AUTOPSY OF THE TERMINATION OF JUDIE ROSA, ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL AT SPENCERVILLE ADVENSTIST ACADEMY(SAA).
1. March 31, 2021 at 6:10 p.m. – Judie Rosa’s message notifying SAA families that she will not return for the next school year, despite an impressive track record of success and her desire to continue at SAA, and not for any performance or achievement issues, but to achieve “unity within the administrative team.” She indicated that she would work until 6/30/2021 to complete the current school year.
2. April 1, 2021 – Judie Rosa is never seen or heard from again within the walls, emails, or telephones of SAA. That evening, SAA’s “Elementary Principal Update” of 4/1/2021 is released. It contains no information that Mrs. Rosa has been removed or is unavailable for contact.
Link to SAA Board Chair & Principal’s April 1 message, SAA's "Elementary Principal Update" of April 1, 2021, here:
3. After 35 days of silence, the SAA Board Chair confirmed on May 5, 2021 [link], that Mrs. Rosa was no longer at SAA, and revealed personal confidential information that she had been put on administrative leave and terminated. Section 9605 of the Columbia Union Conference Education Code (CUCEC) provides for “suspension” by the immediate temporary removal of an employee from duty, with or without pay. Was Mrs. Rosa’s pay also canceled during her administrative leave?
Link to the Columbia Union Conference Education Code (CUCEC): http://prod.columbiaunion.org/sites/default/files/2017-2018_code_updates.pdf
4. Section 9605 informs us that only 2 people have the authority to impose suspension, or immediate removal from duty: the “local conference superintendent” or the “senior academy principal.” In this case, Superintendent Janesta Walker and/or Head Principal Tissiana Bowerman were the only persons with the authority to immediately remove Judie Rosa from SAA on 4/1/2021. We do not believe that a decision of this magnitude would have been made only by one person without the agreement of the other. Therefore, we conclude that both Janesta Walker and Tissiana Bowerman are responsible for the immediate suspension of Judie Rosa on 4/1/2021. If we are mistaken, then let them correct us and clear the record.
5. In addition, we conclude that SAA’s “Elementary Principal Update” of 4/1/2021 signed by Board Chair Mark Noble and Head Principal Tissiana Bowerman was intentionally misleading by diverting attention away from Mrs. Rosa’s disappearance for her email, and then both breached personnel confidentiality and harmed Mrs. Rosa by placing a cloud of suspicion over her in publicly revealing that there had been a “several months-long review” of her by “the appropriate committees and the Chesapeake Education Department.” Unless that several months-long review recommended that Judie Rosa be suspended on 4/1/2021, and we do not believe it did since she herself wrote mere hours before that she would serve until 6/30/2021, then the only other plausible basis for Mrs. Rosa’s suspension was the writing of her 3/31/2021 message, which SAA must have found embarrassing or too revealing, even if parents and students deserved to know.
6. We do not believe that such a nuclear act of administrative aggression towards Mrs. Rosa on 4/1/2021 would have been taken without the knowledge and approval of SAA Board Chairperson Mark Noble, or the SAA Executive Committee (members undisclosed, but by rule it must include, Pastor Chad Stuart), if not also the entire SAA Board (members undisclosed). In fact, we have a letter from Mr. Noble and Mrs. Bowerman dated 4/1/2021 as proof of their cooperation. If we are mistaken, then let them correct us and clear the record. However, if we are correct then theirs was a concerted and disproportionate act of sabotage on the rest of our children’s school year. And for what? Did Mrs. Rosa harm children, steal funds from the school, or commit some other crime? Or was it because of a simple goodbye message mere hours before? We are entitled to know both the reasons and how that action supposedly served our children’s best interests.
7. As between the email messages from SAA Board Chair/Principal and and that of Judie Rosa, we believe Mrs. Rosa. When she wrote on 3/31/2021 about the decision not to renew her contract that “They informed me that this decision was not based on my leadership, my educational pedagogy, my ability to supervise my staff or work with my students and their families. I was told the decision was made based on the board looking for greater unity within the administrative team.” We believe the only reasonable interpretation of this statement is that Mrs. Bowerman wanted Judie Rosa out of SAA, and the SAA Board and Chair placated her desires. They allowed the most tenured and respected principal on staff to be chopped because of office politics. This was against the trust we have placed in them, and clearly against our school’s best interests. Those responsible for it should lose their positions.
8. We hope that one day we will get more clarity and information about this situation from Mrs. Rosa. However we understand that she is limited in what she can safely say in order to preserve her job status going forward at another school in the SDA system. This is the sad reality of how this system works - like the mafia.
-Lillian Hepburn-Richmond
(a cohort of concerned parents)