Atlanta Public Schools’ sweep to purge the system of educators involved in a widespread cheating scandal focused Monday on a Dobbs Elementary School teacher accused of prompting his fourth-grade students to change their answers on the state's standardized exam.
A team of attorneys for Derrick Broadwater, who is one of about 180 APS educators named in a state investigation into cheating on the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, portrayed their client during the first day before the APS tribunal as the "victim" of a "rush to do damage control" by the school system's superintendent, Erroll Davis.
“Damage control is all about one thing -- heads are going to roll,” said Harold Corlew, a lawyer for Broadwater. The attorney said that in that effort to preserve the school system's image, “some innocent people have gotten picked up in the shuffle. Derrick Broadwater never cheated on the CRCT; he never changed an answer on the answer sheet. He never improperly prompted a student."
But an attorney for APS said Broadwater admitted cheating during a special investigation of testing impropriety.
“Instead of acting with integrity ... Mr. Broadwater was dishonest,” said Nina Gupta, the attorney representing APS. “He would read words for students that they couldn’t read themselves. The whole point of the CRCT is to see how kids perform. His actions completely invalidated this test. As a result, his students' scores were artificially inflated. They lost out on a chance for remediation and educational opportunities they had a right to.”
Davis has recommended that Broadwater, like the others named in the investigation, be terminated because the district has lost confidence in his ability to teach.
But Broadwater’s attorneys questioned whether he could get a fair hearing when Davis did not comply with their subpoena to appear for questioning, and they complained that key documents they had subpoenaed were not made available.
Those documents included a copy of the GBI's interview with Broadwater in which he allegedly confessed.
Eugene Howard, a special agent with the GBI, said his original notes had been "destroyed" and the tape recording was part of a criminal investigation and was not available at the time of his testimony.
Under a subpoena, the tape had to be produced, Corlew said. "We know that they have produced it to other people," he said. "It is the best and highest evidence of what was said."
University of Georgia law professor Ronald Carlson said the tape evidence and Davis' failure to appear after being subpoenaed could be a matter for a judge to decide if Broadwater feels they had a negative impact on his case.
Howard testified Monday that Broadwater told individual students to reread sections they may have gotten wrong. He also told his class to check their work.
"When asked during the interview would he consider what he did a testing violation, he said yes," Howard said. "However, he did say at the conclusion, at the time he didn’t think it was wrong.’’
Gupta finished presenting her case late Monday. The defense will present its case April 25.
Legal wrangling delayed the start of the case.
Before the proceedings, Broadwater’s attorneys objected to having semi-retired attorney Eugene Medori act as an administrative hearing officer over the tribunal because they believed he lacked sufficient courtroom experience in employment law and said that his scheduling was arranged by Brock Clay, the firm representing APS. A hearing officer responds to legal questions involving evidence and other matters in a tribunal.
"If they don't like the rulings you make, you don't get any more hearings," Corlew asked Medori.
"Yes," Medori responded. Medori, who served as the hearing officer of a tribunal last week, also said that his ability to oversee future hearings was at the discretion of APS.
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