Atlanta school board members settle lawsuit

Even as the cheating scandal has raged around them, board members have squabbled for months over who should lead them. A breakaway group of five members voted to change the board's rules so it could unseat the chairwoman and vice-chairwoman and elect its preferred leaders. The deposed leaders filed suit last month.

After the board's appearance in Fulton County Superior Court, the members convened late Tuesday afternoon and Chairman El and Vice Chairwoman Yolanda Johnson gave up their appointments. To the surprise of the board's four-member minority, El was voted back in a short time later.

Members then nominated both Cicely Harsch-Kinnane and Reuben McDaniel -- two of the board's four dissenters -- to be vice chairman. The board eventually appointed Harsch-Kinnane by a 5-3 vote.

Harsch-Kinnane voted against herself, but the board's five-member majority supported her. She said later that the minority had hoped, even if it wasn't in writing, that members would be willing to start with "a clean slate."

That hiccup aside, El said Tuesday afternoon that the agreement showed the board had "recommitted ourselves" to working together for the good of the system.

"What came out of today was what the four of us were looking for all along: stability and good governance," said LaChandra Butler Burks, the board's chairwoman until the takeover and one of four plaintiffs in the suit.

One of the nation's top accrediting agencies announced earlier this month that a team would be in Atlanta on Dec. 9-10 for on-site interviews and investigation related to board's governance. Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED, has said the the board's capacity to govern is "in serious jeopardy."

Elgart on Tuesday said the subsequent agreement by the board "could be a positive step," although only one among several more the board needs to take.

City Superintendent Beverly Hall announced Saturday she would leave the job when her contract ends in June. Hall on Tuesday met with the board for the first time since her announcement, as members began the process of giving her an annual job performance evaluation.

The board over the next several months must find her replacement, while also dealing with the results from an ongoing investigation of 58 Atlanta elementary and middle schools for cheating on state tests.

"It is incumbent open the board to demonstrate effective governance," Elgart said. "All the issues and concerns over the past several months won't disappear over a few short weeks."

The discord among board members began during the summer. In a series of 5-4 votes, the majority made a controversial policy change and selected El and Johnson to replace former Burks and former Harsch-Kinnane.

The four-member minority, led by Burks, said the change violated both board policy and its governing charter. They sued Oct. 27. Their argument has relied in part on three separate legal opinions received by the board, the most significant being a nonbinding opinion from Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker.

Baker said the board's charter, last revised in 2003 and approved by the state Legislature, provides six specific situations when a board chairman or vice chairman may be removed from those positions in the middle of their usual two-year term. None of those reasons, he said, includes change for change's sake.

At a hearing several weeks ago, the majority's attorney, Glenn Delk, said the minority was manufacturing a crisis. The board had power granted under the state constitution that would override its charter and allow such a change, Delk said, even if it wasn't one of the reasons listed in the charter.

Attorney Chuck Bachman, representing the minority, said the charter excluded such a provision for changing officers because it would destabilize the board.

Board officers are supposed to be selected by their colleagues every other January and serve for two consecutive years. The board followed that mandate in January by selecting Burks and Harsch-Kinnane.

But the frustration that led to the change had been building for months, caused by what El has said was poor communication -- among board members and with the public -- about the test cheating investigation. The state first mandated that investigation in February, a month after Burks' and Harsch-Kinnane's selection as board officers. Gov. Sonny Perdue later called the local investigative effort inadequate, sending in special state investigators in August to take over.

With Burks and Harsch-Kinnane falling out of favor, the policy change approved by El's five-member majority removed a requirement that the board must vote by a two-thirds majority if members wanted to replace a board chairman or vice chairman midterm.

Superior Court Judge John J. Goger on Tuesday applauded members for working out their differences -- a stark difference from several weeks ago, when the judge berated the nine members for letting their discord spill into his courtroom. Previous attempts to mediate between the two sides failed but Tuesday, minutes before a final hearing in the suit was to start, Goger summoned both sides to a room in his chambers.

They emerged four hours later with the agreement in hand. Afterward, Johnson made a point to seek out Burks as the hearing ended to shake her hand. It was, Johnson said, a chance to get off to a good start.