Fresh Loaf

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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MCCAIN: Picks Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. He’ll introduce her in Dayton, Ohio today.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for president in Denver with a speech CNN analyst David Gergen calls a “political masterpiece.”

CLAYTON: School system loses accreditation, but can get it back at any point during the next school year if it can meet the SACS mandates. Superintendent John Thompson plans to appeal the SACS decision.

GUSTAV: Bearing down on Cuba as it becomes a hurricane, with a Tuesday landfall in Louisiana expected.

LANIER: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has slowed flows from the lake because tributaries and reservoirs south of Buford Dam were replenished by Fay.

UGA VII: The new mascot will be announced today and debuted tomorrow when Georgia hosts Georgia Southern in Athens.

RAMBLIN’ WRACK: Fay pushed excessive wrack, or decomposing seaweed that’s naturally washed ashore, beyond normal high tide in coastal Georgia, and it’s filled with trash.

RAMBLIN’ WRECK: Tech beats Jacksonville State 41-14 to open the season.

MEDAL OF SCIENCE: The nation’s highest science award will be given to Georgia Tech chemistry professor Mostafa El-Sayed, who’s working to treat cancer with cylindrical gold nanorods and lasers.

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EVERGLADE PLUG-IN: United States Sugar agrees to sell 187,000 acres in the Everglades, and all of the company’s other assets, to the state of Florida for $1.75 billion, which will allow natural water flow from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay for the first time since the 1890s.

OBAMA: Leads McCain in two polls by more than 10 points, although June poll results rarely hold steady through November. Hillary Clinton begins campaigning for Obama today. Obama asks his supporters to help alleviate some of her campaign debt.

UNIONS’ UNION: Delta and Northwest pilot unions agree on a joint contract.

CYBER RATTLING: Atlanta is the 10th-largest cybercity and largest in the Southeast.

COLLARED: Police pull over and arrest an Atlanta man in Macon driving a U-Haul loaded with $150,000 worth of Polo shirts that had been stolen in Valdosta.

GAS PRICE WAR: Two gas stations in Buford are in an arms race of affordability, with a gallon dropping as low as $3.45 over the weekend.

DOG BEAT DOG: Fresno State downs UGA to tie the series at 1-1; Game 3 to decide the national champion is tonight at 7.

JOHN THOMPSON: The Clayton County corrective superintendent says he was misheard in the video he posted online Monday, that he said Clayton schools “had a very slim chance” of maintaining accreditation, before he became superintendent, not “have a very slim chance.” Two Board of Education members back up the misheard version, saying Clayton will not maintain its accreditation.

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BOWEN OUT: HUD approves of the Atlanta Housing Authority tearing down Bowen Homes in northwest Atlanta; AHA says renovating the housing project would cost $100 million and tearing it down will be less than $6 million.

UGA: Beats Fresno State in Game 1 of the College World Series; now one win away from winning the national championship.

SHELL SHOCK: Four advocacy groups have filed an emergency petition to the Georgia DNR seeking to repeal the state’s turtle collection law, arguing turtle species are dropping due to unrestricted trapping.

TRAIN TAX: MARTA holds informational meeting in Gwinnett about moving rail service into the county; Gwinnettians will vote on the measure, which would be funded with a 1-cent sales tax, on July 15.

CODE RED SMOG ALERT: Atlanta’s now in the red in more ways than one.

EVIDENCE: The zebra found grazing in an I-75 median in April will be recuperated enough for public viewing July 12.

COLOR GUARD: Don Imus says he only asked “what color” Adam “Pacman” Jones is to make the point that Jones has been unfairly targeted by police in his six arrests since 2005. It might have been clearer if Imus had actually said that instead of just, “Well there you go. Now we know,” after being told Jones is black.

CLAYTON: Superintendent John Thompson, who one month ago said Clayton County Schools would meet the SACS mandates by July 15, now says the school system has a “very slim” chance of maintaining accreditation at all. Who cares, though — I want to know how John Thompson’s spirits are holding up:

“After talking to all the politicians, people and powers that be, we have a very slim chance of maintaining accreditation at all. It could have dampened my spirits, but it did not.”

Whew.

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VIRAL MARKETING: A congressional investigation concludes the Bush administration used a flawed study when it said it would be fine to relocate research on the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease from an isolated island lab to mainland sites near livestock, such as Athens. Also, National Grange argues moving the lab near livestock would make it an inviting target for terrorists.

JOHN THOMPSON: New Clayton superintendent says he’ll meet the SACS mandates a month and a half early, but many parents are ready to move to more accredited pastures.

ATLANTA DREAM: Home opener is tonight.

STORMS: 2008 is on track to be a record year for insured storm losses, according to Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine.

VIVP: Rumors are Bill’s reset his sights on 2016 for Hillary via the VP, but no one admits to anything.

MARS LANDING: Scientists will spend their Memorial Day weekend fretting in the Jet Propulsion Lab over the Phoenix Mars probe, which faces the Mars-probe legacy of a 55 percent failure rate.

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