On test days, Woodson Elementary teacher Celesia Baugh allegedly arranged her students' seats so low performers could cheat off stronger students — reason enough for Baugh to lose her job with Atlanta Public Schools, attorneys for the district successfully argued at a tribunal hearing Tuesday.
Baugh is one of about 180 educators accused of cheating in a state investigative report released last year. APS since has been working to fire implicated employees, but several educators, including Baugh, have job protection rights, entitling them to a tribunal hearing before they are terminated.
A panel of educators Tuesday upheld the district's efforts to fire Baugh.
Baugh denied arranging her students so they could cheat or doing anything to distort testing procedures. Her attorney, Waymon Sims, said Baugh went out of her way to make sure all testing procedures were followed, even putting an empty desk between students on testing days.
"[She took] precautionary actions to make sure those kids were separate and there was no chance they would cheat," Sims said. "She has done nothing wrong."
The case hinged on testimony from one of Baugh's friends and fellow teachers, Ashlyn Strozier, who is awaiting a hearing to determine her fate with APS.
According to the state investigation, Strozier confessed to seating students so they could cheat off each other at the suggestion of another school employee. Strozier said her "very close friend" Baugh told her she'd used the same strategy, investigators said.
Strozier said at Tuesday's hearing that she never made such a claim. She and Baugh might have discussed selective seating as a way to keep order in the classroom, but not as a means to cheat, she said.
"The report is inaccurate. I never admitted to cheating," she said. "Those are words the GBI put in my mouth."
GBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Eve Rodgers, who interviewed Strozier during the investigation, said the report accurately reflected her conversations with the educator. Strozier was extremely cooperative, she said, and even identified students she seated strategically.
Attorneys for APS portrayed Strozier as a friend who said too much and was now trying to recant her story in order to save her job and the job of her friend.
"Now, Ms. Strozier is regretting that candor. She's regretting it for her own sake and for Ms. Baugh's sake," said attorney Marquetta J. Bryan, who represented APS.
APS UPDATE
1 Number of educators whose recommended firing was not upheld by a tribunal.
11 Number of educators whose recommended firing has been upheld by a tribunal.
12 Number of educators recently notified they will be reinstated back to classrooms.
30 Approximate number of educators named in the investigation who are challenging efforts to fire them from the district.
127 Approximate number of educators named in the investigation who resigned or retired.
Source: Atlanta Public Schools
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