Retired teacher Lavonia Ferrell changed answers on students’ standardized tests but she didn’t plead guilty to any charges in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating case.
Investigators did not charge Ferrell, who is now retired.
They also didn’t charge Sharon Pitts, who admitted in a court document that she destroyed copies of an internal investigative report about teachers and administrators changing answers on student tests, or Kathy Augustine, who investigators said lied about helping former Superintendent Beverly Hall cover up cheating by teachers.
Pitts now heads human resources for public schools in Grand Rapids, Mich. Augustine runs a consulting business out of her metro Atlanta home.
But for 10 lower-ranking former administrators and teachers, even getting to spend another night at home could be years away. They took their chances by going to trial rather than admitting guilt or turning on former colleagues, and they face the possibility of 20 years in prison when they’re sentenced today.
Some in metro Atlanta are upset about teachers who cheated being treated the same as someone who robbed a bank or ran a drug enterprise.
The difference in possible outcomes between those who were tried and those who were not strike many as unfair, but it is the way the justice system works: Cut a deal and you might be offered a chance to plead guilty to a lesser charge and get a lighter sentence, maybe even a chance to walk away. Demand a trial, and be ready to deal with heavy consequences.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter warned them early in the process they could pay a price for their choice to go to trial.
The 11 who were convicted now have to pay with prison time. Scott Smith, attorney for former Benteen Elementary School testing coordinator Theresia Copeland called that a “trial tax” for insisting on going to trial to seek a jury verdict. Copeland will be sentenced for one count each of racketeering and false statements and writings.
Those who opted for trial are a small fraction of the original 178 educators and administrators named in the governor’s investigative report of teachers changing answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.
Thirty-five were eventually indicted. Eighty-three were named unindicted co-conspirators. Sixty of those were given immunity. Ten of them testified.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard accepted pleas to lesser charges from 21 of the 35 indicted. Eleven of them finished their misdemeanor probation sentences, which included community service while their former colleagues were on trial. The rest either have time remaining on their probation or have not completed all their required community service.
Two of the educators indicted did not accept pleas but did not go to trial. Hall was excused from the trial for health reasons, and she died last month, before the jury had begun deliberating. D.H. Stanton Elementary School principal Willie Davenport died of cancer a few months after she was indicted.
It’s all within the district attorney’s discretion “as to whom they will charge and whom they will not,” said Georgia State University law professor Russell Covey.
Sometimes evidence is lacking or prosecutors made a deal in exchange for information. Also, Covey said, prosecutors “might believe the interest of justice might not be served by prosecuting that individual.”
Howard declined to discuss why anyone was or was not indicted early on. But the indictment of those charged refers to school employees who “admitted to cheating but have not been charged due to their confessions, cooperation and truthful testimony.”
The only mark against those who cooperated is the label “unindicted co-conspirator” that will forever be theirs, said attorney George Lawson, who represented Michael Pitts, a former regional administrator who is scheduled to be sentenced Monday.
“If they were truly co-conspirators… they go unscathed,” said attorney Akil Secret, who represented now-convicted former Deerwood Academy assistant principal Tabeeka Jordan.
The specific impact that ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ label had on many of them is hard to gauge. Almost all attempts to get comments from them were not successful. Messages weren’t returned. Phones had been disconnected. And a few declined to talk, saying they had new careers or new lives and wanted that troubled time to remain in their past.
Stacey Smith, one of the unindicted co-conspirators, was a third-grade teacher at Usher/Collier Heights Elementary School when she cheated, she testified. Smith now teaches at an area Head Start program. She cried while she testified, explaining she had been new to education, scared, and wanted to fit in at Usher/Collier Heights.
Smith couldn’t be reached for comment.
At least one unindicted co-conspirator continues to teach at an Atlanta elementary school, and others are in classrooms at schools throughout the metro area and the state, according to state and APS records.
Two are teaching in other countries. Former Finch Elementary School teacher Sharona Thomas-Wilson is in Dubai, and former Benteen Elementary School Diana Quisenberry is reported to be in Southeast Asia, according to their attorneys.
Those who did not face prison time are trying to move on.
Augustine, the former No. 2 at APS who was extremely close to Hall, helped cover up widespread cheating and illegally destroyed documents, according to investigators. But she wasn’t charged.
Augustine resigned from APS in 2012, shortly after the governor's investigative report was released. She took a job as superintendent of a suburban Dallas school system, but was put on administrative leave after her first day with the DeSoto Independent School District because of the brewing APS controversy. The district cancelled her contract before she could work a second day. Augustine is back in Georgia, running a business out of her metro Atlanta home.
She did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Ferrell, a teacher for 35 years, retired and walked away unscathed though she admitted to a reporter and on the stand that she cheated: she changed students’ answers on the 2008 and 2009 CRCTs.
“I’m a law-abiding citizen. To be looked at like that didn’t make any sense,” she said.
“I’ve been trying to forget about it.”
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