Well, not exactly "top secret documents", but clearly meant “for delegates eyes only”. This is why these documents are not made available by SAA on its website or sent out by email.
If you were paying close attention, you may have heard that SAA held its annual Constituency Meeting (“CM”) on May 15, 2022. You would need to have read the fine-print of official publications like the SAA Buzz newsletter or the Spencerville Church Bulletin, or have been around long enough to know that it is a rite of late Spring - like tree pollen. Evidently the down-low strategy worked, as 2022's CM attendance only a shadow of 2021. Still, believe it or not, fine-print copy is actually an improvement over past years. Eyes On SAA has examined this low-key, hush-hush modus operandi in our post “The Best Kept Secret". While there have been some slight improvements to the process, the fundamental handicaps to effective constituent review and oversight still remain, including a RIGGED delegate selection process.
The Constituency Meeting (CM) is a very significant event for the entire school community of teachers, students, parents, and members of the Spencerville SDA Church to receive important information about the school’s operations, personnel (including its now chronically and abnormally high staff turnover), enrollment, educational programs, finances and more. This meeting is a cardiac health check of representative democracy and constituent oversight for the Spencerville Church. Let's just say the patient is not doing well on its annual democracy health check - somewhere between a Code Blue emergency and Asystole ("flatlining" or cardiac arrest). Does SAA belong to its students, parents, and teachers? Or only to Mrs. Bowerman, the last administrator left from the multi-year revolving-door attrition of Mrs. Rosa, Mrs. Paul-O’Neill, Mr. Regis, and Dr. Bock? Or SAA’s Secret School Board, or more likely to its Secret Executive Committee? Or only to the Chesapeake Conference, the absentee landlord of the school’s property, and its disconnected, aloof Superintendent of Education? Or to the Spencerville Church Pastor and Church Board? Or does SAA actually belong to the constituent members of Spencerville Church?
The importance of the CM is magnified by the culture of secrecy that enshrouds this institution, beginning and ending with a school board charged with oversight of the entire school. Until very recently, the most distinguishing characteristic of the SAA Secret School Board was that its membership was – as our pet name says - a tightly held secret.
Yes, you read that correctly: you were not allowed to know who served (and supposedly represented you) on the SAA Secret School Board even though you paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to SAA, and perhaps many thousands more in tithe and offering to Spencerville Church. This silly, embarrassing and indefensible secrecy was finally clawed back less than 1 year ago when the SSB membership was finally UNMASKED – a long overdue step the Aristocracy was pressured to make in response to the growing movement for transparency at SAA.
So with that context deeply rooted at SAA, you will now get an unauthorized "Wikileaks"-style disclosure of documents that rightfully should have been made easily available to every SAA student, teacher, parent/guardian, and member of Spencerville Church - the exclusive, constituent church of SAA.
A few reading tips:
1. We show screenshots of the individual top secret documents, but have also compiled them into one file for your downloading.
2. The paper titled “SAA Constituency Minutes June 15, 2021” does not even come close to capturing the extent of what took place at last year’s CM –for that you need to refer to
The 2021 SAA Constituency Meeting: A Series of Independent, Unauthorized, and Unofficial Reports. (links provided below)
3. We will provide our running commentary and grade for each section of the CM.
4. In our next post, we will cover the “Question & Answer (or Non-Answer)” portion of the show.
Enough introductory comments. We now unveil to you the “top secret documents” provided to the (rigged) slate of Delegates to the 2022 SAA Constituency Meeting.
Agenda Commentary: Zero time is allotted for Delegate Questions. You couldn't tell if they were even allowed just looking at this Agenda. In reality 2 or 3 were asked, but questions are implicitly discouraged - who wants to step in front of a runaway locomotive? By contrast, there was some time allotted for Non-Delegate Questions. Yet for the second year in a row, there was stifling and silencing of questioners in order to conform to an arbitrary timeline, thereby protecting Mrs. Bowerman from having to give substantive answers. We will cover the Q&A in another post. The point is that the CM still does not resemble anything close to the Town Hall Meeting that SAA desperately needs for its cardiac health, but avoids like a bubonic plague.
2021 Minutes Commentary:
My oh my! Where to begin?
Yeah, even though meeting minutes are meant to be brief, they're also supposed to be accurate. These are not even close. Our links listed below are where you can find out what really happened at the 2021 CM. Start with our Summary (#8). If you want to know what was really said, then check out #9-13. Especially #11 & 12 for some of the controversial matters SAA tried to sweep under the rug or ignores year upon year - but questioners pushed for answers.
The 2021 SAA Constituency Meeting:
A Series of Independent, Unauthorized, and Unofficial Reports
Brought to you by:
Lillian Hepburn-Richmond (A Cohort of Concerned Parents)
Shining Light. Breaking Silence. Holding Accountable.
We’ve got Eyes On SAA
Principal's Report:
Comments on Principal's Report: A well-organized and informative show-presentation reassuring us that everything is going just perfectly. There truly must be nothing at all needed of the Delegates but to nod, smile, politely golf-clap, and keep their rubber stamps handy. Still we thank you, Mrs. Bowerman, for debuting what neither you nor any predecessor was capable of in every past CM - handing out slides to the Delegates - and only the delegates. We can clearly tell from your presentation that you read this blog and were prepared to answer (or evade) at least a few of the questions and concerns we have raised in the past year. Thank you for your readership, Mrs. B.
However we still will cover the Q&A (or Q&E) in our next post.
The Financial Report:
Comments on Financial Report: The bottom line is that tuition rates were increased by 3.5% for 2022-23. This is after tuition rates were not increased for 2021-22. No good thing lasts forever, folks. Even if no one is cheering about tuition increases, we at Eyes On SAA are generally fans of the Financial Committee's work. It is run by professionals in the financial sector, is prudent in its expenditures, quite generous with financial aid, and generally oversees a steady ship for the school's economic sustainability. Oh would that we had such stability on the educational administration side - we hope they are taking close notes.
Home & School Association Report: No slides were provided for this presentation. HSA reported having assets of $68K, modest expenditures, but having raising significant funds for itself and for school projects to the tune of several thousand dollars more. Excellent.
Home & School Association Officers:
(sorry for any misspellings, but we no longer have our long-time SAA Family Directory to verify).
President: Melissa Reinhardt
V.P. High School: Lisa Burrow
V.P. Middle School: Eben Joel
V.P. Elementary School: Falvo Fowler
Treasurer: Ken Ninala
Assistant Valuna Johnson
Secretary: Nancy Fennell
P.R. Director: Marlene Towns
Assistant: Amanda Perry
Assistant: Denise Hernandez
Room Parent Coordinator: Lauren Esveldt
Assistant: Nina Bice
Assistant: Cheryl Toscano
Governance Officer: Stephanie Roberts
In-Training: Gabbie Oilvera
In-Training: Kelly Carvalo
We offer a standing ovation for all these parent volunteers!
Comments on HSA Report: Similar to the Financial Committee, we at Eyes On SAA are BIG fans of the Home & School Association (HSA). It's run by parent-volunteers who give of their limited spare time to improve the school with successful fundraising projects generating thousands of dollars for school betterment, fun family events that help bring the school community closer (remember, SAA confiscated the long-time SAA Family Directory), and capital improvements to SAA. The HSA, despite being all volunteer, has the wisdom and transparency to hold an annual business meeting open to all. Imagine that. Big props to HSA. Our sources did not report HSA using arbitrary limits or parliamentary tricks to silence questioners (like at the CMs).
Eyes On SAA's Report Card:
Principal's Report: C (a bit too polished and over-scripted, much too Polyanna'd; you are allowed to address significant problems and challenges in your report, but chose not to. The lack of candor does not serve you well.)
Financial Report: A- (can't give an A+ if you raise tuition)
HSA Report: B+ (a bit hard to follow, guys)
Delegate Q & A: Stay tuned.
Non-Delegate Q&A: Stay tuned.
We hope you found this report informative and helpful, and that it raises enough interest for you to stay tuned for the more detailed reporting coming in the future. We think that every student, parent, teacher, and administrator should know about these things. We think that every constituent member at the Spencerville SDA Church should know about it as well. Evidently SAA does not agree since it has provided no such report and did next to nothing to inform the school community know this important meeting was even taking place.
You may show your gratitude by subscribing to this blog, contacting us with news and information of concern to you about SAA’s programs and operations, and finally by sharing the link to this report on social media and directly with other members of the SAA Community so that they can know more about the product that they are purchasing at SAA, and take an active role in making it better with their observations and feedback.
Again, we thank our contributors that gathered and provided information, documents, and notes for us to prepare this series of reports. You are the lifeblood of Eyes On SAA and are contributing to the important work of bringing change and improvement to this school that we all care about. If the SAA of the future could speak today it would say "thank you" and that it is in your debt for your love and courage.
Coming Soon: Delegate and Non-Delegate Q&A (or Q & non-A)
Shining Light. Breaking Silence. Holding Accountable.
We’ve got Eyes On SAA.
-Lillian Hepburn-Richmond
(A Cohort of Concerned Parents)
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