Read Lillian Hepburn-Richmond's report on the termination of Judie Rosa here:
Despite the most recent email from the SAA Board Chair, it is our report which contains the actual “thank you” that was given to Judie Rosa for her 5 years of blood, sweat, tears and 80 hour work weeks of love and sacrifice to our children, their teachers, our families. Mrs. Rosa’s tenure at SAA resulted in significant and noticeable improvements in staffing and systems in the elementary and middle schools. Her contributions surpass those of the persons remaining in the SAA administration, its board chair, its board members, the church pastor, and anyone else at the CC. Ironically, all those who brought far less to SAA conspired together to take her down. As the 2 most powerful people at SAA, its Board Chair and Head Principal have presided over this entire shameful fiasco, while ignoring the respectful requests of 144 people in the community. When was the last time 144 individual members of the SAA community asked in one unified voice for something, and were simply ignored? As for Superintendent Walker, she watches from a safe distance hoping that all will forget her direct role in damaging our school. But we are all witnesses of your collective disenfranchisement of our voices and the trampling of all semblance of democratic systems. And Lillian Hepburn-Richmond will ensure that there is a permanent public, online record of what was done.
Lessons Learned from the Termination of Judie Rosa, SAA Elementary Principal:
1. Those responsible for terminating Mrs. Rosa have weakened SAA both for today and the foreseeable future. Administrators of her caliber do not grow on the nearest tree. Neither do talented teachers that are now leaving the school in droves.
2. SAA Administration and its Board lack the awareness and common sense to keep the best talent at our school - what the overwhelming majority of the community could have told them had they bothered to ask.
3. Unless calculated to protect its image, we cannot count on either SAA Administration or its Board Chair for relevant, timely, or reliable information we need to properly support our children’s teachers and make decisions for our children’s education.
4. Settling political scores within SAA the administration takes priority over individual merit, past success, and the children’s best interests. If you want to last on the SAA staff, you must form strategic alliances with the powerful and elite members of the administration, board, and/or church. If you don’t toe the party line, you will be punished.
5. We urge a new infusion of democracy, accountability to constituents, and of new leadership in the power structure at SAA. There needs to be a change in the SAA School Board Chair, the unknown members of the Executive Committee and their term limits, and the backroom manner in which board members are discreetly assigned. We also have lost trust in the remaining SAA administration, but we now know how instantly that can be changed. We must press for these changes to happen immediately for the good of our school and our children’s education.
All these lessons were learned at the expense of our children, their teachers, and the institution.