Lillian Hepburn-Richmond has received several suggested questions from stakeholders in the SAA community (thank you all!), and also come up with some of our own questions for delegates to ask of SAA Administration at the Annual Constituency Meeting (not a Town Hall Meeting) happening today, Tuesday, June 15, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. in the school’s auditorium. These are questions that stakeholders have been asking for quite a while and for which they deserve straight and substantive answers. Will SAA continue its evasive maneuvers of corporate dodgeball, or actually play it straight this time with its constituency? Will the delegates do their job of asking hard questions and requiring thorough answers, or simply allow them to run another ho-hum constituency meeting? We'll find out tonight.
If you have additional questions you would like delegates to ask, or that SAA should answer regardless if they are asked, please post a comment to this blog with your questions.
We will prepare a report on what takes place at the Constituency Meeting and post it to this blog. Make sure to subscribe to this Blog (see bottom of homepage) to receive emails of each new post. We welcome your news, information, and reports which you may send to us using the "Contact" form, also near the bottom of our homepage.
- Lillian Hepburn-Richmond (a cohort of concerned parents)
Lack of Transparency of SAA School Board & Administration:
1. Does SAA’s school board exist and serve in a representative capacity on behalf of school stakeholders?
2. Has SAA’s Board and Administration refused multiple requests from multiple people to provide a roster of school board members?
3. By what code authority have they refused to provide the list of SAA’s school board members and committees to stakeholders?
4. There is a perception that prospective board members are only considered by the Spencerville Church nominating committee after having been selectively recruited in a quiet manner by church pastoral staff, SAA board members, or SAA administration. Is this accurate?
5. How many school board members have spouses on the Spencerville Church Board?
6. Are there any term limits on SAA Board membership?
7. How long have the members of the SAA Board Executive Committee been board members?
8. Have the web links to virtual SAA Board meetings been publicized for stakeholders to be notified and observe the proceedings? If so, how has it been publicized? If not, why not?
9. Have the agendas of board meetings been publicized for stakeholders to read? If so, how? If not, why not?
10. Have the minutes of board meetings been publicized for stakeholders to read? If so, how? If not, why not?
11. Are stakeholders given the opportunity to directly express their concerns to the board at its meetings? If so, how? If not, why not?
12. It seems like there are not consequences for bad decisions by administration, and that the Board just always backs them up. Are there any “separation of powers” of operational authority between the Board and the administration? Are there any “checks and balances” between the Board and the Administration?
13. Can you describe the last 3 times in which the Board exercised any such checks and balances of SAA Administration?
The Disappearance and Firing of Judie Rosa:
14. Isn’t it sharing “personnel information” to reveal that Mrs. Rosa’s employment had been reviewed my multiple committees for several months, and that she was placed on administrative leave?
15. SAA revealed that the school board voted not to renew Mrs. Rosa’s contract for 2021-22. Did that vote also decide that she should stop working on 4/1/2021?
16. Who were the persons responsible for this decision for Mrs. Rosa to suddenly be removed from SAA on 4/1/2021? Was this approved or ratified by SAA’s Board?
17. Was this decision in the best interests of the school (its teachers and students)? How so?
18. Was the school better off with Mrs. Rosa out as of 4/1/2021? How so?
19. Were our children and their teachers better off because of the decision to remove Mrs. Rosa from SAA on 4/1/2021?
20. Didn’t parent deserve to know that Mrs. Rosa had been gone well before the 35-day notice from SAA on 5/5/2021?
21. What kind of a Christian witness to the school and larger community is sent by the decision to remove Mrs. Rosa on 4/1/2021?
Staffing For Next Year:
22. Have all the positions at SAA that were listed on the adventisteducation.org website been filled?
23. Which ones remain unfilled?
24. Will there be mixed grade classrooms for 21-22 in the Elementary School?
Critical Race Theory at SAA:
25. By what process did So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo end up in the high school classroom?
26. Who were the teachers involved in that process?
27. What was the SAA administration’s plan for the use of the book?
28. Who were the administrators or advisors involved in that process?
29. Why were parents not notified, their consent not obtained, nor their children given a chance to opt-out of this material?
30. Has this book been approved by any SDA committee for use in the high school curriculum?
31. Is it the explicit or implicit direction of the school to incorporate Critical Race Theory (CRT) into the school’s curriculum? If so why? If not, why not?
32. What policy steps or measures will be taken to ensure that CRT is, or is not, incorporated into the curriculum?
33. Is there a policy or practice in place requiring neutrality of teachers in presenting or discussing material of a political or controversial social nature?
34. Are there any consequences of a teacher in failing to remain neutral in their presentations and discussions? What consequences would those be?
35. What did Mrs. Paul-O’Neill mean by her comments to high school graduates to “stay woke”?
General School Oversight Matters:
36. To whom should parents report matters of concern regarding the administration?
37. To whom should parents report matters of concerns regarding the school board leadership?
38. Explain how it was in the best educational interest of SAA students for the school to remain primarily online for most of the school year, when so many other private schools offered much more in-person learning?