After roughly a dozen days of testimony about Dobbs Elementary School, the focus this past Wednesday shifted to Benteen Elementary.
Here are highlights from Week 13:
MONDAY, JAN. 12:
Former Dobbs Elementary paraprofessional Naomi Williams testified about being fired in July 2009. She said the termination process began within days of her telling Dobbs principal Dana Evans (a defendant) that teacher Dessa Curb (another defendant) had asked her to change answers on a student’s standardized test. Williams testified that before she was fired, she had complained to the school district about her treatment, alleged abuse of students, and instances of cheating. Williams also said she has yet to land a job sufficient to support herself and her son. So in 2010, Williams said, she wore a special jacket to a public meeting with the superintendent that had a message stenciled on the back: “ I testified against Ms. Evans. I got harassed, humiliated, retaliated and fired.”
TUESDAY, JAN. 13:
Williams testified that a recording she made of instruction she was giving a Dobbs student also caught Curb ranting in the background. When prosecutor Clint Rucker asked if she remembered what was said on the tape, Williams said, “I have it.” Rucker, obviously surprised, said, “Judge, you know I want to play that tape,” causing most of the defense attorneys to complain loudly. Judge Jerry Baxter responded: “She has been attacked all day. It needs to be fair-handed.” Still, defense attorneys shouted, and one of them, Kevin Franks, said to Baxter, “You haven’t given us a fair trial.” Baxter responded angrily: “I’ve sustained your objections. I’ve given you a fair trial. … I think this is relevant.” (But the next day, Baxter changed his mind and decided the recording would not be played for the jury.)
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14:
Patricia Whitehead, a former Benteen Elementary teacher and ex-facilitator of the school’s Success For All program, told of students who scored high on standardized tests despite their struggles in the classroom. One student “didn’t really have a command of the English language,” Whitehead said. “With Spanish-speaking children, the difficulty they have is with vocabulary. In the CRCT there is a lot of vocabulary that would have been difficult for (the student) without help, without prompts, without strategies.” Yet that child outscored all the other students in her grade level in the English section of the 2009 test, Whitehead said.
THURSDAY, JAN. 15:
Prosecutors struggled to play a recording of a GBI interview with former Benteen testing coordinator Theresia Copeland, a defendant. They eventually gave up, deciding the GBI agent could recount for the jury what was said. But under cross-examination, agent Earl Glover was stumped when asked about another agent aggressively questioning Copeland and referencing the Pearly Gates. So defense attorney Scott Smith read that portion of the interview with dramatic flair, sometimes shouting, other times softening his voice. When he stopped, the courtroom went quiet. “Did you ever do any acting?” Judge Baxter quipped.
WITNESS QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“I knew at that moment I was a dead woman walking.”
— Former Benteen teacher Patricia Whitehead, testifying Wednesday about when she knew she would lose her job. Her sense of doom came at a meeting in 2010, when she raised her hand after Benteen principal Diana Quisenberry asked who was feeding documents to a district investigator looking into the cheating scandal.
BAXTER QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Sometimes less is more. Most of the time.”
— Judge Baxter to Assistant District Attorney Linda Dunikowski, when Dunikowski announced on Thursday that a problem with a recording had been fixed and she was going to play an hourlong GBI interview of former Benteen testing coordinator Copeland.
WHAT’S NEXT:
Jurors are off until Tuesday because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
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