The more than 800 students at Albert Einstein Charter Academy Elementary School left for Thanksgiving break with a principal and came back without one. On Saturday night, Superintendent David Sciarretta emailed the following message to the entire school community: Dear AEA Community, I am w riting to share an important update. Effective immediately, Principal Greta Bouterse is no longer employed at Albert Einstein Academies. Because this is a confidential personnel matter, we are unable to provide additional details. We wish Ms. Bouterse well in her future endeavors. We are currently working on an interim leadership plan and will share more information with you shortly. In the meantime, please know that our campuses will continue to operate as usual on Monday morning. Our staff remain fully committed to ensuring a smooth transition and maintaining a supportive, stable environment for all students. Dozens of students and teachers showed up to an emergency school board meeting on Monday wearing all black in solidarity with Bouterse. “The loss is the equivalent to a death that should have been handled with similar care,” said Nicole Johnson, an Albert Einstein Academy teacher. “I propose that grief counseling should have been offered to the staff to deal with this traumatic loss.” Fourth-grader Scarlett Cook held back tears as she spoke before the board. “All of my classmates are sad and hopeless that we’ll ever find joy in our school,” she said. The community heard that Bouterse was fired because she didn’t have the right credentials to be principal, but she’s been in the role for 12 years. Scarlett’s mom, Natalie Cook, wondered why the superintendent would fire her now. “I think that’s just kind of a loophole that he’s trying to utilize,” Cook said. “I think a lot of it goes down to the fact that she wouldn’t stand with the superintendent for the things that he continues to demand of the school.” Sciarretta has not responded to NBC 7’s repeated requests for comment. As a charter district, parents suspect there’s more to the story. Dozens of them have also already begun removing their children from the school. Veronica Yepez was 400th on the waitlist for Einstein before getting in but said if she knew what was coming, she and her kids would have run the other direction. “I think it’s important for people to understand before enrolling children to charter schools how accountability works here and how lost you can feel as a parent when things go bad,” she said. Albert Einstein Academy students plan to walk out of school in protest next Wednesday. ...read more read less