Staff changes at Southwest DeKalb High School have angered parents, with scores turning out to complain to the school board.

The DeKalb County School District transferred the high school principal recently after several teachers complained openly about her management style at a school board meeting last fall. Now, some of those teachers have been transferred in “what looks to us like retaliation,” Byron Merritt, the school’s PTSA president, said at Monday’s school board meeting. “These are the model teachers we want standing in our schools.”

District spokesman Quinn Hudson said the teacher transfers were necessitated by a drop in student enrollment. He said the district could not comment about why the specific teachers were chosen because it was a personnel matter and therefore private.

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Braves first baseman Matt Olson (left) is greeted by Ronald Acuña Jr. after batting during the MLB Home Run Derby as part of the All-Star Game festivities on Monday, July 14, 2025, at Truist Park in Atlanta. (Jason Getz/AJC)

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