With Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El finally bowing to pressure to remove himself from leadership, it’s now make-or-break for the faltering Atlanta school board.
Over the next several weeks, a small delegation of members will fan out across the city and meet with key stakeholders to seek at least tacit approval for the change, which is meant to signal consensus among feuding board members.
Notification will go to perhaps its most imperative stakeholder: the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which put the school district on accredited probation with a Sept. 30 deadline to improve.
Just as important, key legal issues must be decided by July 1, a state-imposed deadline that could end in the entire board’s removal.
The decision “is the most significant step that has been made so far and allows the board to get serious,” said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who disavowed El both for the controversy he created when he claimed the board’s chairmanship last year and the way he responded to the school district’s accrediting agency as it ultimately sanctioned the board.
“I intend to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the new leadership team, whomever they select,” Reed said. “The leadership of the city of Atlanta and Atlanta Public Schools is coming together to take on the challenge of moving the system off of probation and onto firm footing again.”
Time is of essence, but last week’s development also fed the hopes of those concerned whether board members can turn their full attention back to serving the district’s 49,800 students.
“Guardedly optimistic,” said House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, who helped write the bill that set the July 1 deadline and gave Gov. Nathan Deal such extraordinary power over the board’s future.
“That Khaatim recognizes, rightly or wrongly, that his presence as president was deemed a divisive element is a constructive step forward,” Lindsey said. “There’s still an awful lot that needs to be done.”
Among the board’s expected next steps:
● Formally request that a Fulton County judge sign off on this newest leadership change. Board member Yolanda Johnson, an El supporter, may also insist that the judge make a declaratory judgment approving last year’s takeover, even though he already signed a consent order finding it lawful.
● Correspond with SACS to make sure the accrediting agency doesn’t see the change as a negative step in the board’s progress toward stable accreditation status.
● Separately meet with Reed, business leaders, representatives for Deal, the philanthropic community (which provides the district with substantial funding) and others to vet the change.
As those steps are taken, the board’s expected new leaders — members Brenda Muhammad and Reuben McDaniel — will draft a leadership plan to spell out what they will do differently to unite the board.
Members will also be asked through a formal resolution to commit support to the change and to moving forward.
They are keenly aware of the July 1 deadline, which will trigger a hearing before the state Board of Education and sign-off by Deal on their progress. Still, El’s announcement last week that he would step down was not altruistic. Rather, it was a response to a political reality and “bogeyman scare tactics,” he said.
“I had people actually undermining good work because of their positions [on the leadership issue],” El said. “Stepping down removes any excuse” about not backing the board.
Under his leadership, the board hired a search firm to find a replacement for Superintendent Beverly Hall, who leaves June 30. They hired governance experts to help them with policy disagreements. They hired mediators to work on internal conflicts, work that led directly to discussion about a leadership change.
Those successes, however, were technical. El stepping aside must result in the board functioning to achieve consensual goals.
Its problems stemmed from a series of 5-4 votes, beginning last summer, over concerns about ongoing state and federal investigations into cheating on student achievement tests.
Members gave themselves the power to use a simple majority, rather than a two-thirds vote, to replace board leaders, who normally served two-year terms. The maneuver favored El and pitted his faction against a vocal four-member minority. That minority sued the board’s other five members in October, saying the midyear leadership change violated board policy and its governing charter.
In November, all nine members, under supervision of Superior Court Judge John J. Goger, agreed to a consent order requiring a series of steps including another leadership vote. When El was voted back in as chairman, it upset some members who said they expected the board would start with “a clean slate.”
The board’s actions also drew the attention of SACS. The agency saw a group almost at impasse because of a breakdown in trust among board members. In January, it gave the board six mandates to improve governance. It set the Sept. 30 deadline for the board to make substantial improvement or face the loss of accreditation.
Over the past three weeks, during more than 20 hours of group mediation, members acknowledged they never got past El’s re-election as chairman.
They also acknowledged, grudgingly for some, that the efforts of Reed, legislators and even the city’s powerful business community to change leadership had taken their toll.
Earlier this month, Reed told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he asked board members to vote El out of the chairmanship. Reed, in a closed-door meeting last month with board members and the governor, said he would not support a new city schools superintendent if he or she were hired while El was chairman.
“We realize we cannot do this alone,” Muhammad said last week, after she and McDaniel discussed the early outlines of their new leadership.
They talked about how they could complement each other’s strengths and work to rebuild trust among members. McDaniel, who took office last year, is viewed as a consensus builder. Muhammad, with more than a decade’s worth of service, is one of the board’s longest-serving members and has previously held the chairmanship.
They will take the reins from El and Vice Chairwoman Cecily Harsch-Kinnane, who had said she was willing to step down from leadership; both will retain their board memberships.
It remains up to other members to decide who, between Muhammad and McDaniel, will be chairman and vice chairman, a vote that could happen as soon as next month. Reed and others believe a two-thirds vote is needed to affirm the change.
“This is a very difficult time on this board,” Muhammad said. “One of the most challenging times I’ve known.”
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