By the numbers:
Number of Atlanta Public School educators identified in state investigation into “testing improprieties” during the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test: 178
Number who have resigned, retired, did not have their contracts renewed, or appealed their dismissal before tribunals and lost: 151
Number reinstated after tribunals or because of insufficient evidence of cheating: 17
Number awaiting tribunal appeals: 4
The review process:
Atlanta Public Schools tribunals: The district is holding tribunals for educators accused of cheating who want to appeal their dismissals. Only three have won their appeals. All educators named in the state investigation are facing the suspension or revocation of their teaching licenses by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.
Georgia Professional Standards Commission: 110 APS educators are appealing the commission’s recommendation that their teaching licenses be revoked or suspended. The commission will not hear any appeals, before a state administrative judge, until it has all the evidence in all the cases, some of which is still being investigated by the Fulton County District Attorney.
Fulton County District Attorney: The Fulton DA is conducting its own investigation of all the accused educators. The DA still has the case files of 40 educators as District Attorney Paul Howard considers criminal charges. The statute of limitations on some of the alleged crimes, including fraud, runs out April 26.
Eighteen months after a cheating scandal rocked Atlanta Public Schools and the district moved to purge 178 educators named in a state investigation, the district’s house cleaning is nearly done.
Only four APS educators are still appealing to the district to keep their jobs after the investigation found that teachers changed answers on standardized tests or coached students at 44 of the 55 schools examined. Dozens of teachers and administrators have confessed to cheating.
Still, there’s no closure for either the district or the accused educators: They are caught in a limbo world between two investigating agencies – the Fulton County District Attorney and the state Professional Standards Commission. And some are questioning whether the convoluted process has been fair to the accused.
The Fulton County District Attorney is still holding the investigative files of 40 of the educators — including former superintendent Beverly Hall, and top administrators Kathy Augustine, Millicent Few, Sharon Davis Williams, Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman — as he considers criminal charges, according to Senior Assistant Attorney General Rebecca Mick, who represents the commission in appeals.
Until the district attorney releases those 40 files, Mick said, the commission can’t complete its investigation and hold hearings for the 110 APS educators who have challenged sanctions. Fulton DA Paul Howard declined to comment on his investigation. The delay has been frustrating to educators trying to clear their names.
The commission is recommending either suspending or revoking the teaching licenses of all 178 educators named in the state report — including the 17 educators whom Atlanta Public Schools determined later did not cheat.
APS has spent about $2.5 million to purge the educators, including fees to outside attorneys and hearing officers and $150 a day per member of the three-personal tribunals.
Immediately after the damning July 2011 state investigation, the district was shelling out about $1 million a month to educators who were placed on paid administrative leave. Those payments ended in July 2012.
Atlanta Public Schools Board chairman Reuben McDaniel said the district moved as fast and fairly as it could to get rid of bad educators and resolve the cases of those who appealed termination.
But the state threw such a wide net in its investigation — in which some educators were implicated solely because a statistical analysis of wrong answers changed to right answers indicated probable cheating – mistakes were made, said McDaniel.
“Unfortunately, some innocent people were caught up in that,” said McDaniel. “But we decided that, if we were going to err, it would be on the side of protecting students from bad teachers.”
Defense attorneys and some accused teachers said the tribunal system was set against them. Of 31 educators who appealed to tribunals, only four won, all teachers: Debra Dixon, Angela Williamson, Theresa Bell and Corliss Love. But the day after Williamson, 46, became the first to prevail last June, the Fulton DA notified APS it had more evidence against the Dobbs Elementary teacher. She was brought before a second tribunal in December – and lost.
Defense attorneys said the APS process, which is dictated by the state’s Fair Dismissal Act, allowed the district to make cases against teachers that could not have made in a courtroom, or before the commission, where the standards of evidence are higher.
Teachers appeals were denied in some cases simply because the tribunals established that Superintendent Erroll Davis had “lost confidence” in the educator, and that was based in part on the commission’s recommendation the educator’s license be revoked or suspended.
Defense attorney Mel Goldstein described the tribunal process as “trial by ambush” because, in many cases, the district denied defense attorneys access to recordings of their client’s interviews with GBI agents and other witness testimony. On at least two occasions, when the recordings were made available, they changed the outcome.
In one tribunal, the recording revealed that an educator had confessed, though his attorney said he hadn’t. In another, a teacher won her tribunal when the tape revealed, contrary to APS’s claim, she had not confessed to the GBI agent.
Attorney Bill Amideo said the tribunals were not an “objective forum” because the tribunal members and the hearing officer were paid by the district, unlike with a trial judge and jury. “From our standpoint, the justice was very uneven,” said Amideo.
Superintendent Erroll Davis said that the district had “limited flexibility” in the way it conducted the tribunals, but it hewed strictly to state guidelines. “We should consider asking if the process has been fair to the ethical teachers and administrators who are committed to making a difference in the lives of our students,” Davis wrote in an email response to questions.
“Over 95 percent of our teachers and administrators had absolutely nothing to do with the cheating scandal, and yet they have been operating under a cloud of scandal that they didn’t create and that they don’t deserve.”
Commission investigator John Grant said his agency has a responsibility to put the brakes on all the appeals, which will be held before an administrative law judge, until all the evidence is available to defense and prosecution.
“We don’t want to hear an appeal and get a ruling from the judge and find out, two or three months later, there was other evidence out there that we could have used that might have changed the outcome,” said Grant.
Former Jones Elementary school third grade teacher Idalina Couto, who awaits an appeal before the commission, counts herself as a victim of the process. She appealed her termination before a tribunal last May and failed to get reinstated.
Couto was accused of prompting students to change wrong answers to right answers by telling them to check their work. During her hearing, her attorney argued that the GBI agent misrepresented her statements in his summary of her interview, but he had not recorded it and discarded his notes.
Along with her $62,000-a-year job, Couto lost her home because of the financial strain of the ordeal, she said, and now lives in Douglas County in a rental property with her two school-aged children and elderly parents.With a cheating scandal on her resume, and the commission recommending her license be suspended, her career as a teacher is over, said Couto. At 47, she’s just trying to reclaim her life.
She looks for work and gets turned down for jobs in education that pay one third what she earned as a teacher. Not long ago she applied for a clerical job at a Fulton County school.
“The principal told me I was more than qualified, but he didn’t feel comfortable hiring me because of the fear of backlash from parents,” said Couto.
Angela Williamson — who was also accused of prompting students to change wrong answers to right answers by telling then to check their work — is appealing to Fulton County Superior Court. Williamson, who lost her second tribunal after winning her first, said the ordeal has been financially, physically and emotionally wrenching.
“APS has ripped my life apart,” she said.
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