The Atlanta school district will conduct a "comprehensive review" to determine the extent of its problem with improper grade changing, district officials said Friday, following several instances of students receiving grades they didn't earn.
District investigative reports released in response to public records requests from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News show more than 200 cases of improper grading practices, including unjustified grade changes.
APS spokeswoman Jill Strickland said in a written statement that the school district would recommend safeguards to put in place before the start of the next school year.
Circumstances the investigative reports describe will sound depressingly familiar to those who followed Atlanta's last cheating scandal, in which 11 former educators were convicted of crimes connected to cheating on state tests: principals pressuring employees to change grades; retaliation against those who balked; and supervisors allegedly ignoring or implicitly approving the signs of cheating.
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen has refused repeated requests to speak with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the grade-changing allegations. She issued a written statement saying in part that “unethical behavior will not be tolerated at APS.”
Read the details of what went wrong with APS’ grading practices on MyAJC.com.
Parents, students, teachers: If you’ve been affected by grading issues at APS, contact molly.bloom@ajc.com or (770) 263-3866.
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