Former Cook Elementary School Principal LaPaul Shelton kept changing his story when he was questioned about his alleged role in the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test cheating scandal, an investigator testified Friday during an Atlanta Public Schools tribunal.
The school system is seeking to terminate the contract of Shelton, a tenured employee, and Shelton asked for a hearing before a three-person tribunal.
Keri Ware, who twice interviewed Shelton in 2011 when she was an investigator with the governor’s special investigator’s team, said Shelton’s “testimony evolved as we confronted him with additional information” about whether he had received reports of cheating at the school.
According to a report by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement that implicated about 180 APS educators, 40 percent of test rooms at Cook Elementary were flagged for an unusual number of wrong test answers that were erased and changed to right answers. That many changes are considered an indication of probable cheating.
APS attorney Broderick Harrell said in his opening statement that as principal Shelton was “the captain of the ship, and to the extent there was cheating, he was responsible.”
During interviews with investigators, the former principal denied knowing about cheating, investigator Ware testified.
“He said he did not receive any reports of cheating, and that was contrary to other information we had received in the investigation,” Ware said.
Shelton, the first witness called to the stand, testified he followed procedures and was not aware of cheating at the school. He confirmed he told teachers to make lists of students who had academic and behavioral problems, and that those students were put in separate testing rooms to take the 2009 CRCT.
But he said it was only so students could perform their best, and that their test sheets weren’t handled differently afterward. “There was nothing coded on the answer sheet to indicate they were special education students,” Shelton said.
Joseph Blessing, APS director of testing and assessment, testified that placing the students in small groups in a special room as Shelton did was a violation of state testing guidelines and policy.
In his opening statement, Shelton’s attorney said he singled out students who were struggling so he could personally tutor many of them.
“He thought he could make a difference by being more than just a school principal,” Lawson said.
The tribunal adjourned Friday and will go into a second day of testimony, which has not been scheduled.
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