A former Atlanta teacher admitted giving test answers to her students and pleaded guilty Friday, the second defendant to do so in the broad cheating scandal.
Under a plea deal, former Humphries Elementary teacher Ingrid Abella-Sly will serve one year on probation, perform 250 hours of community service to Atlanta students and repay $500 that she received as a bonus payment for her students’ falsely earned scores.
She also becomes a potential witness against some of the 32 remaining defendants.
“The school system had unreasonable expectations that neither I nor the students could meet,” Abella-Sly wrote in a letter Friday to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter. “Because of increasing and unreasonable pressure from my supervisors I made a poor decision to help children cheat on the 2009 CRCT. I realize now that this only hurt the students in the long run.”
Abella-Sly admitted in her plea agreement that she gave answers to students so they could reach academic targets. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obstruction charge, and felony charges of racketeering, making false statements and theft were dropped.
Her negotiated sentence was similar to the punishment given to the first teacher to plead guilty in the case, Lisa Terry, who was Abella-Sly’s former co-worker at Humphries Elementary in south Atlanta.
Through probation and community service, they avoided sentences that would have started at five years if a jury had found them guilty on racketeering charges.
Additional plea deals may be coming.
Baxter has set a Jan. 6 deadline for defendants to negotiate pleas with prosecutors. He will accept the terms of deals recommended by prosecutors and defendants before his deadline; guilty pleas entered after that date hold no such guarantee.
Any defendants remaining would face a jury trial scheduled to begin April 21.
In court Friday before Abella-Sly pleaded guilty, Baxter ruled against four former educators who sought to limit testimony against them. His ruling allows prosecutors to use teachers and proctors during the trial who allegedly witnessed cheating.
Prosecutors said they would show that former Superintendent Beverly Hall set high standards for student test scores and made teachers fear for their jobs if they didn’t find a way to reach her goals.
As a result, said Assistant District Attorney Clint Rucker, educators conspired to change students’ incorrect test answers so it would look like they were making the grade. Hall wasn’t in court Friday, and Baxter had previously ruled against her efforts to suppress testimony.
“She, through her policies, put forth an unreasonable and unmanageable pressure system whereby the targets were to be met at all costs,” Rucker said. “Our contention was that this wasn’t done for the benefit of the children, but it was actually done for the benefit of those who have been charged in this indictment because it made them look good.”
Defense attorneys tried to poke holes in the idea that the educators were part of a conspiracy, saying the prosecution lacked evidence linking some of the school-level educators to their higher-ups, including Hall.
Racketeering charges make it seem like one of the defendants, former Dunbar Elementary testing coordinator Lera Middlebrooks, was a “gangster,” “thug” or “mafioso,” said her attorney, Wesley Gerard Person.
“We’re charging educators … and characterizing them as hardened criminals, but I don’t think we’ll see any evidence that my client physically approached anyone or intimidated them,” Person said. “The only connection between Ms. Middlebrooks and … other defendants in the case is that she worked for the Atlanta Public School system.”
Baxter denied motions from Middlebrooks, former Deerwood Academy Assistant Principal Tabeeka Jordan, former Dobbs Elementary teacher Dessa Curb and former Dunbar Elementary teacher Pamela Cleveland.
In addition, the judge scolded defense attorney Page Pate for speaking about the case on a public radio station Thursday. Pate, who represents former Parks Middle School testing coordinator Sandra Ward, said he later realized the interview was “in poor judgment,” and he said he won’t comment on the case while it’s pending.
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