The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which uncovered widespread test-cheating in Atlanta Public Schools, has closely followed the scandal’s lingering aftermath. We continue to monitor the impacts and provide in-depth coverage of new superintendent Meria Carstarphen’s efforts to make changes.
Mandatory district-wide ethics training was a cornerstone of plans to reform Atlanta Public Schools after its test-cheating scandal. But now district officials can't say how many employees actually completed the training.
"I can't find any evidence that it was carefully monitored," said new human resources chief Pamela Hall, who started work this summer as part of superintendent Meria Carstarphen's administration.
Carstarphen has said fixing what she calls the district’s “hot mess” of a human resources system is one of her top priorities. But the training program highlights the challenge Carstarphen faces in delivering on her promises to improve the Atlanta schools.
Fixing the district's administrative systems is likely to be an expensive proposition given the poor design of many of those systems, said former superintendent Erroll Davis.
After a June 2011 state report that outlined a culture of cheating, cover-up and obstruction in the Atlanta school district, Davis, then APS' newly appointed interim superintendent, announced a plan to clean up the district. The plan included mandatory ethics training for all employees — and the threat of discipline up to and including termination for employees who failed to complete the training.
In its current form, the ethics training consists of an online presentation followed by an online quiz, Hall said.
The quiz includes questions like “Who is responsible for the safety and well-being of the students in APS” and “Which of the following is NOT one of the four basic values of ethics”?
Every APS employee has to take the training every year. Employees must watch the presentation and pass the quiz to receive credit for completing the training. The test is taken on the honor system, without proctors.
APS paid Kennesaw State University $224,000 through a competitively bid contract to help set up the program. It’s administered in-house so there’s not a direct cost now to the district in providing it.
Initially, the program received close scrutiny. Davis announced in December 2011 that he would begin termination proceedings against employees who did not complete the training by the end of the year. All employees complied, he said.
Former APS Chief Strategy and Development Officer Alexis Kirijan, head of the division that oversaw the program in its first two years, said her team tracked participation carefully and followed up with employees who did not complete the training. During 2013-14, that responsibility shifted to a reorganized human resources department, she said. Former APS human resources chief Ron Price, who joined the district during the 2013-14 school year, could not be reached for comment.
District records obtained under the Georgia Open Records Act suggest as many as a fifth of district employees may have failed to complete the training last year. Hall said she can't verify how many employees actually completed the training or whether anyone was disciplined for not completing it. Some of the employees listed in district records as not completing the program may not have been required to do so or may have completed it but not received credit, she said.
“If the point is that after the first year everybody forgot about ethics, that’s not correct,” Davis said. But if the point is that the district can’t document that everyone who was supposed to complete the training did, “then that probably is correct,” he said.
That doesn’t mean the ethics training wasn’t effective, he said.
“Compliance for the sake of compliance was not the purpose,” he said. “The overall purpose was to continue to state and reinforce our values and our expectations.”
Hall said this year the district plans to do a better job of communicating with employees about the required training, tracking results, and making it available to employees without regular access to district computers.
“I can’t go back and change what was done,” she said. “But this is an easy fix moving forward.”
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