In an attempt to prevent other school systems from ending up like Clayton County’s, the state Board of Education is looking at a proposal to give them the power to remove local board members, take over school systems and legislate who can run for office.

A commission of business leaders from across Georgia presented a 100-page report to the state board on Wednesday, outlining a way to improve board governance and student achievement. The recommendations focus on giving the state the power to intervene when problems arise.

PREVENTIVE MEASURES
The recommendations include:
• Change state law to allow the state Board of Education to place troubled school districts in receivership. This would include schools not performing academically, struggling with accreditation problems, financial mismanagement or abuse of power.
• Mandate stricter qualifications for school board members, including criminal background checks and drug screens by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
• Implement a statewide code of ethics and conflict of interest guidelines for school board members.
• Prohibit school board members from being paid. Only reimburse for expenses.
• Prohibit employees of any public or private k-12 school system in Georgia from serving on a Board of Education.
• Legislate the size of school boards to be five to seven members.
• Change all school board elections to nonpartisan during the general election in November.
• Require school boards to have a strategic plan for timely performance reviews.
• Penalize members for not attending annual training.

Clayton County schools headlines:

• Photos: Timeline of Clayton schools' woes

• AJC editorial: Less hope

• Uniform dress policy in all Clayton schools 
• Board member says colleagues broke the law 
• Clayton runoff will fill 2 school board seats 
• Clayton schools ethics panel off to rocky start 
• Haralson schools could lose accreditation 

Read the full report to SACS:
• Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Large PDFs)

• Read SACS' report (PDF)

• Photos: Non-meeting | Angry parents | 400 protest
• Clayton County news

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked Clayton County’s accreditation effective Sept. 1, citing a dysfunctional board as the main problem. Gov. Sonny Perdue acted the same day to remove four of the Clayton school board members.

“If we had interventions we could have exercised prior to all this, the situation might have been different,” said Mark A. Elgart, president and chief executive officer of SACS and a member of the Commission for School Board Excellence.

The commission also recommended that board members no longer be paid, teachers be prevented from serving on school boards because of potential conflicts of interest and reducing all large school boards to five to seven members.

Those recommendations go to the heart of Clayton’s problems: three of the four Clayton board members removed by Perdue were teachers. The fourth indicated she was on the board because she needed the $15,000 the position paid annually.

“Take away their salary and it would fix the Clayton County problem,” state Board of Education member Mary Sue Polleys said.

While some say the recommendations may have prevented situations such as Clayton’s, the proposed changes would take control away from local communities.

“I think it’s a long shot for the citizens to give away their power to elect people to run their local schools,” said Polleys, a former Muscogee County school board member. “The folks trust the people at home more than they trust the people in Atlanta.”

Many of the recommendations will require legislation, and some need Georgia voters to approve proposed changes to the state constitution.

“The striking part of the report is its general theme that local board member service is no longer viewed through the pure democratic approach of local citizens selecting representatives, as currently exists,” said attorney Glenn Brock. His firm represents 20 school districts in Georgia, including Cobb and Fulton counties.

If approved, school board members would have much stricter requirements than city councilmen, county commissioners and other local officials.

“The result requires more centralization, a higher level of oversight from the state and, strangely, more obstacles to hold office as a local school board member than for other elected officials, including the prohibition of receiving any compensation,” Brock said.

The commission also called for mandatory background checks and drug screens for school board members, along with a statewide ethics code.

Perdue called the recommendations a good first step. He has been looking at a possible change to the state constitution to allow state intervention in troubled schools.

“The next step we would like to see is combining the ideas with the work he’s done and develop some consensus on how to move forward,” said Bert Brantley, Perdue’s spokesman. “When local control fails, there has got to be a way for the state to step in and be more involved.”

Clayton isn’t alone. One-fifth of Georgia’s 185 school systems have struggled with governance problems in the past 10 years, Elgart said.

The others have just gotten help earlier than Clayton, Elgart said.

The business leaders said Georgia’s economy depends on fixing school boards, which directly affect student achievement.

“Student achievement ultimately affects prosperity of our city, our state and our region,” said Gary Price, commission chairman and managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers. “We can’t sit back and, as citizens of this state, allow another Clayton County to happen.”

The state Board of Education will discuss the recommendations next month and look at possible legislation for the next session.

Acting Clayton school board chairwoman Alieka Anderson declined to comment.