About 30 Atlanta Public School employees implicated in a state cheating scandal have resigned or retired rather than go through termination, and the Fulton County district attorney has been asked to identify educators who won't be prosecuted so the district can handle those cases first if it chooses.
Superintendent Erroll Davis made those disclosures Thursday night at a town hall meeting in Buckhead.
Davis said 130 to 150 educators named in a state investigative report released July 5 remained employed with the district, and the district was still deciding what to do next. The report named 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in improving students' state test scores. More than 80 APS employees confessed to cheating.
“I will tell you what they will not be doing,” Davis said. “They will not be going in front of children.”
Davis also revealed that he met with Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr. for nearly an hour Thursday. He would not release details of the conversation, other than to say the two discussed how their entities would proceed in dealing with educators implicated in the scandal.
Wednesday was the district’s deadline for employees to quit in lieu of being fired. Those named in the report could be penalized in any of three ways: criminal prosecution, potential job loss and potential certification loss, with the latter decided by the state Professional Standards Commission.
The district's proceedings will take several months. Employees have contractual and legal rights to due process. According to state law, when a district moves to suspend or fire a teacher, principal or other district employee, the employee is entitled to a hearing to defend himself or herself. The employee can also appeal to the state.
Davis said he did not want the district’s due process hearings to be used as a discovery process for criminal cases. But if the district attorney rules out some educators for prosecution, the district may choose to address those cases first, he said.
“There are three channels in which cases will be processed and we want to make sure the coordination is there and we can move these cases forward as quickly as possible,” he said.
Parent Edwina Tatum attended the town hall meeting, which drew a full house of parents, teachers and residents who questioned Davis for more than an hour.
Tatum said she isn't sure how the district should deal with those suspected of cheating, but she wanted people to receive due process.
"I think [Davis] is fair, in control and not motivated by emotion," she said. "It appears he is objective."
Some APS employees could face criminal charges. More than a half-dozen of the district's top staff members have already lost or left their jobs in the scandal's wake, with more likely to come.
Earlier this week, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James announced he had opened a criminal investigation involving five APS schools named in the report, all of which are located in his jurisdiction.
Some of the teachers and administrators implicated in the report have come forward to say they will fight for their jobs. Professional groups providing legal assistance to members implicated have said the report contains inaccuracies. Those groups largely are advising members not to resign.
Davis said he knows there are errors in the report and wants to ensure educators get due process. However, he said that won't derail efforts to remove those implicated from the classroom.
Sanctions by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission range from a reprimand to loss of a teaching license, which remain on an educator's record regardless of whether they resign. The commission is expected to review the APS cases beginning in September.
The report was the result of a 10-month investigation and found widespread cheating. Former school Superintendent Beverly Hall was accused of ignoring a culture of cover-ups and obstruction that evolved during her 12-year tenure. It concentrated on, but was not limited to, state tests given in 2009.
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