VISTA -- Most of the teachers at Maryland Elementary School have banded together to try to oust their boss, Principal Acacia Thede, with many asking to leave the school if Thede doesn't.

However, the president of the campus Parent-Teachers Association said Thede isn't the problem at Maryland, the teachers are.

As many as 20 of the 24 teachers at the Vista Unified School District campus have put in requests over the last several weeks asking to be transferred to another school, said Jan O'Reilly, president of the Vista Teachers Association.

It's unclear whether any of those requests will be granted. To obtain a transfer, a teacher must essentially apply for an opening at another school and the principal at that campus must get the OK from the district office.

Employees at Maryland have complained that Thede is authoritarian and inexperienced, and have said morale at the school is low.

"It's not a positive working environment," said Letha McWey, a cafeteria manager at the campus and a former school board member. "It's a stressful environment."

However, Jane Gomez, president of the school's parent-teacher association, said she thinks Thede is a great principal who has the support of most parents.

"She does an awesome job," Gomez said. She said teachers may not like Thede because she is holding them more accountable than former principal Hector Menchaca did. Several of the teachers had followed Menchaca when he left Olive Elementary to open Maryland in 2006.

The newer school is in an older neighborhood in northwestern Vista. Roughly 90 percent of its students are poor Latinos and 77 percent are learning to speak English. The school has the lowest test scores of any elementary school in the district.

Thede is on maternity leave until the end of the school year. She didn't respond last week to a call or e-mail. Karen Burke, the district's director of educational services, is overseeing the school while she's gone.

Gomez said Maryland teachers don't seem motivated in their work. That has convinced her to transfer her first-grader to another school when the semester is over, Gomez said.

"I am leaving due to the fact that the teachers, I think, are the problem," she said. "They just want to do the bare minimum."

O'Reilly said problems at Maryland started last year, when Thede shifted more than half of the teachers at the school to a different grade level. Things have gotten worse since then, she added.

"You just don't do those kinds of things," O'Reilly said.

In March, all but one teacher at the school took a vote of no confidence in Thede after a survey showed teachers there were unhappy with the direction the school was heading. Several teachers declined to speak to the North County Times on the record last week.

Some said they've asked district administrators and the school board for help, but haven't gotten any yet.

"I'm disappointed that the district doesn't seem to do anything," McWey said.

The teachers aren't necessarily asking that Thede be fired, but have said they don't think she's a good fit for Maryland.

Board President Carol Herrera said it's not the board's job to micro-manage and tell district administrators how to do their jobs.

"We make recommendations, but we make recommendations that are generic in terms of how the district is to run, what we value and what are our goals," she said.

Still, Herrera said in her six years on the board, she has never seen this many teachers asking to leave a school.

Trustee Jim Gibson said he couldn't comment on specifics of the situation, but added: "Where in life do you get to choose your boss?"

Thede is among several new principals the district hired in the last two years to replace long-time administrators who either quit or retired

In 2007, eight of the district's 29 principals left. At the time, many speculated the string of departures was because of the management style of Superintendent Joyce Bales, who took over the district in 2006. Many of the changes Bales brought to Vista Unified upset teachers and union officials.

Recently, two of those newer principals -- John Albert at Washington Middle School and Elizabeth Gosnell at Hannalei Elementary School -- announced their resignation. Neither would comment about what caused them to leave.

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