An effort to recall three Vista Unified School District trustees has failed to make the November ballot because the small group organizing it didn't turn in the needed signatures by Wednesday's deadline, a county official said.

Without the signatures, there won't be a recall election, said Michael Vu, assistant registrar for the county.

Jill Parvin, a longtime critic of the district's teachers union who is leading the recall effort, didn't respond to phone calls.

When Parvin launched the recall campaign in January, she presented the school board with a list of 10 signatures of other residents who supported the effort.

The group said trustees Angela Chunka, Elizabeth Jaka and Steve Lilly should be removed from the board because, according to the group, they had been fiscally and academically irresponsible.

Over the last several months, Parvin has repeatedly refused to say how many signatures the group had gathered and there has been little evidence of any concerted campaign.

Parvin had said the trio should be ousted because, in her view, they don't represent the parents, students or taxpayers in the community, but the Vista Teachers Association, which spent more than $40,000 to help get them elected in 2008.

The three trustees said the claims are untrue.

"I think our actions have proven that we're working for the district as a whole and that we're looking out for the best interests of kids," Jaka said.

Talk of a recall started last year, after Jaka and Chunka admitted to meeting privately with Trustee Carol Herrera after a contentious board meeting. The three said they were offering each other moral support and not discussing district business. Lilly was not there.

Parvin and her group needed to collect roughly 9,600 signatures to get the recall before voters. The number represents 15 percent of the 64,000 or so voters within the school district's boundaries, which include most of Vista, a portion of eastern Oceanside and some surrounding unincorporated areas.

The last recall of trustees in the district was in 1994, when two conservative trustees were removed from the panel with the support of the teachers union.

Call staff writer Stacy Brandt at 760-901-4009.