Then-Superintendent Beverly Hall may have been at the top of Atlanta Public Schools’ “no excuses” culture.
But the pressure to meet performance targets was felt all the way down in former Dobbs Elementary School teacher Shayla Smith’s classroom, Smith testified Monday in the Atlanta schools test-cheating trial.
The message Smith said she got from former Dobbs principal Dana Evans was clear: If you can’t hack it at Dobbs, “Wal-Mart’s always hiring,” Smith said.
Evans’ lawyer, Bob Rubin, disputed that account and said Evans never suggested that teachers who didn’t measure up should apply at Wal-Mart.
The trial of 12 former Atlanta Public Schools employees in connection with an alleged cheating conspiracy resumed Monday after a two-week winter break. The trial is expected to continue well into 2015.
Smith’s testimony focused on cheating at Dobbs Elementary School, where a state investigation found a third of classrooms in 2009 had high rates of wrong-to-right erasures on state test answer sheets. Her testimony was part of the prosecution’s case against Evans, former Dobbs teacher Angela Williamson and former regional supervisor Michael Pitts.
Smith pleaded guilty in 2013 to a misdemeanor count of obstruction and agreed to testify for the prosecution. She has admitted erasing and changing students answers and prompting students during state testing.
Smith spent much of Monday on the witness stand with boxes of student answer sheets — evidence in the case — piled high behind her.
Cheating at Dobbs took place before Evans became principal and continued for several years after, Smith said.
During the 2006-7 school year, administration memos at Dobbs bore the heading “By Any Means Necessary,” Smith said.
That year, Smith said she and her fellow fourth-grade teachers were told to “clean up” their students’ state test answer sheets. At first, Smith thought that meant erasing any stray marks. But then Williamson showed her the light, Smith said.
“You change those answers for those kids,” Smith said Williamson told her and another teacher.
Smith said she and her colleagues changed the answers on lower-performing students’ answer sheets to match the answers from higher-performing students.
That year, the school met district test-performance targets. Dobbs staff were rewarded with seats on the Georgia Dome field and a serenade by a Mardi Gras-style band during a district celebration. Despite ongoing cheating, Dobbs did not meet all targets in the following years, Smith said.
The next school year, Evans became Dobbs’ principal. She asked a group of teachers why they had been so successful.
The room was silent, Smith said.
“Everybody just looked around like … is she going to figure it out?” she said.
But at Dobbs “no excuses” wasn’t code for cheating, Bob Rubin, Evans’ attorney, said to Smith during cross-examination.
“It’s code for achieving without whining,” he said.
One could say that, Smith responded.
In earlier testimony in the trial and a district hearing, fellow teachers said Smith said she had to cheat on state tests because her students were “dumb as hell.”
On Monday, Smith denied saying that.
Testimony about cheating at Dobbs is scheduled to continue Tuesday.
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