Six former Atlanta Public Schools employees pleaded guilty Monday under the first offender act, meaning if they successfully complete their term of probation they can erase their convictions. They pleaded to these charges and received the following sentences:
Former Venetian Hills Elementary School principal Clarietta Davis; one felony count of false statements; two years probation, 1,000 hours community service and return $500 in bonus money.
Former Parks Middle School teacher Starlette Mitchell; one misdemeanor court of obstruction; one year on probation, 250 hours of community service and return $3,000 in bonus money.
Former Parks Middle School teacher Kimberly Oden; one misdemeanor count of obstruction; one year on probation and 250 hours of community service.
Former Dobbs Elementary School teacher Derrick Broadwater; one misdemeanor count of obstruction; one year on probation, 350 hours of community service and return $2,000 in bonus money.
Former Dunbar Elementary School teacher Gloria Ivey; one misdemeanor count of obstruction; one year on probation and 250 hours of community service.
Former Kennedy Middle School secretary Carol Dennis; one misdemeanor count of obstruction; one year on probation and 250 hours of community service.
The remaining 17 defendants are:
Former Superintendent Beveral Hall
Former human resources director Millicent Few
Former regional directors Tamara Cotman, Sharon Davis-Williams and Michael Pitts
Former principals Christopher Waller, Dana Evans and Lucious Brown
Former assistant principal Tabeka Jordan
Former teachers Shani Robinson, Angela Williamson, Dessa Curb, Diane Buckner-Webb and Pamela Cleveland
Former testing coordinators Donald Bullock, Theresia Copeland and Sandra Ward
Six former educators ensnared in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating scandal pleaded guilty Monday, effectively cutting the massive case in half.
The judge overseeing the case gravely warned the 17 remaining defendants who will be tried together of “severe consequences” if they are convicted. These defendants include former Superintendent Beverly Hall.
As of Monday, 17 APS defendants have now pleaded guilty to reduced charges and received sentences of probation and community service. All agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify at the trial set to begin in May.
Hall and the four other top members of the APS hierarchy charged in the case remain scheduled to stand trial. But one of them, former Human Resources Director Millicent Few, may break ranks.
Few is among other defendants who are still actively negotiating a possible plea deal, lead Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis said. Willis estimated that 10 to 15 APS defendants will go to trial once all negotiations are completed.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter extended his deadline, initially set to expire Monday, until Jan. 24 for any more negotiated pleas to be finalized. All remaining defendants are accused of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy to inflate test scores and other felonies.
For more than three hours, Baxter accepted one guilty plea after another as prosecutors detailed acts of test-cheating and subsequent cover-ups by the former educators. Baxter also listened to the six educators’ letters of apology, a condition of their guilty pleas, read aloud by the defendants, their lawyers or, on one occasion, a prosecutor.
Starlette Mitchell, a former teacher at Parks Middle School, admitted to correcting wrong answers on the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. Mitchell said she was pressured by her principal, Christopher Waller, to engage in test cheating. Waller is among the remaining defendants.
Mitchell began working at Parks shortly after graduating from college.
“I was young, eager, idealistic, naive and clearly over my head,” Mitchell told Baxter. “Somehow in my misguided attempt to save the world, I ended up hurting those who meant the most to me: my students. I’m ashamed I succumbed to the extremely intense pressure.”
“I’d give that about a D as far as an apology,” Baxter said.
Later, outside the courtroom, Mitchell responded to Baxter’s almost failing grade. “I know that I meant every word from my heart,” she said.
Throughout the morning, Baxter required the defendants still in the case to remain in court and watch the proceedings. Only before breaking for lunch, after accepting the fifth guilty plea, Baxter asked each of the remaining defendants to let him know what they planned to do.
“This is the most important decision that any of you have ever made,” Baxter said, looking out over the crowded courtroom. “At the end of a six-month trial, if it doesn’t turn out well for you, there will be severe consequences. … I don’t want anybody to be surprised at the end of this thing.”
Baxter then called the roll.
Baxter first asked attorney Richard Deane if his client, Hall, standing next to him in the gallery, continued to plead not guilty. “Absolutely,” Deane said.
“You definitely want a trial,” Baxter said.
“Indeed,” Deane said.
Former regional directors Tamara Cotman, Sharon Davis-Williams and Michael Pitts, who sat side-by-side as they often do in court, also announced they will fight the charges at trial.
Clarietta Davis on Monday became the second principal to plead guilty in the scandal. She admitted to changing answers from wrong to right on standardized tests taken by her students in 2007 and 2008. In a July 2011 report, the governor’s special investigators said the former Venetian Hills Elementary principal wore gloves while erasing to avoid leaving fingerprints on answer sheets.
“It’s devastating,” Davis said, her voice breaking while reading her letter. “Each day of my life I’m reliving the what ifs and thinking if only I could do it over again. … This is a permanent scar in my life.”
Prosecutor Clint Rucker said Davis, 62, often met with Hall and Davis-Williams and went over data that showed many Venetian Hills students were testing below their grade levels.
But Hall applied constant pressure on Davis to make sure her students met testing goals, Rucker said. The former superintendent, Rucker added, issued an edict that came to be known as her mantra, “There would be no excuses.”
Others entering guilty pleas Monday were former Parks Middle School teacher Kimberly Oden, former Dobbs Elementary School teacher Derrick Broadwater, former Dunbar Elementary School teacher Gloria Ivey and Carol Dennis, who once served as a secretary at Kennedy Middle School.
Ivey, an educator for more than 37 years, said she succumbed to pressure placed on her by administrators who expected her students to meet unrealistic test goals. She admitted to admonishing students to rethink incorrect test answers as she walked around her class and pointing to the correct answers in some cases.
“My heart is broken because I feel I failed some of those students who I loved so dearly,” Ivey wrote in her apology. “The pressure I was under did not justify my right to take such actions and become involved in this scandal.”
In his letter, Broadwater wrote, “As a teacher, one of my responsibilities was to be a positive role model for my students. I’m personally disappointed I failed both my students and their families. … I have no excuse for my dishonest and unethical behavior.”
Dennis strongly implicated her former principal, Lucious Brown, another remaining defendant who is negotiating with prosecutors. Dennis corrected answers on the 2008 and 2009 CRCTs at Brown’s request because of their friendship and because she knew the pressure he was under to meet APS goals, prosecutor April McConnell told Baxter.
With her guilty plea and admission, Dennis broke a pact she had entered into with two Kennedy school teachers who also changed answers on the standardized tests, McConnell said. “They each stated they would take this secret to their grave.”
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