The Dooly County school board last year sought time to address complaints that its members were meddling in schools, a cardinal sin according to accreditation organization AdvancED.

A year later, on Thursday, AdvanceED CEO Mark Elgart told the Georgia board of education that the Dooly board had not mended its ways. That led the state board to recommend that Gov. Nathan Deal suspend all members of the local board over governance and other issues.

State law allows the governor to intervene in school districts where accreditation is at risk. Dooly was “under review” due largely to governance issues.

Deal used this authority to remove two-thirds of the DeKalb County school board in 2013, when they ran afoul of AdvancED

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Wade Roberts (center), a Decatur-area resident with children in three of the city's schools, speaks as Decatur parents met with Education Planners, a consulting firm, on Nov. 13, at Beacon Hill Middle School in Decatur to discuss the possibility of one of the district's five K-2 schools closing. (Daniel Varnado for the AJC)

Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Inventor Lonnie Johnson stands with his Super Soaker water guns at JTEC Energy on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Atlanta. Johnson, a former NASA engineer, is currently working on a new energy technology through his company’s JTEC device that turns thermal heat into usable energy. (Natrice Miller/AJC)