Atlanta Public Schools notified hundreds of educators last week that their future employment is uncertain, reigniting protests from state investigators who have repeatedly complained about intimidation of potential witnesses in their wide-ranging criminal inquiry into test tampering.
The investigators, appointed to examine cheating in Atlanta after the state found high numbers of suspicious erasures on standardized tests in 2009, told the school district Friday to immediately withdraw letters telling about 450 teachers their contract renewals are on hold. The delays came as the investigators continue to question district employees who may have participated in or witnessed wrongdoing by superiors.
“It’s a serious matter,” Mike Bowers, a former Georgia attorney general and one of the investigators, said in an interview Friday. “We have contacted lawyers for APS to tell them it’s got to stop.”
By late Friday, the district had removed the holds placed on about half the 450 contracts, spokesman Keith Bromery said. He attributed the delays to uncertainty over next year’s budget.
Officials have predicted such cost-cutting moves as an increase in class sizes, a continued employee pay freeze and two days of furloughs. Superintendent Beverly Hall said this week she doesn’t anticipate layoffs.
The investigators have expressed concerns in recent weeks that district officials could be using personnel actions to intimidate witnesses. Last month a judge ordered the district to halt internal investigations into matters related to the cheating case.
A lawyer for the district denied that the delayed contracts targeted educators who are cooperating in the criminal inquiry.
“We are not finding any correlation at all to anybody who might have talked to the special investigators,” attorney Robert Highsmith said in an interview, “because we do not know who has talked to the special investigators.”
In an annual springtime ritual, most of the district’s roughly 4,000 teachers were offered new contracts this week for the 2011-12 school year.
The others received terse letters from the district’s human resources director: “The Atlanta Public Schools is in the process of issuing contracts. At this time, the district has not made a determination as to whether to issue you a contract for the 2011-12 school year. You will receive additional information concerning your contract prior to May 15, 2011, the state-mandated contract issuance date. Thank you for your patience.”
Principals learned about the contract delays Monday when they picked up new contracts from district human resources officials. One principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation, quoted an official as saying many teachers were “held” because of the investigation of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test results.
At one southwest Atlanta elementary school, 10 teachers were left in limbo. Nine of the 10 oversaw classrooms where a state investigation found a suspicious number of wrong-to-right erasures on the 2009 CRCT.
However, at least two teachers at the same school who also taught in flagged classrooms received contract offers for next year, the principal said.
At another school, 19 teachers were flagged in the erasure analysis; nine of those have not yet received new contract offers.
The special investigators began looking at Atlanta’s CRCT scores last summer after then-Gov. Sonny Perdue declared the district’s own inquiry to be inadequate. Using GBI agents, the investigators have interviewed hundreds of teachers and other district employees. Numerous employees have admitted taking part in cheating.
The clash over the contracts is occurring less than a month after a Fulton County judge ordered the district to halt its investigation of a high-ranking official accused of encouraging the principals at several schools suspected of cheating to refuse to cooperate.
Tamara Cotman, a regional superintendent, allegedly held a meeting last year where she told a dozen principals to pen “go to hell” memos to GBI agents, who at the time were interviewing employees across the district about cheating.
The district opened an investigation of Cotman. But the special investigators objected to the district’s inquiry, maintaining that it would require speaking with many of the same people the investigators were interviewing and could intimidate them. The investigators had sent the district several letters telling them not to investigate any cheating-related matters.
After the district’s lawyers asserted the system’s right to investigate Cotman, the investigators obtained a temporary restraining order forcing them to abandon the inquiry. Less than two days later, the investigators dropped the order after the system reversed its stance and agreed to stop its investigation at the school board’s urging.
The district reassigned Cotman. Her lawyer has said she broke no policies or laws.
In their request for the order, the special investigators accused the district of retaliating against a witness in the Cotman case and hiding documents critical to the investigation. The investigators said the district has misled them and attempted to frighten employees into keeping silent.
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