Parents urged to ask questions; avoid conclusions

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As state officials investigate suspicious test scores, parents at the schools in question should stay involved in their children's education and notify teachers if they have concerns, educators say.

“Until the investigation is concluded and irregularities are actually found, there is nothing specifically that parents can do,” said Dale Davis, spokesman for DeKalb County schools.

In general, parents of students in failing schools may request a transfer to another school or other support services. But officials cautioned that schools named in the report have not been found guilty of cheating.

"The message for parents is don't jump to conclusions,"  Georgia schools Superintendent Kathy Cox said. "There's a lot of different reasons you can have a lot of changes" on students' test answer sheets, including that students erased and changed the answers themselves.

"Parents know at the end of the day whether [their] child's CRCT results correspond with what's going on during the year," she said.

Parents should be concerned if their school is considered to have a "severe" number of erasures, said Kathleen Mathers, executive director of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, which produced the report. However, she cautioned, the state's and local system's investigative work is not finished.

She urged parents to look at the data on the office's Web site.

Six DeKalb schools were cited in the report.

Once a district investigation is complete, Davis said that parents will be notified directly about any irregularities affecting students.

“If remediation is necessary for that child, the district will immediately put a plan in place to assist that student,” he said.

Three Fulton County schools were in the report. One of the schools -- Hapeville Charter – operates independently of the Fulton school district.

“We take student assessment very seriously in Fulton County schools and are concerned that there could possibly be irregularities at any of our schools,” said Allison Toller, spokeswoman for the district.

Staff writer Kristina Torres contributed to this report