Parents petition to recall Fargo School Board Members

The four school board members listed in the petition include; Jim Johnson, Dr. Tracie Newman, Seth Holden and Nikkie Gullickson.

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — Some Fargo Public School parents have created a petition to recall four School Board members.

“Myself and a group of parents have gotten together to start a campaign to recall the Fargo School board. There’s four that are eligible to be recalled at this time; the other five are up for reelection in less than a year so they are not eligible” parent and petitioner Allie Ollenburger said.

Those listed in the petition include; Jim Johnson, Dr. Tracie Newman, Seth Holden and Nikkie Gullickson.

Allie Ollenburger is one of a few concerned parents behind the petition says the recall is due to the school board keeping parents in the dark when it comes to decision making.

“The decisions that were made by administration and upheld by the school board, the authority that was given from the school board to the administration, the lack of accountability and just overall these massive decisions that were made on behalf of our kids and there was no input from parents and there was no input from teachers,” said Ollenburger.

Ollenburger says her and the concerned parents want transparency and involvement.

“There has been zero transparency and zero conversations with the people that matter the most and that is the parents of these kids. We need better, we need somebody on this school board that is going to engage with the community, that is going to talk to parents, that is going to listen to their concerns, that’s actually going to make decisions that benefit our teachers,” Ollenburger said.

The official campaign to receive petition signatures begins June 8th.

“There’s four separate petitions. There are for each one of the school board members, they are completely separate from each other. So, if you want to sign for Jim Johnson, you sign for Jim Johnson and you do not have to sign for the other three. So basically it’s a campaign to recall each one individually lumped into one,” said Ollenburger.

The total number of signatures required per School Board member is 4,144.

“Once we obtain those signatures then we will submit them for signature validation and then a special election will be called for 90 days post that call date,” Ollenburger said.

KVRR has reached out to all four of the board members in the petition, only Nikkie Gullickson has responded saying “no comment.”