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Monday, November 17, 2008
More accreditation problems
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clayton County has some company. The Haralson County school board in west Georgia was ordered to make drastic improvements or lose its accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Haralson school board members were cited for numerous governance problems such as micromanaging district business, ignoring their own policies and violating their ethics rules.
Sound familiar? These are many of the same problems that Clayton school leaders are facing. Clayton lost its accreditation Sept. 1.
On previous posts, many of you have said that other systems have similar problems but SACS hasn’t reprimanded them.
How widespread do you think these problems are?
The Commission for School Board Excellence produced an extensive report, suggesting changes to the training and structure of school boards to prevent problems. The suggestions include: allowing the State Board of Education to intervene when board members fail, creating uniform conflict-of-interest and ethics policies and requiring school board candidates to meet minimum qualifications.
These recommendations would need approval by the Legislature, but would they do any good?
