Some of the 178 Atlanta Public Schools employees implicated in the district's ongoing cheating scandal say they will fight for their jobs despite calls to resign or face termination.
Interim Superintendent Erroll Davis sent letters home Friday to employees who confessed to cheating or who were named by state investigators, giving them until Wednesday to quit. School officials said they would start termination proceedings against those who stay, in keeping with Davis' promise that educators found to have cheated "are not going to be put in front of children again."
But some educators are claiming parts of the report are inaccurate, and that investigators cherry-picked information gleaned from interviews to make some teachers appear guilty.
That's what Sharona Thomas-Wilson, a teacher at Finch Elementary, said happened to her.
The state report concluded that Thomas-Wilson and three other Finch teachers who denied cheating were guilty based on the statistical improbability of erasures and inconsistencies in their stories. But Thomas-Wilson, a 10-year teaching veteran, said she cooperated with investigators and was shocked when a friend told her she was fingered in the report.
"This story has destroyed my entire life. It's all over the world. They have smeared my name," said Thomas-Wilson, who maintains she did not cheat.
Investigators interrogated Thomas-Wilson for more than three hours, she said, and became frustrated when she wouldn't admit to cheating or repeat rumors about others. They screamed at her and told her when she declined to take immunity in exchange for a confession that she would "regret this day for the rest of my life."
Thomas-Wilson said the report incriminated her by including the fact that under her principal's direction she inflated grades during the school year. But it left out her efforts to make note of the grade inflation on the student's academic records, she said. The report also raised questions about whether she followed proper testing procedures.
"They chopped it up to build a picture," she said.
The Georgia Association of Educators, which is providing legal assistance to members implicated in the report, said it is also hearing complaints of inaccuracies and inconsistencies and that it is advising members not to resign.
The group and other professional organizations are encouraging the district to investigate each case fairly and make individual determinations. Educators contractually are entitled to due process, meaning officials must issue a "charge" with details about the cause for termination and submit the recommendation to the school board. The losing party has the right to appeal.
"No one endorses this type of behavior; it's not condoned by anyone," said Tim Callahan, spokesman for the Professional Association of Georgia Educators. "But on the other hand, we don’t take an investigative report and use it as a blunt weapon. We have to have due process."
Davis said last week he knows there are errors in the report and wants to ensure educators get due process, but that will not derail efforts to remove those implicated from the classroom.
"If it is the risk of making the error in that list versus making the error by putting [guilty] people in front of children, I'd rather make an error with the list," he said.
Thomas-Wilson said she has not received the letter from the district yet, but she plans to request her due process.
"I am going to fight it. I am going to clear my name," she said.
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