FARGO, N.D.—When pediatrician Tracie Newman ran for school board here last year, so many residents were eager for her expert help guiding students through the pandemic that there was a waiting list for her campaign lawn signs.

Now, some of those same parents are backing a recall campaign to get her off the board. They say her recommendation that children wear masks this fall oversteps their right as parents to determine what is best for kids’ health and education. They have gathered thousands of signatures to remove her from...

FARGO, N.D.—When pediatrician Tracie Newman ran for school board here last year, so many residents were eager for her expert help guiding students through the pandemic that there was a waiting list for her campaign lawn signs.

Now, some of those same parents are backing a recall campaign to get her off the board. They say her recommendation that children wear masks this fall oversteps their right as parents to determine what is best for kids’ health and education. They have gathered thousands of signatures to remove her from the board, organized protests and questioned Dr. Newman’s integrity at school-board meetings.

“People are questioning my motives and my ability as a pediatrician,” said Dr. Newman, a mother of three who wears many hats in the community, including serving as the county’s public-health officer. “That’s never happened to me in my professional life.”

The effort to oust Dr. Newman is one of more than 60 recall efforts of board members this year in school districts across the country, according to election-data website Ballotpedia. That is the most in the 15 years Ballotpedia has kept track. Some 60% mention Covid-19 restrictions as a motivation to unseat board members.

The Fargo, N.D., school board in August mandated face masks for students and staff so that classrooms could reopen safely this year.

The efforts reflect frustration and distrust of public officials that have intensified in parts of the country during the pandemic. More than a year into the health crisis, some of the parents working to recall Dr. Newman and three other members of Fargo’s school board say they are motivated partly out of frustration with what they see as confused and ham-handed official handling of Covid-19.

“We’re not trying to take anyone’s rights away,” said Cassie Schmidt, a parent of three, the oldest of whom is in kindergarten. “We’re trying to retain the rights that we hold as parents.”

A few months ago, Dr. Newman received a Hero Award from Sanford Health, the regional hospital system where she works, for her dedication and leadership in getting children safely back in school. The local YWCA nominated her to be Woman of the Year.

Now she’s entering school-board meetings through a back door to avoid angry parents. People sent photos of her unmasked at a gala event to the local paper, saying they were evidence of her hypocrisy.

She said people have left her threatening voice mails, accused her of taking kickbacks from mask manufacturers and threatened to derail her career. In a city of 120,000, she feels constantly watched.

“That lack of anonymity, I’m aware of it all the time,” said Dr. Newman, whose three children attend Fargo schools.

Parents in Fargo, N.D., who oppose school mask mandates are pushing for a special election to recall Dr. Newman and several other board members.

Some parents behind the recall say their campaign is the culmination of a frustrated journey to be heard.

Allie Ollenburger, a software executive and mother of two, voted for Dr. Newman to join the school board last year. Ms. Ollenburger spoke at a board meeting for the first time in October last year. The district had recently sent students home for two weeks due to rising local Covid-19 cases, and Ms. Ollenburger said the district’s distance-learning model wasn’t working. Friends of hers were having to pay for daycare or were dropping their kids off at homes with other children where they might be exposed to the virus anyway, she said.

“It just didn’t make any sense,” Ms. Ollenburger said.

Dr. Newman said at the October meeting that it was important to get students back in classrooms as soon as it could be done safely. Ms. Ollenburger, who had been a medic some years ago during military service in Afghanistan, later wrote to the board that she appreciated Dr. Newman’s expert opinion.

“Having her on the board and bringing her level of expertise is vital in this current situation,” Ms. Ollenburger wrote in an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “I could not appreciate and value her leadership more throughout this.”

Dr. Newman had been saying regularly at board meetings that masking, distancing and other measures could help prevent the spread of Covid-19 in schools, and that kids should be in school full-time. Some parents said they would support kids wearing masks if it was a temporary fix to get them into classrooms.

The district brought students back to class full-time in January with masks on. Toward the end of the school year, with Covid-19 cases falling, North Dakota ended its state of emergency. Adults who wanted vaccines had gotten them. Most people weren’t wearing masks in public. But children were still wearing masks in school.

VIDEO

Recent studies have shown that the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines is decreasing, though experts say the shots still work well. WSJ explains what the numbers mean and why they don’t tell the full story. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

The conversation took a turn. Dr. Newman said she could sense support for her recommendations, including masking, ebbing away.

“At first it was arguing with my guidelines. Then it was disagreeing with the data I was using,” she said. “Now the third and ugliest stage is people attacking my integrity.”

Alexis Scott, who moved to Fargo a few years ago from New Jersey with four boys between the ages of 2 and 11, said she started questioning the logic behind some Covid-19 restrictions last school year when she watched how the rules were playing out: “My kids can sit next to each other in a dugout, but they can’t high-five after the game?”

She said she worried about children trying to learn English as a second language with masks on, and whether children with parents working outside the home would fall behind during distance learning.

Another group of Fargo residents, meanwhile, was advocating to follow the guidance of public-health officials.

“We should do what our healthcare professionals are asking us to do. It just seems really obvious to us,” Lori Miller Cline, whose husband is an eighth-grade math teacher in Fargo, said recently. “It’s our view that this isn’t a matter of public opinion.”

Students in Fargo, N.D., continued wearing masks after North Dakota’s state of emergency ended.

As the school board prepared this summer for the new school year, the health department and Dr. Newman made recommendations including mandatory masking for all students, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended in July.

By then, Ms. Ollenburger and other parents were getting organized. She said the mandatory masking recommendation caused her to lose faith in Dr. Newman’s guidance. She and other parents felt the board wasn’t responsive to their pandemic-fueled frustrations over matters including masking, quarantine rules and virtual-learning protocols. They pored over recall procedural rules. Dr. Newman was among the members Ms. Ollenburger and her peers wanted off the board.

“I’m not looking to her to make a medical decision,” Ms. Ollenburger said. “I’m looking to her to make sure my child is educated.”

Allie Ollenburger, one of the organizers of the effort to recall Fargo school board members, with her husband Tom, her daughter and the family dog.

On Aug. 10, the school board voted 6-3 to adopt Dr. Newman’s recommendations. Districts nearby, including one in neighboring West Fargo, left it up to parents and teachers whether to don masks in schools.

“It was the tipping point,” Ms. Ollenburger said. Over the following two weeks, she said, she and her peers collected 3,000 signatures in support of the recall vote for Dr. Newman and other board members; if the signatures they collect are certified, four school-board slots will be up for grabs in a special election in January.

Dr. Newman said she is sometimes unsure whether she wants to fight to stay on the board. She said her motivation all along has been to try to keep children in school, safely.

“I want to do what’s best for kids,” she said.

Write to Julie Wernau at Julie.Wernau@wsj.com