A former assistant principal Tuesday became the highest-ranking educator to plead guilty in the Atlanta Public Schools test-tampering scandal.
Gregory Reid is the fifth person charged in the sweeping racketeering indictment to admit to criminal wrongdoing. Reid worked at Parks Middle School, which was found to have the highest percentage of flagged classrooms in the state for wrong-to-right erasures in 2009.
Reid could prove to be a valuable witness for prosecutors at the APS racketeering trial scheduled for next spring. When outlining the plea agreement, lead prosecutor Fani Willis said Reid believes former APS Superintendent Beverly Hall and regional director Michael Pitts knew that the gains by Parks students on standardized tests did not meet their academic abilities and were the result of cheating.
Reid also is expected to provide damaging testimony against Christopher Waller, the former principal at Parks, and Sandra Ward, the school’s former testing coordinator, Willis said.
Reid, 46, read a letter of apology to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter, expressing dismay he put his family through an ordeal. He said he hoped all of the students affected are able to succeed despite his actions.
As an educator, Reid said, he knew the improved results by Parks Middle students on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests were not possible without outside intervention.
“Instead of reporting this to through the proper channels, I turned a blind eye to it,” Reid said. “In doing so, I allowed the cheating at Parks Middle School to persist.”
Reid admitted to participating in test cheating. He also acknowledged withholding information that he was directed to send teachers to a testing coordinator’s office where the tests and answer sheets were kept after their students completed taking the CRCT.
Fulton prosecutors dismissed racketeering and three other felony charges against Reid in exchange for his guilty plea and his cooperation. Reid pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of obstruction.
Baxter sentenced Reid to two years on probation and ordered him to perform 500 hours of community service and return $5,000 in bonus money he received. Reid also was given first-offender treatment, meaning if he successfully completes the term of his probation his conviction will be erased.
Baxter has scheduled more hearings for guilty pleas this week.
Reid began working in APS in 2001 as a teacher at Usher Middle School and was promoted to assistant principal at Parks in 2005.
Reid believed the culture of cheating at Parks began in 2006 and thrived under Waller’s leadership, Willis said. Reid also believed that Waller directed and facilitated cheating at the school, Willis said.
When a teacher prepared a report about testing irregularities at Parks, Reid witnessed Waller pressuring the teacher to change the facts in the report, Willis said.
“Cheating could not have occurred at Parks without defendant Waller directing it,” Willis said.
Richard Hyde, one of the governor’s special investigators who uncovered test cheating throughout the Atlanta school system, sat in court watching Reid’s guilty plea. The investigators’ report noted that a number of Parks’ teachers confessed to changing answers on standardized tests and it concluded that Waller directed cheating on the CRCT.
“We knew that Waller engaged in rank thuggery and this plea today confirms it,” Hyde said after the plea hearing.
Waller has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Don Samuel, declined comment Tuesday.
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