Atlanta Public Schools superintendent Meria Carstarphen started work last summer, a year after more than 30 former Atlanta educators were indicted in a district-wide cheating conspiracy.
During her first year on the job, a dozen of those accused were tried and 11 convicted. She inherited a district scarred by national notoriety.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed Carstarphen on her one-year APS anniversary.
Read an excerpt from that interview below — and read our full assessment of her first year in Atlanta on MyAJC.com. The excerpt has been edited for length.
AJC: Can you talk about what you see as your biggest successes this year and your biggest failures?
“I was really pleased with the way we opened the school year. I haven’t had a district with so many structural and organizational challenges since I worked in Washington, D.C. Very simple things were very complicated here – like making sure principals were hired, making sure thatwe had schools staffed, opening with master schedules.”
"I was pleased with board, the community, the staff aggressively, every month, getting on top of operating model deadline." (Note: The state required districts to pick from a menu of new school governance models. Atlanta opted for a "charter system" model.)
“I was very excited about the engagement we had from folks all across Atlanta. What emerged from the community level was a desire to strengthen the clusters. So part of our proposal, while not required, includes cluster planning. And I think that is going to make our neighborhood schools stronger and, given the way Atlanta works, I think it will help us build pride and trust again.”
“Another piece I was super proud of was the special ed cleanup. We had an audit that was done, and somewhat implemented, but there hadn’t been a true refresh. The truth is we didn’t know all we needed to know about the children who had IEPs and their academic records.”
“We’ve been working really hard on culture: The work that we’ve been doing to redirect everyone, the entire city of Atlanta, on the fact that we are not an employment agency, that we are not a place that’s going to bankroll you, we are not a pass-through of funds so you can do other things. We are a public school system that is supposed to be educating kids so they graduate on time ready for college and career, which means everything we do has to be tied to the child and supporting the school.”
“While we’re working on culture, it still frustrates me immensely that we have adults in the system that are still trying to game the system. Whether it’s intentional or not, there are still enough people who aren’t thinking things through enough to understand the consequences of some of their decision making. It continues to wear on the public perception of the district.”
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