Education
Education

Georgia Supreme Court denies dismissal hearing for former principal

By Ty Tagami
Sept 25, 2014

A former DeKalb County principal fired after her school spent thousands of dollars buying copies of a book she wrote has lost her legal claim for a dismissal hearing.

Yvonne Butler was suspended in 2010 and ultimately lost her job after an investigation determined that multiple copies of a book she published through her own company were purchased by her school and by another school where her sister was principal. (The sister also lost her job.)

Butler was suspended from her post running Browns Mill Elementary, then demoted to a teaching position that she refused to accept. She sued for a hearing under Georgia’s Fair Dismissal Act, but the Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week that she was not entitled to a hearing because she wasn’t a principal prior to 1995 when the General Assembly eliminated hearings for school administrators.

About the Author

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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