"The Right to Know" (...What DIDN’T Happen At SAA’s 2022 Constituency Meeting).
SAA Officials surely breathed a sigh of relief at the return to a normal, boring Constituency Meeting (CM) show in a mostly empty auditorium on May 15, 2022.
After last year’s packed-house animated and contentious CM, complete with multiple delegates asking hard questions and pointing out controversial issues and serious problems at the school, and the school principal sheltering behind the SAA’s Secret School Board (SSB) Chairperson, 2022’s CM was so much smoother, boring, and sparsely attended – just like the CM is designed to be – to avoid in-depth examination and questioning and thereby escape effective constituent oversight. It was evident that the vast majority of delegates didn't even bother to show up this time around.
Without specifying a number, the Chairperson (questionably) declared the presence of a quorum - the requirement a mere, paltry 1 in 4 (or 25%) delegates to be in attendance. There are roughly 135 delegates total including 65 "voted" delegates, plus another roughly 70 ex-officio delegates (about 28 SSB members, 40 full-time faculty of SAA, 10 Spencerville SDA Church officers, and 5 Chesapeake Conference officers, adjusted for overlap). So the vast majority of delegates don't even care to show up. If most delegates don't care, then why should anyone else? Good question. The answer is that many rank and file stakeholders don't care, while others of us do care. This is why SAA's system of constituent oversight is so broken and ineffective, and why the SAA community still does not have satisfactory answers to so many important questions. This is intentional. It is not a design flaw, but a design feature. And the result is the relinquishment of the levers of power to a very small group of people - mostly the very same people year after year, decade upon decade - "the deep state" or "Aristocracy" of SAA - in whom all the authority is actually concentrated. They do whatever they damn well please to protect one another and carry out their agenda, by any means necessary and regardless of whether or not it is in the school's best interests or what the majority of the customer base asks for. We should know - for We Are Witnesses .
But we digress. Back to the Constituency Meeting.
Think of the CM as being SAA’s version of the “State of the Union” (SOTU) speech by the President of the U.S. (POTUS). Like everything in life, there are similarities and differences. The SOTU is required by the US Constitution, and the CM is required by the SAA Constitution. The SOTU has partisan cheerleaders that award their champion with riotous applause and standing ovations; and partisan opponents who scowl and sit on their hands whilst grinding their teeth at their adversary’s talking points. SAA’s CM is somewhat like the SOTU by rigging the delegate vote, thus doing its best to pack the auditorium with the favorable partisan cheerleaders who will not ask any real questions and be prepared to applaud on cue like so many trained seals, and then audibly groan, heckle, and aim visual daggers at those who dare to raise any objections or ask tough questions. Of course the SOTU allows no questions at all, so that’s a big difference. Yet when no one stands up to ask real questions, then the SAA CM and SOTU are almost indistinguishable.
But imagine if the only time that the POTUS addressed the country was once per year during the SOTU – and gave no public addresses, or never subjected herself to the scrutiny of press conferences in between the annual SOTU, hiding behind carefully coiffed and Pollyannish press releases. Well that’s kind of how SAA’s “president” handles business too. There are never parent assemblies or town hall meetings (forget about a Parent-Teacher Association) where stakeholders can share their concerns in an open environment so that all in attendance can hear the concerns of each other. But at the CM, questioners are subjected to arbitrary limitations and shifty, evasive responses that make substance hard to find – very much like a shifty politician who skillfully dodges the hard question asked of her, by instead answering an easy question that wasn’t asked at all.
For example, when a common concern is raised by 15 different parents, effective leadership would call for an open meeting of the larger school community (parents, students, and faculty) so that everyone could hear everyone else at the same time, get the same baseline information, hear the same suggested solutions, hear the same message from SAA administration, and walk away knowing that everyone was heard out, that everyone got the same attention and the same information, and answers about what will happen going forward. In normal school systems these are called school board meetings, parent assemblies, PTA meetings, town hall meetings, etc. However there is no such animal at SAA. The CM is a scripted show where questions are barely tolerated and the tough questions are evaded. SAA Board meetings are not an open forum for parents to be heard either; instead they may only sit quietly and observe the tightly controlled exercises of institutional self-celebration and coddling inside the echo chamber.
At SAA, the Administration will only address contentious issues privately, discreetly and with 1 individual or family at a time. Besides being terribly inefficient, this cloakroom secrecy effectively keeps the concerned parents isolated from one another. SAA Admin even confiscated the family directory which in a COVID-pandemic context further isolated stakeholders from one another to the extreme. This isolationist methodology gaslights parents into thinking that no one else shares their concerns, all the while SAA Admin plays “whack-a-mole” hoping parents will keep quiet and not share their concerns with other parents, or with any other larger forum - such as Eyes On SAA – or in any meaningful way organize themselves. Do you really think that every parent gets the same access to (or equal treatment from) SAA Admin or to the SSB, regardless of their rank within the Aristocracy? We don’t. This place is steeped in generational privilege and aristocratic patronage. What you and your children get depends on what your name is, your legacy status, and who you are chummy with inside the Aristocracy. But should anyone really be surprised at this? Isn't this how the world works? Yes, it sure is! The disillusionment set in because we expected a Christian school to conduct itself differently than does the fallen, corrupt, sinful world around us. But too many times this has proven to be a distinction without a difference.
A Few Cosmetic Improvements:
Over the past year or so, Eyes On SAA has highlighted several defects with the Annual SAA CM. These defects include a rigged delegate selection process, inadequate notice of meeting, failure to livestream despite the capability to do so, failure to report anything out to the school community, light-speed talking points without providing handouts, arbitrary and speech-chilling time limits on questions, evasive corporate dodgeball responses, etc.
Nonetheless, we will give credit where it is due. 2022’s CM did see some modest improvements over not just last year’s CM, but from the preceding CMs going back several years into the past – this according to sources that have attended more boring, propagandized CMs than they care to count.
1. Delegate Selection: 2022 CM delegate selection was markedly different from the sign-up list for a married couples’ getaway that it obviously was last year. That’s an improvement to be sure, even though we still saw Delegate Shenanigans and voter suppression this year too. What we didn’t see this year were re-appointment of the handful of delegates that asked real questions at the 2021 CM. They were mysteriously excluded as delegates this year – talk about “things makes you go hmmmm.”
2. Notice of Constituency Meeting: 2022 CM was announced multiple times in SAA’s Buzz Newsletter. But last year? Shhhhhhhh, not a whisper in the Buzz or schoolwide email.
3. Slide Handouts: Never happened before. This has been a thorn in the side of observers for years. Constituents show up to hear the Principal’s Report, a fast-paced display of countless slides on the screen, often with small details. But note takers cannot possibly keep up with the show’s rapid pace. So unless you have a photographic memory, you would leave with barely more information than you arrived with. This is part of the systemic methodology of dumbing-down constituents. In 2022, official delegates – and only official delegates – got slide handouts. Not to worry though, Eyes On SAA obtained the slides and will bring you the transparency that SAA chooses not to.
4. Hot Seat, Front and Center: In 2021, Principal Tissiana Bowerman essentially hid out of sight, off-stage, tucked in the front row with her back to the entire auditorium during the Q&A on her very own report. That left SSB Chairperson Mark Noble to take all the heat from eager delegate and non-delegate inquirers. 2022 saw a different set-up with Principal Bowerman seated front and center, facing the small gathering of cheerleaders, and responding to questions (and evading others) while flanked by several SSB members (who sat silently like props throughout the brief evening meeting) in a makeshift boardroom. Good on you, Mrs. B! It was reminiscent of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” reality-TV show of the early 2000’s – except that show got high ratings.
5. No Arbitrary Time Limits on Delegate Questions: The proof that a CM is not a “town hall meeting” is when questioners (even official delegates) are cut-off from their lines of inquiry or not allowed to follow-up due to arbitrary time limits. In 2021 we saw an arbitrary 2-minute rule imposed on Q&A, enforced with parliamentary tricks of the trade, and even an attempt to completely abort the non-delegate questioning. Well no such rule was imposed at the 2022 CM, probably because some aristocrat missed their cue to make a motion - yet it hardly mattered anyway since the CM was so poorly attended in comparison to 2021. There was only one fly in the ointment this year - a rather persistent non-delegate who asked multiple questions and follow-ups, despite attempts by SSB Chairperson Mark Noble to stop him. We will cover that encounter in a later post.
So let’s congratulate SAA on these improvements in the running of the 2022 CM. Baby steps? Yes. Superficial adjustments? Yes. Likely to make any significant change in this failed and emasculated system of “constituent oversight”? Don’t bet on it.
Yet the deeper question is why would these superficial, baby steps be taken at all? Mere coincidence? A “come to Jesus” moment for the Aristocracy? Or maybe the closest readers and followers of this blog are entrenched in the Aristocracy and cannot even deny to their own selves the need for reform of this habitually secretive institution. We say it’s Door #3 – Aristocracies don’t suddenly sprout scruples. Yet they may strap on artificial ones, but only for self-preservation after being exposed. The proof is in the multiple and unprecedented improvements in areas that Eyes On SAA has regularly called out since our inception in April 2021.
SAA doesn’t want an engaged constituency that asks tough questions, presses for real answers, or holds its administration or feudal masters accountable. This broken system of constituent oversight is what SAA Administration thrives on, allowing itself to operate in the dark and escape any meaningful scrutiny. That is, at least until this blog came along.
Who benefits? SAA Administration and its hand-maiden, the head-nodding, rubber-stamping SAA Secret School Board. Oh, and of course the Feudal Lords at the Chesapeake Conference.
Who loses? Every student, teacher, and parent whose concerns are ignored or dismissed. Plus every uninformed, unconcerned, or non-Aristocrat member of the sole-constituency at the Spencerville SDA Church, in whose names and by whose authority all of this is perpetrated.
So take a good long look at our featured image for this post - “The Right to Know”, a powerful artistic statement of Norman Rockwell on the right of American citizens to know the reasons behind their government’s actions. We borrow Rockwell’s symbolic warning for transparent and responsible government, and point it toward the ruling Aristocracy at the Chesapeake Conference and Spencerville Adventist Academy. The following text accompanied the illustration: "We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope. But watch closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us. Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it. We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too."
SAA students, parents, teachers, alumni, and constituent church members all have a "Right to Know" truthful and respectful answers to these important questions and so many other ones too.
Here endeth today’s lesson.
Shining Light. Breaking Silence. Holding Accountable.
We’ve got Eyes On SAA.
-Lillian Hepburn-Richmond
(A Cohort of Concerned Parents)
Coming In Our Next Post: We’ll bring you the “classified” Delegate Handouts from the 2022 Constituency Meeting, plus our in-depth analysis and commentary in the ensuing posts.
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