Families demand reinstatement of 2 East Sacramento teachers, threaten recall vote
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- Parents and students demanded that two Phoebe Hearst Elementary teachers be reinstated.
- These parents and student voiced their frustration to the district’s school board.
- The parents group handed the school board president a notice to recall him from office.
Parents and students angry over the removal of two sixth-grade teachers from Phoebe Hearst Elementary School in East Sacramento voiced their frustration Thursday evening at the Sacramento City Unified School District board meeting.
They demanded that the school district reinstate longtime Phoebe Hearst teachers Jeanine Rupert and Mark Henrikson after they were each reprimanded by district administrators.
Rupert was reassigned to another school after she removed a piece of carpet following a flea infestation in her classroom on the last day of the 2024-25 school year. Henrikson, a fellow sixth-grade Gifted and Talented Education teacher, was placed on administrative leave after rallying at school board meetings and public demonstrations to bring Rupert back to the 60th Street campus.
Chea Kim, a former Phoebe Hearst student now attending Miwok Middle School, was among several attendees who spoke in support of the teachers during the meeting’s public comment period.
“Why would you ever take away one of the great pillars of Phoebe Hearst,” Kim said about Rupert, his former sixth-grade teacher. “I can’t understand why you would remove Ms. Rupert over something petty such as removing carpets. She treats us all like family.”
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On Monday, nearly 250 Phoebe Hearst students stayed home from class to protest the teachers’ removal. Many of those students marched alongside their parents that day outside the campus.
Caitlin Beckett, whose four kids attend or have attended Phoebe Hearst, said she and other parents have sent a letter to Lisa Allen, the district’s superintendent, to request a town hall to discuss the teachers’ removal from campus. But she said district officials have refused to meet with them.
“It has been nine weeks of chaos, nine weeks of parents asking, begging for meetings with the board and district,” Beckett told the school board Thursday. “Not only have you denied our request to our teachers to be reinstated, this board and this district have absolutely refused to even meet with parents and students you are supposed to represent.”
Beckett said the parents have been told the school board’s role is leadership and oversight, but there’s nothing board members can do since this is a personnel matter. She told Board President Jasjit Singh, the trustee for East Sacramento and portions of midtown and Tahoe Park, that he had “failed” as a representative for the Phoebe Hearst students and parents.
“When parents cried out for help and asked you just for that, you turned your back and ignored us,” Beckett told Singh. “We were initially shocked and upset, but now we’re just angry.”
Beckett finished her three-minute public comment and handed Singh a written formal notice of intention to circulate a recall petition for Singh, who was elected as the 2nd Area trustee in 2022 by 1,299 votes over one-term incumbent Leticia Garcia.
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Singh did not address the recall threat during Thursday’s board meeting — he proceeded with the scheduled agenda — and was not immediately available for comment. SCUSD officials have not commented on the calls to reinstate the two teachers, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.
A few dozen people sitting in the audience stood up and applauded when Beckett handed Singh the recall notice. To initiate the school board recall process, the parents gathered the required 30 signatures.
Singh has seven days to formally respond to the notice, but he’s not obligated to do so, the parents said. Once the Sacramento County Elections Office approves the parents group’s recall petition, they would be required to gather about 6,000 signatures — 20% of the roughly 31,000 registered voters in the 2nd Area — to place a recall vote on the ballot.
Leia Wallace, a single mom with two children, said Phoebe Hearst teachers embraced her family on campus. She said Rupert was a great teacher to her daughter, offering her emotional support when the teacher knew something was wrong.
“They know our kids,” Wallace told the school board about the Phoebe Hearst teachers. “This is unjust. We’re teaching our kids to stand up.”
The Bee’s Jennah Pendleton contributed to this story.
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This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 10:07 PM.
