Parents demand principals in Salinas and Greenfield schools be reinstated.

In recent weeks, parents of students in Greenfield Union and Alisal Union school districts have shown their discontent with staff changes. Both Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Greenfield and Frank Paul Elementary School in Salinas will have new principals in the upcoming school year.

Parents and community members have mobilized, packing school district meetings and showing support for Emanuel Mercado and Miguel Porras, the outgoing principals from Greenfield and Alisal, respectively.

People who spoke in support of Mercado included his family members. Some alleged that Mercado leaving the district was a forced resignation and retaliatory since he also applied for the superintendent position in 2025, something GUSD officials say they cannot confirm. “Any allegation regarding retaliation is false,” Superintendent Laura Cortez writes by email.

Others spoke on Thursday, May 14 highlighting Mercado’s commitment to students and parents.

“He’s the only principal that really does continue to have that open-door policy that’s honest with the parents, that is always there,” says Yanely Martinez, a former Greenfield City Council member whose daughter Africa Torres attends Cesar Chavez.

He resigned and accepted a position at another school district, GUSD officials say. As Mercado wrote in a letter that GUSD officials shared on May 19, “I resigned from my position on my own accord.”

That other district is Alisal Union, where Mercado will become the new principal at Frank Paul Elementary, where parents have objected to the AUSD board’s decision to remove Porras, the outgoing principal who has been there for 11 years.

For over a month parents have protested, asking to keep Porras. “He has been a great leader throughout all these years we have spent with him, and we are trying to negotiate to have that situation revoked,” Maribel Clemente, a parent, says in Spanish.

Lorena Mendoza is part of a group that met with AUSD Superintendent Monica Anzo and has reached out to members of the board. Mendoza says the group now has an effort underway to recall Area 1 trustee, Beatriz Perez.

“The concerns raised involve a confidential personnel matter, which I am legally and ethically required to keep private,” Perez writes by email. “While I respect different views, I disagree with these efforts to bring an expensive special recall election.”

While many parents have become more involved in decision-making processes at K-12 schools, the superintendent and the board are still the ones who make staffing decisions including hiring, terminating or reassigning positions. As Cortez notes, “Parents, as non-employees of the district, are not directly included or involved in personnel decisions.”