The choir at Trinity A.M.E Church sang “God Favored Me” during Sunday’s service, and this particular hymn spoke to Dessa Curb. Everything will be alright, was the message she got.
And it was.
“I am so blessed,” Curb told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday, a day after she was acquitted of conspiracy in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial.
Curb was the only one of 12 former administrators and principals the jury said did not have a role in a widespread conspiracy to change students’ answers on standardized tests.
This 66-year-old waif of a woman had tried not to react Wednesday as Judge Jerry Baxter announced four times that co-defendants were guilty. He broke that rhythm when he got to Curb’s name on the verdict sheet.
Baxter announced Curb was not guilty of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law. He said “not guilty” two times more after her name, on two counts of false statements and writings.
She softly said to herself “thank you, Jesus.”
Curb is overjoyed but also struggles with survivors’ guilt. Her co-defendants, friends of hers since the trial started in August, could be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison.
“I prayed for them this morning,” Curb said of the 11 who were convicted.
It was two years ago last Sunday that she learned from a television newscast that she had been indicted on charges including racketeering. She went to church that night anyway and was swarmed by congregants who had heard the same news.
“I couldn’t understand why I was indicted,” Curb said. “I thought I told them (investigators) everything. I thought I had explained everything.”
She couldn’t believe the direction her life was taking. Her only experience with the criminal justice system until then had been decades ago when she got a speeding ticket. She paid it.
Curb was young when her husband was killed in a car crash almost 34 years ago. She had two children, and her son was born with spina bifida a few months after his father died. At the time she sold glassware at home shows and volunteered in the classroom of her youngest child.
Eventually, the principal at that now-closed school asked her if she wanted to be a paraprofessional. She did, and later she got her teaching certification to work with disabled students.
“I was pulled to the school,” said Curb, now a grandmother of two.
She was moved several times when her special-education unit was transferred until she arrived at Dobbs Middle School the year it opened.
It was in 2009, witnesses said, that Curb told them to erase stray marks on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, CRCT.
That is what led to the charges against her.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening to me,” Curb said.
During the trial, Curb said she turned to the Bible and called her minister often after a day of testimony.
“I’d say, ‘reverend, how do I get through this?’ ”
She would sit outside and take walks when the pressure increased. It was in the back of her mind that walking was a luxury she could lose if she was convicted.
Curb’s defense attorney, Sanford Wallack, called only a half-dozen character witnesses including the mother of rapper Ludacris. Curb volunteers at Ludacris’ foundation.
Curb said she was confident the jury would see her as innocent but there were a few moments when she doubted herself.
Until Wednesday.
“God answers prayers,” she said.
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