BOISE - A group seeking to recall public schools chief Tom Luna over his new education laws failed to meet a Monday deadline to collect nearly 160,000 voter signatures.

The Committee to Recall Tom Luna needed to submit 158,107 valid signatures from registered voters to succeed in their push for an August special election. But organizers said they had collected only about 50,000 signatures.

Foes of the plan dubbed Students Come First tried to "make it personal," Luna said Monday in a statement.

"Reforming education has never been about me; it's about giving our students more opportunities," Luna said. "Our focus and priority has been and will continue to be implementation of the laws."

Under the changes backed by Luna and Gov. Butch Otter this year, Idaho will restrict education union bargaining rights, introduce teacher merit pay and shift money from funding for salaries to classroom technology. A group of parents and teachers who want to overturn the laws met a June deadline to gather enough signatures to put three repeal measures on the November 2012 ballot.

The recall group had also aimed to oust state Sen. Mitch Toryanski and Rep. Julie Ellsworth, both Republicans from Boise, for their support of the new education changes - but those campaigns also fell short of the required number of signatures.

Nancy Berto, a Boise resident and former secretary at the Mountain Home Air Force Base, formed the committee to begin collecting enough signatures to recall Luna. She spoke with other supporters of the recall effort Monday afternoon on the front steps of the Idaho Capitol.

"None of us have ever been involved in a recall before. This was a first for us and the first in many years in Idaho," Berto said. "It was trial-and-error on many levels. Still, we're very proud of what we accomplished."

Even if the group had succeeded in getting the measures on the ballot, Idaho law would have required them to secure at least 268,852 votes in favor of ousting Luna. That represents the number of votes Luna, a Republican, received last November when he beat Stan Olson with 60.5 percent of the vote to secure a second term.

The failure of the recall effort "confirms that the will of the people was made known in the 2010 elections, a year that proved most successful for the candidates of the Idaho Republican Party," said state GOP chairman Norm Semanko in a statement.

Morgan Hill managed The Committee to Recall Tom Luna and said the group would use their network of supporters to form a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

"It would be irresponsible to shy away from this high level of public enthusiasm," Hill said.