Parents of some students in New Hampshire’s School Administrative Unit 16 (SAU 16) are asking to replace Superintendent Dr. David Ryan and some school board members for multiple reasons. They include keeping the district’s schools closed after other schools around the state re-opened (related to COVID-19), not giving choice to parents on face masks for their children, the use of mental health assessments without parental knowledge or consent, and “the branding and tracking of students at prom.” SAU 16 serves Exeter, Brentwood, Kensington, East Kingston, Newfields and Stratham, N.H.

“We want a leader who unifies and seeks to serve all of the families in SAU 16. We’ve lost confidence in your ability to lead this district to the high expectations our children deserve,” the petition reads.

Currently, the petition with its 459 signatures is almost halfway to its needed 1,000.

Exeter High School hosted its senior prom earlier this month and marked any student who didn’t have a vaccination card with a black sharpie. Those students who had been vaccinated were given a red mark.

During the school dance, students were requested to raise their hand every few songs for contract tracing purposes by event organizers and other underclass students.

The way prom protocols were conducted led Republican State Rep. Melissa Litchfield to post to her Facebook page asking for more information regarding the events that took place. She also noted that school officials had no business asking for vaccine cards and mentioned one quote from a dismayed parent, who compared the situation to “Nazi Germany.” The parent wrote, “…I find it absolutely unbelievable…Marking them, thus singling them out, and then having to raise their hands is beyond tolerable.” Litchfield herself has been an outspoken voice concerning vaccine privacy.

While the school said it didn’t know of any COVID-19 cases linked to the prom, it also said that just one of the event’s organizers possessed a list of prom attendees, which had numbers corresponding to student names. That information has been kept private.

Newsweek reached out to the principal and vice-principals at Exeter High School but did not receive a response before publication.

However, a brief updated statement attributed to SAU 16 Superintendent Ryan on June 14, via Matt Cookson, president and CEO of Cookson Communications, noted an internal audit was ongoing.

“All prom planning, like other school-specific events, is done at the school level. We announced plans to conduct an internal audit last Friday and then turned our attention to Saturday’s graduation ceremony. The audit will be conducted by the SAU 16 Director of Safety and Security, Rich Kane, and Assistant Director of Student Services, Ellen Riiska. The specifics around the audit are still being defined, but it is a high priority for the coming weeks,” the statement said.

The statement came after Exeter High School principal Mike Monahan told NBC Boston that “students and parent feedback has been extremely positive regarding the prom experience.”

“We are aware that some concerns have been expressed that students were singled out or had their privacy violated. We made every effort possible—while adhering to contact tracing guidelines—to ensure that this did not happen,” Monahan told the outlet in a statement. “We hope the community will understand that while no model is perfect, this model lets the students enjoy a close to normal and highly-desired experience to cap off their senior year. That’s the memory we want to leave them with.”

But Litchfield noted in her Facebook post that the list of student names recorded during the prom with information regarding their vaccination status was carelessly left on a table outside after the dance for all to see.

“Regardless of what this district has to say, they wanted to see the students’ vaccines cards, but also had a typed spreadsheet with names on it to mark if vaccinated…this list was left out overnight under the tent at the school where parents came across it,” she said. Litchfield noted that teachers in both the district’s middle and high school had been asking students in general if they had been vaccinated and if they were planning to.

She told Newsweek the incident that’s drawn a lot of publicity is just one in a series of missteps by the school district, which are noted in the petition. She also mentioned the recent bullying of a middle school student after a teacher complained about being offended by the “back the police” line that the youngster was wearing. That’s while other students wore American flags and those symbolizing Pride month. The incident led to the student being sent to the principal’s office.

In a school board meeting on Monday night—the first of which to take place in months—the boy’s mother spoke up about the incident. Approximately 150 parents showed up to the meeting where they expected to be able to address the recent prom incident; another school board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday night to address the issue.

As of publishing, the school district did not respond to Newsweek’s request for comment regarding the petition asking for the resignation of Ryan and other school board members.

The petition itself also mentions the unlawful surveillance of students and a possible conflict of interest with one SAU 16 board member who voted against students returning to class in person.

“It’s just one thing after another,” said Litchfield.