Albert Einstein Academy Hires New Principal Amid Ongoing Turmoil

Albert Einstein Academy’s elementary school has a new principal – and he may be familiar to Voice of San Diego readers. The charter network announced in a recent message to the community that they’d hired Jorge Mora to serve as the elementary principal.

Mora previously served as director of human resources at the Chula Vista Elementary School District. Earlier in his career, he led several Chula Vista elementary schools as a principal and worked for seven years as a teacher in bilingual classrooms.

Mora said in an interview that he sought the Einstein job because he missed working directly with students and teachers and felt he could help strengthen the school’s signature language immersion programs.

“I got into this profession because I love kids,” he said. “I’m a true believer in multilingual education.”

Though Mora has a years-long track record working with both bilingual students and charter schools – he served as Chula Vista’s liaison to charter schools – the first question he received at an introductory appearance at this week’s Einstein school board meeting had nothing to do with either of those topics.

“I’ve read the Voice of San Diego article,” Einstein Trustee Christopher Beesley said the moment Mora finished introducing himself. “Why should that not be a concern, for my mind or any parent’s mind?”

Beesley was referring to a Voice story last year that detailed how Chula Vista school officials delayed investigating a teacher accused of sexually inappropriate behavior with special education students.

Among the details in that story: Though Mora himself conducted the district’s investigation into the teacher’s behavior and found that the teacher had engaged in what Mora described in a report as “an indicator of grooming-type behavior,” Mora waited nearly eight months to notify state regulators of his findings.

California law requires school districts to inform state regulators within 30 days when teachers resign or are otherwise disciplined following misconduct allegations.

The teacher resigned shortly after Mora’s investigation and left the Chula Vista district for a non-school job. He still holds a valid teaching credential with no indication of his resignation or the investigation into his conduct.

Both at the Einstein board meeting and in an interview with Voice, Mora took full responsibility for the reporting delay and said the notification to state regulators simply slipped his mind amid other responsibilities.

“It was an accident,” he said. “I would never do that again. I can’t be more sincere when I say this was just a human error.”

Mora said Chula Vista’s human resources department has instituted changes that ensure future misconduct reports are referred to state regulators on time.

Mora also said he hopes his work at Einstein will help to overcome any lingering doubts among trustees or parents.

“I’d like to regrow the program they fell in love with,” he said, referring to Einstein’s German immersion program, which has been beset with problems in recent years. “I’m not an expert in German immersion but I’m committed to finding avenues and resources to regrow the program.”

Mora, 56,  is a veteran of bilingual education. His mother taught bilingual classrooms when he was growing up, and Mora followed in her footsteps after graduating college and earning his teaching credential in the mid-1990s.

He said his years of experience in classrooms, as a principal and in district administration gave him a unique perspective on the challenges students, teachers and districts face.

“I often wondered how much better I’d be [as an educator] knowing what I know now,” Mora said. “I’ll be a stronger principal and I’d be a better teacher.”

At last week’s board meeting, Einstein trustees also expressed concern about a recent audit of Chula Vista Elementary’s human resources department that found the department was hampered by inefficiency, sloppy record-keeping and failure to track employee performance.

Mora said that though the audit found problems in areas he supervised, he welcomed the results and already had begun implementing changes.

The audit “gave us a chance to hear from an outside entity how we need to improve,” he said. “We have taken a lot of action to correct those [deficiencies].”

“The environment in the Chula Vista Elementary School District is challenging,” Mora said. The district is in the midst of layoffs and other budget cuts. And Mora’s boss, the former assistant superintendent of human resources, recently resigned for unexplained reasons.

“I was the kind of principal kids would run up to and high five,” Mora said. “People don’t do that now…To go back to working with kids and supporting teachers and be more involved with the community [at Einstein] will give me that joy I had in teaching and education.”

Einstein Superintendent David Sciaretta and Board President Maria Ortega did not respond to questions about Mora’s hiring.

The hire comes three months after Einstein administrators abruptly fired the elementary school’s beloved former principal, Greta Bouterse. That firing sparked widespread pushback against Sciaretta and district leadership. 

But Bouterse’s firing is just the latest upheaval to roil the once tight-knit Einstein community. Families spent much of last year protesting changes they felt watered down the school’s trademark German language program. The alterations downgraded what was once a 50/50 dual-immersion program to a simple foreign language program. San Diego Unified, the charter’s authorizer, also stepped in to demand Einstein administrators fix violations of its charter, including misleading claims about the nature of its German program.

The frustration reached a new high following Bouterse’s firing, culminating in yet another tense and combative board meeting. Much of the criticism from community members has been aimed squarely at Sciaretta, who they feel has lost the trust of teachers and families.

Last month, community members launched a petition meant to function as a vote of no confidence in Sciaretta. Organizers say the petition had garnered more than 500 signatures by the time they turned it over to the charter’s board. Their goal was to pressure the board into removing Sciaretta. 

Thus far, the board hasn’t made any indication that they plan to oust Sciaretta.

Mora said he’s aware of tensions at Einstein and hopes to be a unifying presence.

“One thing I have skill at is relationship-building and bridge-building,” he said. “I want to strengthen those bridges and build a strong team and work with kids.”

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