Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, at Atlanta Public School headquarters, said she would not comment on the verdicts or the sentences handed down to former Atlanta educators Tuesday, saying those decisions were up to the judge and jury.
“I hope … we do bring closure to this chapter in APS history,” she said. “We learn from it … and it sobers us up about the kind of commitments and people and value systems we have to have in place.”
Carstarphen said district leadership is addressing how it teaches students, looking more at individual education plans that address an individual child’s needs and successes. She said she wants to see a strengthened role for early childhood education, which has been proven to eliminate gaps in achievement.
“We need a culture … that understands the difference between what we’re trying to do and a real mission/vision direction and what’s acceptable in the school system,” she said. “That culture piece, if that does not shift, will eat that strategy for lunch every day.”
Erroll Davis, who came in as interim superintendent between Beverly Hall and Carstarphen and dealt with the immediate aftermath of firing and dismissing many teachers caught up in the scandal, said, “I don’t know what the jury heard, but I have to respect the will of the jury.”
Dozens of other educators lost their jobs, and 21 of them had pleaded guilty earlier and suffered various punishments such as lost teaching licenses and probation.
“But I think it’s clear that it didn’t have to come to this. I think (the convicted) knew they didn’t have to go through with this, they took some risks and it backfired on them,” Davis said.
After hearing that some of the convicted got seven years in jail, he said, “I want to be sympathetic, but there were gross inequities visited on the children of this city.”
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