report (February), the numbers below will change based on the registration changes since the last report date. It should not change them much, but they will probably all go up slightly based on new and changes in registrations," she said.

Proponents must file two blank copies of the proposed petition with county elections officials before they can officially begin circulating the petition, afterward a timer starts on the amount of days proponents have to find the minimum number of signatures.

According to local office recall procedures from the California Secretary of State's Office, petitioners will have 90 days to receive the minimum number of signatures needed.

The recall backers said they could not include new board members Laura Bratt and Shelley Clark in their petition effort because state law prevents recalling officials within 90 days of taking office. Bratt and Clark won election on the Nov. 3 ballot and took their seats last month.