Firing of Longtime Einstein Principal Sparks Backlash Among Charter’s Community

On Monday night, dozens of families, current and even former staff showed up dressed in black for an emergency meeting of the Albert Einstein Academies board – a two-school charter network. It was a vigil of sorts.  

Days earlier, Greta Bouterse was unceremoniously fired. Bouterse worked at Einstein for 23 years – about half of that time as principal of the network’s elementary school. For many, confusion about why Bouterse was fired has compounded the anger. 

The charter schools’ leadership says she was fired because, unbeknownst to them, she never held an administrative credential that was a requirement for the job.  

Superintendent David Sciaretta said he could not comment on personnel matters. He did, however, point to employee  qualifications requirements in Einstein’s charter, which includes an administrative credential. 

Those gathered to mourn her firing, though, doubt that reasoning. Besides, the credential she didn’t have isn’t actually a statewide requirement for administrators at charter schools, they argued.  

In any case, the backlash is just the latest in a string of controversies that have shaken the confidence in the charter’s leadership and split the charter’s community. 

That Bouterse was a larger-than-life figure at Einstein was clear during Monday’s meeting. Teacher after teacher and parent after parent stepped up to the mic to heap praise on her leadership and castigate the decision to fire her midway into the school year. 

Mary Shannon Heinzelmann, who’s taught art at Einstein’s elementary campus for nearly two decades, said she was outraged by the decision. 

“Greta has been a steady, dedicated and highly effective leader for nearly two decades. She has led with integrity, compassion and unwavering dedication to our students, staff and families. To see someone who has given so much to this community dismissed mid-year for a reason that feels disproportionate and unfair is not only disheartening, it harms the very foundations of this school,” Heinzelmann said.  

Isabel Treviño, a parent of fifth and second graders at Einstein, said Bouterse’s firing has encouraged her to pull her kids from the school. 

“We saw firsthand how she led the elementary school through the pandemic with empathy, discipline and academic rigor,” Treviño said. “In the past year, when things visibly destabilized at AEA, I always thought that a sinking ship can stay afloat with the right captain, which is what Greta Bouterse has been.” 

For them, her firing seemed more closely related to the controversies that have rocked the Einstein community.  

Earlier this year, parents spent months protesting what they viewed as a watering down of the schools’ trademark German immersion program. The board’s decision to move through with changes to the program ultimately pushed some of them to pull their children from the charter altogether. It also triggered a demand from San Diego Unified, the schools’ authorizer, to fix inaccuracies in its charter. 

The trust deficit among some in the community was clear at the meeting. Multiple speakers floated the theory that Bouterse’s firing was related to a bitter fight over whether to decertify the charter’s recently founded union. That fight recently spilled into public view after claims that middle schoolers were included in an anti-union protest without their parent’s consent. The charter has received threats of lawsuits in the aftermath of the protest. 

Rita Gonzalez, a student advocate at Einstein, agrees that the union is entangled in the messy reaction to Bouterse. She just disagrees about how. 

“Yesterday it was clear, the line has been drawn. If you’re not for [the union] or what they’re saying, you’re public enemy number one,” Gonzalez said. 

Gonzalez has been opposed to the union since day one and lays much of the blame for the division over the past year at its feet. She’s actually one of the staff members who’s been accused of bringing students to the anti-union protest, a charge she denies. Since Bouterse’s firing, she also thinks they’re not being honest with students about why Bouterse was fired.

“I don’t think the clear narrative is being shared to kids on the campus by my colleagues – the kids are being lied to,” Gonzalez said. “The narrative that the superintendent fired Bouterse because he didn’t like her, that’s a false narrative.” 

During the meeting Sciaretta, the superintendent, found himself squarely in critics’ crosshairs. Some speakers accused him of being a bully, while others criticized his pay – which is significantly higher than that of administrators. 

Mary Klauser, another Einstein parent, said Bouterse’s firing was the latest in a series of “symptoms of a deeper failure of leadership.” 

“There is no confidence in the current leadership’s ability to lead this school responsibly,” Klauser said. “In the last year, it has become increasingly clear that the superintendent is not uniting the school community.” 

Sciaretta refused to comment.  

After returning from closed session, Maria Ortega, the board’s president announced that it had voted to “authorize legal counsel to retain a licensed investigator on the board’s behalf to investigate personnel related complaints.” 

Exactly what those complaints entail is unclear. 

The post Firing of Longtime Einstein Principal Sparks Backlash Among Charter’s Community appeared first on Voice of San Diego.