The Atlanta high school registrar who says she was fired in an act of retaliation after she accused her principal of unethical behavior is still out of a job.
A hearing officer ruled this month that Atlanta Public Schools acted appropriately in firing former Washington High School registrar Ailisha Jones after she allegedly changed a student's grade from a failing grade of 69 to a passing grade of 70, a charge Jones disputes.
Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she wasn’t surprised by the hearing officer’s decision.
“Because I continued to ask questions, this is what happens,” she said. “They’re cultivating a culture of fear and if you go to them they’re not going to do anything.”
The hearing officer’s finding now goes to the school board for final action, APS spokesman James Malone said.
Malone declined to comment on the finding. But during a hearing earlier this fall, a lawyer representing the school district argued that Jones had betrayed the public "faith and trust."
The AJC and Channel 2 Action News reported this spring on questions about academic integrity at Atlanta high schools including Washington. In some cases, principals changed grades; others involved principals entering unearned grades for entire classes or ordering teachers not to fail students. In several cases, staff claimed they were retaliated against for reporting the grade manipulation, but district investigators said retaliation claims were justified in only a few cases.
A subsequent internal review of grading practices found lax security around grading in Atlanta high schools. All school staff had access to a feature that allowed them to enter grades directly to a student's transcript."This is a serious issue and virtually eliminates all controls over grade changing," district accountability chief Bill Caritj wrote.
That report did not identify additional instances of "serious inappropriate actions."
In Jones’ case, the district’s online gradebook showed that she altered the student’s record, according to a district report.
But Jones said she only corrected the number of credits the student earned as part of an effort to “clean up” numerous transcript errors. During a civil service hearing, her lawyer argued that another school employee could have changed the grade.
Jones said Principal Tasharah Wilson reported the single grade change after Jones complained about another transcript manipulation: Jones said the school was breaking the rules by giving grades to students in three classes whose teachers were no longer teaching.
In another case, former Carver School of Technology secretary Rolanda Veal saw her job eliminated this year after she refused orders to award dozens of students grades they hadn’t earned. An internal district investigation found that wasn’t retaliation. A hearing in her case was held Friday.
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