A bill passed Thursday that would give the governor the power to remove all members of the troubled Atlanta school board and cut the DeKalb County school board from nine to seven members is getting mixed reaction.
The legislation, which still has to be signed by Gov. Nathan Deal and approved by the U.S. Justice Department, sets up a two-step process by which all nine members of the Atlanta school board could be removed by the governor after a hearing before the state Board of Education in July.
The Atlanta school board released a lengthy statement Friday that did not directly respond to the new rules, but instead highlighted the board’s progress resolving its well-publicized accreditation issues.
“The Atlanta Board of Education has made substantial progress in addressing the AdvancEd/SACS accreditation issues well ahead of the deadline set by the agency for resolving the matter,” the statement said. “The governor has a representative who has attended every board meeting since the beginning of the year who is well aware of the specific progress the board has made on the SACS accreditation matter.”
Atlanta's high schools were put on accreditation probation in January by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and given six mandates for improvement. The board has until September to show progress.
Other school districts that are not fully accredited as of July 1 would also be affected by the bill, which had the support of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. But lawmakers such as state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, said the bill would disenfranchise voters by giving the governor control of their representatives. Fort has been advised by lawyers that a lawsuit could be filed if a board member is removed.
DeKalb's school board would shrink from nine to seven members in 2013 as a result of the bill. Members would have to be elected from single-member districts of equal population. School officials said they did not know yet how the lines would be redrawn or if a new election would take place.
DeKalb board Chairman Tom Bowen said discussions about shrinking the school board have been going on for years. The local concerns, he said, were not about the size, but about who should have the authority to determine the number of seats.
“My board members, for the most part, aren’t addressing the nine-to-seven issue,” he said. “They’re addressing the role issue: Was it done right? Should we have had more input in the process?”
DeKalb parent Leisha Fleming supports the change and said the bill didn’t go far enough. She believes the board should shrink to five members and would prefer they all be elected by a countywide vote.
Fleming said she doesn’t buy into the argument that the measure would represent a loss of local control.
“I think voters in DeKalb County, the parents of DeKalb, are desperately in need of the state to step in and help us get our school board focused on children and the schoolhouse,” she said.
Staff writer Nancy Badertscher contributed to this article.
About the Author
