Week 14 of the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial was shortened by Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, yet there was still plenty of time for drama.
On Wednesday, as the tedium of months of testimony began to take a toll, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter clashed with several lawyers, including a prosecutor. One defense attorney cried, “I move for mistrial.” But he didn’t get it.
And on Thursday, Baxter sought an update on former APS superintendent Beverly Hall amid rumors she has been out and about despite having Stage IV breast cancer.
“We need to try her,” Baxter said. “Somebody said they saw her out eating the other day, so I need to know how she is doing.”
The judge gave one of Hall’s attorneys — who has been in the courtroom consistently, listening to testimony — 10 days to produce a written update.
Hall is charged with conspiring to change students’ answers on standardized tests. But a month before jury selection began, Baxter accepted the opinion of Hall’s oncologist that chemotherapy’s side effects and the cancer’s progression would make it difficult for Hall to endure a trial at this time.
While Hall has not been in the courtroom, the “no excuses” culture she instituted regarding test scores and performance targets has been recounted repeatedly in testimony.
Here are other highlights from Week 14:
TUESDAY, JAN. 20
A 14-year-old witness testified that when she was a student at Benteen Elementary School, her third-grade teacher, Sheila Evans, had helped some students (but not her) get the correct answers on the spring 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. The next year, in the classroom of fourth-grade teacher Ryan Abbott, a classmate expressed frustration because Abbott was not going to help them with the test, the witness testified. The classmate blurted out that Evans had given them the correct answers the previous year. Just before the witness was allowed to leave the courtroom, one defense attorney asked her if she had liked Abbott. The teenager smiled and said, “He was OK.”
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21
Former Usher-Collier Heights Elementary School teacher Stacey Smith testified she changed answers on some of her third-grade students’ 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests after Usher-Collier Heights testing coordinator Donald Bullock brought them to her classroom.
“I cheated because I was scared. I did it because I was told to,” said Smith, who was 25 and in her second year of teaching at that time. “I was the first person in my family to go to college. … And I was looked at as a success. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to appear to be a team player,” she testified. “I wanted to make sure my children did well. We worked so hard.”
The prosecutor showed jurors examples of tests Smith had changed. The erasures were easy to spot.
THURSDAY, JAN. 22
Former Usher-Collier Heights teacher Stacey Smith had testified for the prosecution that she changed answers on some of her third-graders’ standardized tests in 2009 because she was young and insecure and wanted to be seen as a “team player.” She also said she wanted her students to do well. On Thursday, she wept under cross-examination from defense attorney Gerald Griggs.
“You robbed those children,” Griggs said.
“I did,” Smith answered.
“You damaged them,” he said.
“I did,” she responded.
Griggs noted that Smith still has a teaching certificate and now works with children as young as 3 in the Head Start Program.
“Have you told those children’s parents what you did?” Griggs asked.
“No,” Smith answered softly.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
“If Johnny doesn’t know how to read, he better know how to read by test day.”
— Brittany Alexis Aronson on the witness stand Wednesday, recalling the alleged mantra of Usher-Collier Heights principal Gwendolyn Rogers.
“I did something inexcusable and horrible.”
— Stacey Smith on Thursday about changing the answers on the 2009 standardized tests of 11 of her third-grade students.
WHAT’S NEXT
No court on Monday, Jan. 26, because of a defense attorney’s long-standing medical appointment.
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