Pending reinstatement hearings for suspended DeKalb school board members. All are at 10 a.m. before Judge Maxwell Wood of the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings.
June 18: Sarah Copelin-Wood.
June 26: Eugene Walker.
July 15: Jesse “Jay” Cunningham.
July 16: Donna Edler.
When Pam Speaks entered the courtroom Thursday, she was hoping to rise above humiliation and redeem her “stained” reputation after all that’s happened in the DeKalb County School District.
She also wanted to get her old seat back on the county school board, but she was confronted with a major obstacle at the reinstatement hearing.
Gov. Nathan Deal suspended her under a law that says he only has to put her back if he thinks her presence is “more likely than not” to improve the school district’s odds of retaining accreditation. And the man in charge of doling out accreditation testified that he didn’t think she’d contributed much in her four years of service.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed DeKalb on probation in December before Speaks and five others were kicked off the board by Deal. The agency’s head, Mark Elgart, warned back then that DeKalb could lose accreditation altogether if it didn’t address his agency’s concerns, many involving school board behavior.
Speaks said she’d read or heard no evidence from SACS indicating that she, specifically, had done anything wrong. On Thursday, though, Elgart testified that she’d done nothing right.
“There has been no evidence of your presence on the board as having a positive impact on the system,” he said, under questioning from her.
The answer didn’t address Speaks’ question, exactly. Acting as her own counsel, she had asked Elgart if he had any evidence that she had behaved improperly. She contends that she did nothing wrong except serve on the board at the wrong time — when the district’s accreditation dropped precariously low. She described herself as “collateral damage” in the events that unfolded after SACS lowered the accreditation boom.
When Judge Maxwell Wood pressed Elgart for an answer — what specifically had Speaks done wrong — he responded that he couldn’t give one because he wasn’t on the team that conducted his agency’s investigation.
Speaks isn’t the first to criticize SACS and its findings, which are likely to play a prominent part in the upcoming hearings. The lawyer for former school board chairman Eugene Walker, whose hearing will occur later this month, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the investigative report used to justify the probationary decision was uncorroborated, with references throughout to anonymous sources.
Thursday’s hearing at the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings was mandated under the law Deal used to suspend Speaks and five others. All had the right to ask him to reconsider and all but one did. Nancy Jester, the who didn’t, is now formally removed from the board.
Speaks and the other four remain on the district’s payroll but have no authority. Next week, Sarah Copelin-Wood is scheduled for a similar hearing. Walker’s hearing was scheduled for next week, too, but has now been postponed to June 26. The final two — Donna Edler and Jesse “Jay” Cunningham — are to appear in mid-July.
Deal delegated responsibility over the hearings to the state’s administrative hearing system, but Judge Wood’s decision — he wouldn’t say when he’ll release it — will only be a recommendation.
“I’ll take and give it due consideration,” Deal said Thursday. “But I’m going to do what I think is in the best interest of the system and for the children.”
Staff writer Kristina Torres contributed to this article.
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