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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STAYING ALIVE: Troy Davis is alive this morning, thanks to a last-minute stay granted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices will reconvene Monday, and if they don’t decide to hear his case, he’s back in Georgia’s clutches.

CHECK IS IN THE BAIL: Congress is listening to growing outcries to limit Wall Street executives’ lavish salaries and perks as part of the bailout. Counters one trade lobbyist: “It is not appropriate for government to be setting the salaries of executives.” Not appropriate like, say, using taxpayer money to save a corporation from its own bad investments.

WARREN PEACE: Warren Buffet soothes the weary minds of investors by throwing in on Goldman Sachs.

FUELISH HUMANS: The 2008 Atlanta Gas Crisis! is still going strong, despite the EPA’s move to allow local stations to sell heavier-polluting fuel. The AJC interviews an Emory behavioral psychologist, who reminds us that we’re panicky nitwits.

GAS FIGHT! Society is always three meals, or one tank of gas, away from anarchy.

FLORIDA: Decides it will accept Clayton students to its colleges after all.

DEKALB PLANE CRASH: One person is killed when a plane headed from Jacksonville, Fla., to Michigan crashes in a residential neighborhood near PDK.

TYLER PERRY: The Atlanta movie mogul/maven, who was once homeless himself, donates enough food to feed 1,000 Atlanta families for two weeks, helping address the recent food-donation shortage in the city.

ZOONOTIC SUGGESTION: Advocates of relocating the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility to Athens contend it would foster increased scientific collaboration on treating diseases that start in animals and spread to humans, like avian flus.

BLACK MARKET: The announcement that UGA’s high-stakes showdown with No. 8 Alabama Saturday will be the blackout game has sparked the Athens economy with a black-clothes-buying frenzy.

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DAVID FRANKLIN: The ex-husband of Mayor Shirley Franklin and a chief architect of the Maynard Jackson political machine died Sunday at 65.

TRAVELATROCITY: Atlanta and several other U.S. cities are suing 17 online travel sites including Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, alleging the companies have cheated the cities out of millions in taxes.

REVACUEES: Gulf Coast residents who fled Hurricane Gustav may be repeating the ordeal less than two weeks later as Ike heads west-northwest.

OH, THE HEWED MANATEE: Four manatees are killed in the Savannah River, presumably by a large commercial or military prop boat.

HOSCHTON: The northeast Georgia city has broken Cincinnati’s world record for scarecrows in a single ZIP code, with nearly 5,000 at last count.

CLAYTON NOT APPEALING: The school system has decided not to appeal SACS’ accreditation-removal decision, instead focusing on getting its accreditation reinstated by September 2009.

ZONE COVERAGE: Former UGA and Cincinnati Bengals dynamo linebacker David Pollack, whose football career was ended in September 2006 with a broken neck, has signed on to host a sports talk show on 790 the Zone.

CONNECTING THE DOT: DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham and former DOT chairman Mike Evans were married Saturday night in Alabama.

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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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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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OBAMA: Officially becomes the Democratic nominee for president, the first black person ever nominated by a major party. He’ll give his acceptance speech tonight.

MCCAIN: Has picked his running mate, whom he’ll inform of his decision today and introduce Friday in Ohio.

UNDERDRIVE: As gas prices and environmental worries have driven down driving, highways and other transportation projects, including commuter rail, have lost a major source of funding — gas taxes.

CLAYTON IS THE HARDEST PART: SACS will announce its accreditation decison at a 1 p.m. press conference today. [UPDATE: Accreditation lost.] Meanwhile, a state judge has recommended that Gov. Perdue remove four Clayton school board members from office for violating Georgia’s open-meetings laws and ethics code. 

FREE REFILL: Fay has now added two feet back to Lake Lanier, as rainwater continues to move downhill through the basin. It’s still 15 feet below full pool, but that one storm has made up for the month of August so far, which has been especially dry.

FUNNEL VISION: The National Weather Service says up to four tornadoes may have touched down in Hall County as Fay passed through.

OUR DEERLY DEPARTED: Rome’s world-famous six-legged deer died last week after surgery to remove his two unnecessary legs.

PAUL JOHNSON: The New York Times profiles Georgia Tech’s new skipper and his stubbornly distinctive coaching style, which he’ll debut in Atlanta tonight as Tech hosts Jacksonville State to open the season.

BRAVES: Call up minor-league outfielder Josh Anderson after trading CF Mark Kotsay to Boston Wednesday for minor-league outfielder Luis Sumoza. Atlanta also signed journeyman relief pitcher Elmer Dessens.

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TED KENNEDY: Helps kick off the Democratic National Convention with a rousing speech, despite his terminal brain cancer.

GUSTAV: Hurricane gains strength in advance of hitting Haiti. Tropical Storm Fay’s remnants continue to soak Atlanta today; the storm destroyed only about 8 percent of coastal Georgia’s sea turtle nests, though, which was less than feared.

FRED CRANE: The actor who played a beau to Scarlett O’Hara and spoke Gone With the Wind’s first line has died at the age of 90.

HOT MANTA: The Georgia Aquarium brings in a manta ray rescued from fishing nets in the Indian Ocean.

RUSTLE: A raccoon that’s been terrorizing a judge and others at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building downtown has been captured.

WONDER WAAL: Emory primate researcher Frans de Waal has demonstrated that generosity is rewarding to capuchin monkeys, who prefer “prosocial” behavior over pure self interest.

CLAYTON WITH BATED BREATH: SACS is expected to announce this week whether it will strip Clayton schools of their accreditation, since the Sept. 1 deadline falls on Labor Day.

STATE PARKS: Could be closed due to the statewide budget crisis.

QUILTERS NEVER WIN: The Gee’s Bend quilters from Alabama have resolved their lawsuit against an Atlanta art dealer whom they had accused of cheating them out of earnings.

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SPY VS. PIE: The AP reports that Julia Child left a career as a WWII-era spy to become a chef; Child is one of several well-known Americans whose previously secret spy career was revealed this morning, as the personnel files of the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services were declassified.

SHOOTING: The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party is dead after a recently fired Target employee mysteriously drove more than 30 miles to Little Rock and shot him.

LANIER: Georgia officials asked SCOTUS this morning to overturn a February appeals-court ruling requiring congressional approval for the state to take more water from Lake Lanier to quench Atlanta’s growing thirst.

STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: The NYT reports on the resurgent popularity of streetcars in at least 40 U.S. downtowns such as Cincinnati, New Orleans, Houston and Charlotte. Not mentioned: Atlanta’s distant visions for the Beltline and Peachtree Street streetcar.

SACS: The accrediting agency is in Clayton County today, part of its review to determine whether the school system will be the first since 1969 to have its accreditation revoked.

SCRATCH PAPER: Cox Newspapers is selling all but three of its newspapers.

RESCUE 911: The recent death of a Johns Creek woman highlights problems in the Fulton County emergency services, as the 911 operator who sent emergency crews 30 miles in the wrong direction had a long history of such routing mistakes. She also repeatedly was disciplined for sleeping on the job, chronic tardiness and fighting with co-workers, and records show her behavior wasn’t uncommon in the department.

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MICHAEL PHELPS: The U.S. swimmer becomes the winningest Olympian ever with his 11th career gold medal.

RUSSIAN INTO WAR: Georgia’s government continues to accuse Russia of attacking the city of Gori despite the cease-fire, and even of moving toward the capital of Tbilisi, although confirmation is difficult.

DRINKING PROBLEM: A judge will decide whether metro Atlantans ever had the right to use Lake Lanier for drinking water.

JOSH SMITH: Interviewed on the Sporting Blog by Bethlehem Shoals following his re-signing with the Hawks.

SILVER BULLET: Transportation officials are discussing the possibility of building a 310-mph, mag-lev bullet train connecting Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta.

LAVONIA: Police are accusing a man of keeping his wife and four children captive for three years in a single-wide trailer.

CLAYTON: School board member Rod Johnson becomes the latest to resign. He stepped down after school system attorneys declined to represent him because he had skipped meetings where they were discussing defense strategies for upcoming administrative hearings.

ACCREDIT CHECK: North Carolina Central University’s now-defunct Atlanta satellite campus has been retroactively stripped of its accreditation by SACS, essentially nullifying the degrees earned there by 25 students.

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SACS ED: Although Clayton County has garnered the most publicity, enough other Georgia school systems have had accreditation-threatening SACS encounters in recent years that the state BoE requested the creation of a task force to educate school boards around the state about appropriate behavior.

SMOLTZ: Shoulder surgery is successful; doesn’t answer any questions on return to pitching, though.

GLAVINE: I don’t even want to say it.

HOT PANTS: Some “blue jean bandits” may have been caught in Dawsonville after a lengthy police chase and manhunt.

FARE ENOUGH? Atlanta cabbies say gas prices are making their trade unprofitable at current rates, ask City Council to raise them.

BRAIN PLANE: Wings Air will begin offering a 20-minute, $49 Athens-Atlanta flight Monday, with another carrier awaiting airport contracts to follow suit.

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