DeKalb County School District officials say they have completed tasks required by accrediting council AdvancED to regain full accreditation, despite concerns earlier this year from AdvancED’s leader about school board practices.
The district was given 14 items to work on by a monitoring review board from AdvancED. As of February 2015, just three of those were still listed as not being complete. They were:
• Implement policies and procedures that ensure segregation of duties of the board and the administration. This would include eliminating board working committees that result in board members assuming functions that should be the responsibility of administrative staff.
• Develop processes to ensure continuous improvement in efforts to make the board a highly effective governing body.
• Develop and implement plans, policies and processes to monitor, evaluate and sustain the school system’s continuous improvement efforts.
Efforts to reach Mark Elgart, President and CEO of AdvancED, for comment by phone or in person have been unsuccessful.
District spokesman Quinn Hudson said AdvancED’s monitoring review team met with district officials in early December. That’s when the district laid out its case for gaining full accreditation, which it has not had in more than five years.
According to a report by the monitoring review team, this is its process: An on-site team meets with the superintendent and interviews about two dozen stakeholders selected by the school system representing board members, district office staff, regional superintendents, principals, parents and others. The team also reviews evidence the system provided in a progress report; then it reports its findings.
The district was “Accredited on Probation” after an October 2012 site review amid slumping test scores and budget mismanagement, evidenced by a $14 million deficit. The district already had been listed as “Accredited on Advisement,” one step beneath unconditional accreditation.
After a December 2013 visit, the district’s accreditation was boosted to “Accredited Warned.” A visit in December 2014 moved it up to “Accredited on Advisement.”
Elgart voiced his displeasure this spring on the timeline the district used to replace Superintendent Michael Thurmond. It began working with a search firm in late 2014 to find a new superintendent, though officials had known more than a year that Thurmond intended to vacate the role by July 2015.
He pointed to the search firm DeKalb hired, PROACT Search, noting that Atlanta Public Schools had hired and fired that firm and that federal investigators were delving into the company’s practices. PROACT’s leader, Gary Solomon, has remained silent about any potential wrongdoing.
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