Fresh Loaf

The AJC writes a thorough report:

Clayton County schools have been recommended for provisional accreditation, and a national commission will vote later this month on whether to accept the recommendation.

The announcement Friday by officials with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools comes nine months after the association yanked its affiliation with the suburban Atlanta system — making Clayton the nation’s first school system to lose accreditation in nearly 40 years.

The recommendation means SACS would back the system but require it to keep working on issues including leadership and governance — major problems cited by the association when it took action last year.

SACS would continue to monitor the school system for improvement and, later on, could nominate Clayton for full accreditation or cite further problems.

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From the AJC:

About 100 Clayton County teachers who were laid off earlier this month got their jobs back Monday.

School officials delivered contracts to 100 of the 400 teachers who were told two weeks ago that they would not have a job next school year. The board will vote later this year on the teacher’s employment contracts.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Sid Chapman, president of the Clayton County Education Association. “It restores some sense of credibility to the school system. Many of these teachers were tenured special ed teachers.” Chapman said the teachers had been laid off without any consideration of their performance evaluations or input from their principals.

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Clayton County, whose turmoil CL covered last summer, is hiring. The county’s school system on Saturday fired John Thompson, the superintendent who was supposed to help the system regain its accreditation. Last year, the county’s system was the first in the last 40 years to lose its accreditation. Thompson was the county’s third superintendent in four years.

Megan Matteucci of the AJC reports:

John Thompson was dismissed Saturday, about a month before the 47,000-student district has one more chance to prove it deserves to be reaccredited. If it fails, the district would need to start over, a process that could take about three years.

Valya Lee, assistant superintendent of student support services, was named interim superintendent. Lee, who started in Clayton in 1993 as a teacher, said she is not interested in the permanent position.

…

The leader of SACS [the accrediting body] said the board is heading in the right direction.

“It is clear this board is committed to a fresh start,” SACS President and Chief Executive Officer Mark A. Elgart said Saturday. “They are changing the way business is done in the school system.”

(Photo by Thomas Wheatley)

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It’s not the same accreditation recently stripped from the 58,000-student school system by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, but Clayton officials say the seal of approval from the Georgia Accrediting Commission may help students get accepted to public and private colleges and universities in the state.

Full release after the jump.

(more…)

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Adios!

Per the suggestion of an administrative law judge who said four members of the Clayton County school board violated their duties under law, Gov. Sonny Perdue today removed Michelle Strong, Louise Baines-Hunter, Yolonda Everett and Sandra Scott from their posts. All nine school board members who were on the board when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools began their investigation — and whose actions were considered the primary cause of the accreditation fiasco — have since been removed.

“The fate of the Clayton County School System is now in the hands of the voters,” Perdue said in a statement. “Through the elections to replace these four board members, they can send a clear signal that the kind of behavior that has led to this ruling and the system’s loss of accreditation will not be tolerated. We can hope that this marks a new day for Clayton County, a time in which rebuilding can begin.”

More to come. Until then, view Perdue’s full release after the jump.

(more…)

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If Clayton County Schools wants to regain its accreditation status, it’ll have to jump through a lot of hoops. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the accrediting agency that stripped the system of its status this morning, released several documents related to the decision. I’m posting them below. The first is a 20-page report outlining the events leading up to the unfortunate news. The second file is from a press conference held today by the agency.

Click here to download the 20-page report from SACS.

Click here to download the press conference fact sheet.

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UPDATE: We normally don’t correct quoted sources, but I’ve done such to the copy below because of Todd’s comment.

Says the AJC’s Megan Matteucci:

The 50,000-student school system is the first in the nation to lose accreditation since 1969, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools announced today.

…

Qualifying Clayton students will still be able to get their HOPE scholarships. Earlier this year, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill allowing graduates of unaccredited schools to get HOPE.

Without accreditation, Clayton will also lose pre-kindergarten funding and some teacher benefits. The county also expects more students to flee. About 2,000 students have already left, superintendent John Thompson said.

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A MILLION TO ONE: Natural-gas discoveries in northwest Louisiana have sent the price of an acre in some places from a few hundred dollars to $30,000 in a few months, creating a sudden class of millionaires in the middle of nowhere.

LYNCHING RE-ENACTMENT: The victims’ surviving family members say they’re “troubled” by an Atlanta civil rights group’s four-year-old re-enactment of the 1946 Moore’s Ford lynching, and especially by this year’s installment.

CLAYTON: The BOE barely approves its official response to send to SACS regarding the accreditation stripping.

RETENTION: A report released today details the problems the Atlanta Police Department is having retaining officers; 9 percent of the 1,600-member police force left last year, and on one day last August, each zone of the city had one uncovered beat.

SIX-LEGGED DEER: Will go to live with an Athens woman who has a permit to keep unusual animals.

KANGAROO ATTACK: A Zoo Atlanta visitor records on cell-phone video a kangaroo attacking a zoo worker over the weekend.

JASON ELAM: The metro Atlanta native, who’s spent the last 15 years in Denver as one of the NFL’s premier kickers, says he’s happy to now be a Falcon.

JOE HORN: Probably not a Falcon for much longer.

STOLEN THUNDER: Angry at a local radio station for leaking its new Oklahoma City team’s mascot (the Thunder), the NBA hurriedly registers a list of alternates, one of which is misspelled.

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In today’s AJC, John Hollis reports from Clayton County about Sunday’s political forum that hosted most of the 26 candidates running for the school board.

In the third paragraph, the story flatly asserts: “The candidates’ responses could be instrumental in helping voters choose as the July 15 election approaches.”

Why’s that? The story doesn’t say.

But maybe the answer comes in the last paragraph of the story: “The candidates’ forum was sponsored by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV, which are both owned by Cox Enterprises.”

A-ha.

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Barring major reforms, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools will revoke Clayton County Public Schools’ accreditation in September. Clayton’s students will lose scholarship eligibility and will be unable to transfer their credits. In the past 20 years, only two school systems in the country have lost accreditation.

“The Clayton County Board of Education is dysfunctional. Currently the Board does not operate with unity or a common sense of purpose. Individuals on the Board act in their own best interest or that of special interest groups. As a result the Board operates in a constant of confusion and conflict.”

— Southern Association of Colleges and School’s Feb. 15 report by the Special Review Team for Clayton County Public Schools

“ASSCLOWN!”

— The label given to Clayton County school board members Lois Baines-Hunter, Ericka Davis, the Rev. W. Rod Johnson and Sandra Scott on the website www.give-em-the-boot.com. The site accuses several top county officials of incompetence and corruption.

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