A hearing for a school administrator implicated in the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal was put on hold Tuesday because her lawyer wasn't given enough time to review a report.
Elementary school administrator Debra Dixon is accused by APS officials and GBI investigators of encouraging cheating at Woodson Elementary School, where she was an instructional specialist. Investigators say she recommended that teachers position poor students next to higher performers during the test to enable copying of answers.
"She created a climate that allowed cheating to occur, that mandated that cheating occur and in which cheating did occur," Marquetta Bryan, an attorney representing APS, told the three-member tribunal Tuesday. "There was rampant cheating going on in Woodson, far more than was going on in another school."
Dixon is one of about 180 educators accused of cheating on a state exam that is used to measure how well schools are performing. APS since has been working to fire implicated employees, but several educators, including Dixon, have job protection rights, entitling them to a tribunal hearing before they are terminated.
Dixon's hearing came to a halt shortly after APS attorneys called their first witness to testify about an analysis of corrections of wrong answers.
Dixon's lawyer Cary King said he had only received the massive analysis shortly before the hearing, despite asking for all documents that might be used nearly two weeks ago. He told the judge he needed time to digest the report.
Thomas A. Cox, another lawyer representing APS, said Dixon could have had the study if he had only made a request under the state Open Records law for all expert reports. Dixon's letter asking for all material that might be used in the hearing sounded more like a request for legal "discovery," or material opposing lawyers provide each other to avoid unfair surprise at trial, Cox argued. APS wasn't required to produce discovery for the tribunal, he said.
Hearing Officer Bruce Beerman, a lawyer who acts in the role as a judge, wasn't impressed with the argument. "That's semantics," he said.
Beerman tentative moved the hearing date to the first week in August.
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