Parks Middle had a secret society, and Damien Northern was unknowingly about to become its newest member.
Northern said it was 2008 when he was told by a Parks administrator to attend a small reception for teachers. There would be food, but he should keep it quiet because not everyone was invited.
When he opened the door, he saw a group of the school's most compassionate teachers changing answers on standardized tests. Northern said he refused to participate, even arguing with another teacher who told him to "get out" if he wasn't going to help. But, he said, the burden of knowledge eventually sank him into what what he describes as a "morally bankrupt system."
"I never would have opened the door at all had I known what I would see, and subsequently become a part of," Northern said in an exclusive statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Even after refusing to participate, tests started appearing in my mail box and in my vehicle. I had no idea where they came from and feared the consequence of reporting it or inquiring."
Northern is one of 11 educators accused of cheating Atlanta Public Schools is taking steps to fire. A state investigation released in July said cheating occurred at 44 schools and involved about 180 educators. So far, about 70 have resigned or retired, including Northern who quit Wednesday, the day before a panel of educators was scheduled to decide his fate.
After much consideration, Northern decided not to fight for his job, in part because he said he has lost all faith in the school district.
"In my naivety, I thought that all the facts of this scandal would be brought to light, and in the end Atlanta Public Schools would 'share' accountability, if not apologize. I was wrong," he said. "Instead they have strategically and somewhat successfully made teachers the blame."
‘I didn't want to abandon them'
Teaching was a second career choice for Northern, who said he double majored in criminal justice and business at Indiana University and for a time worked as a police officer. He was drawn to teaching for many of the same reasons he was to the police force: To give back and mentor at the ground level.
Former Parks Principal Michael Sims liked Northern's experience and hired him as a social studies teacher in 2004. But just four days before school started, Sims was told by the school system that he would be recommended for dismissal after his "admission" to having "inappropriate sexual relationships with students," according to published reports in the AJC.
Northern forged ahead, becoming a coach of several sports, including basketball and football. After two years, he was accepted to graduate school at his alma-mater to study environmental affairs. But he turned it down to stay at Parks.
"I felt connected to the kids and to the environment," he said in an interview. "I felt I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to abandon them."
Investigators said Parks Middle was where some of the worst cheating occurred. It went on for multiple years, from 2006-2010 and allegedly began in 2006 under the leadership of former Principal Christopher Waller. According to investigators, teachers felt they had no option but to do as Waller directed. Several teachers reported Waller's misconduct in 2005 and 2006. He was not disciplined by the district, but instead held up as a "model principal."
Waller could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Atlanta Public Schools declined to respond to Northern's statement. District documents filled in order to terminate Northern said APS had lost confidence in him as an educator.
Northern confessed to cheating. In his statement, he doesn't go into much detail about how cheating unfolded at Parks, or how he came to be involved. Northern also declined to touch those details in an interview with the AJC. The state investigation says Northern confessed to cheating in 2008 and 2009 and possibly in 2007. But he says he didn't feel like he had a choice -- he was professionally and emotionally bullied into participating.
"If I reported these events, I’d safely guess you never would have heard about it, just like you never heard about testing irregularities before now," he said. "Until this cheating scandal testing irregularities were handled internally. It actually took the governor of Georgia to find . . . what was really going on in Atlanta Public Schools. Think about that for a second."
Northern said he requested to speak to the "blue ribbon commission," a group appointed to oversee the district's cheating investigation, but never did. The probe found serious problems at only 12 schools, and was later dismissed as inadequate by former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Perdue then appointed special investigators to scrutinize the testing programs in the Atlanta.
Northern and other teachers at Parks cooperated with special agents from the GBI. He says he knew the information would cost him his job, but he said he did so because it was "the right thing to do."
Unlike other agencies, APS has so far showed no leniency to teachers who cooperated with the investigation. Criminal immunity was offered by the state to teachers who aided the investigation. The Professional Standards Commission, which licenses Georgia educators, is also offering lighter punishments for those who were forthcoming.
The district, under new leadership, placed all 180 educators named in the report on administrative leave and has vowed no teacher guilty of cheating will work in APS again. Northern said many teachers who cooperated believe if they had kept quiet, they may still be working in APS.
"I told the truth because I am a proud man and that I thought my misfortune would help to change things for the students who I still care for dearly," he said. "I will miss working with them. I got into this business to make a difference in their lives and hopefully when this investigation and our story reaches its full potential I will have helped right some of the wrongs in the system."
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