Testimony in Week 12 of the Atlanta Public Schools trial focused on Dobbs Elementary, where a state investigation found a third of classrooms in 2009 had high rates of wrong-to-right erasures on state test answer sheets. The trial resumed Monday following a two-week holiday break.
Here are highlights:
MONDAY, JAN. 5
Former Dobbs Elementary School teacher Shayla Smith testified that she and other teachers changed students’ answers on state tests in 2007. They used answer sheets from higher-performing students to “correct” other students’ answer sheets. Smith said she was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t change answers. “I thought that I would lose my job. I thought I would be fired and ruin my career,” she said. “In the long run I wish I hadn’t done it.”
TUESDAY, JAN. 6
Former Dobbs Elementary teacher Sidnye Fells testified that she was required to visit a psychiatrist chosen by Atlanta Public Schools after she submitted letters from her therapist and physicians that she was unable to work. On the stand, Fells repeatedly questioned the APS psychiatrist’s qualifications and wondered aloud whether he was really a psychiatrist. She said the APS psychiatrist wrote in his medical report that she (Fells) was “mentally unstable,” and he gave an example that Fells complained she was losing sleep because of barking puppies that did not exist.
“The report said the puppy wasn’t real. The doctor wrote I heard puppies barking that weren’t there,” Fells testified.
But Bella did exist, Fells said. “I had just got her. She was about 7 weeks old and she was a barker. I believe she’s real. Everybody who made comments about her believe she is real.”
To reinforce the point, prosecutors projected on screens around the courtroom a photo of an adorable golden puppy with a black snout.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 7
Former paraprofessional Erica Gober took a picture of the classroom of former Dobbs teacher Dessa Curb to protect herself should she ever be accused of cheating. To prove the date, one of Gober’s photographs showed her laptop open on a table, with the date and time displayed on the website Craigslist. Next to the laptop was a stack of test answer sheets.
THURSDAY, JAN. 8
Pamela Barbour, another former paraprofessional, testified that it was not her place to question the actions of a certified teacher. Why then, defense attorney Sanford Wallack asked, did Barbour tell a Dobbs Elementary principal about an incident involving former Dobbs teacher Dessa Curb and a boy in her class? “She hit him,” Barbour responded. While Curb’s class was taking a standardized test, Curb hit one of the students on the head with a pencil, then hit him in the chest with the answer sheet and told him to re-read the question, Barbour testified. The boy had gotten the answer wrong and Curb wanted him to change it, Barbour said.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
“By any means necessary.”
— Motto at top of administration memos at Dobbs Elementary, according to Shayla Smith’s testimony Monday.
“This is witness No. 91.”
— Prosecutor Fani Willis to Judge Jerry Baxter on Wednesday as former parapro Erica Gober was called to testify.
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