City COO says Kasim Reed Looking for Ways to Intervene in Schools Crisis

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is looking for ways to intervene in the APS to ensure that the city's high schools keep their accreditation, city COO Peter Aman said Tuesday night.

Reed had been scheduled to speak to the North Buckhead Civic Association's annual meeting, but had to travel to New York to negotiate for a multimillion-dollar grant, Aman said. Aman proved an informative and forthcoming replacement.

After not mentioning the school situation in an introductory summary of Reed's accomplishments in the 14 months he's been in office, Aman received a question about the "elephant in the room," the schools crisis, from a woman who said she has an eighth-grader in the system. 

While the mayor under Georgia law has no authority over the school system, Aman said the mayor is "considering ways he can personally intervene and break the logjam of a disaster of a school system, a board that is as tangled up in its underwear as this one."

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and its parent organization AdvancED in January imposed accreditation probation on the city's high schools because of rancor and infighting on the city's school board. The school board has been holding weekly meetings in an effort to meet the SACS conditions, but Aman said the mayor sees a lack of progress and a threat of a permanent loss of accreditation.

He said Reed is "appalled at what is happening on the school board and what is happening in the school system."

"We believe we will lose accreditation if we don't fix that. SACS in deadly serious," he said. 

About the school board's continued inability to solve its conflicts, he said, "it is a significant problem, and everyday it grows worse."

The mayor, he said, will "insist that the school board follow state law and elect a new chairman by a two-thirds vote and move on to search for a new superintendent. That to date has not happened."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week that Reed has had discussions with Gov. Nathan Deal about seeking legislative power to appoint school board members. Aman didn't specifically mention that possibility.

He did say the mayor is "exploring what we can do legally. Obviously, we're having other conversations."

In the wake of the school system cheating scandal in elementary schools, Board Chairman LaChandra Butler Burks was replaced by Khatiim Sherrer El by a simple majority instead of a two-thirds vote, a violation that AdvancED cited in its decision to impose the accreditation probation.

"I don't believe the scandal gave them the right to violate the state charter the way that they did," Aman said.

The cheating scandal was not addressed by the SACS report, because it occurred in southside elementary schools, not the city's high schools. SACS only has accreditation authority over the state high schools, as an audience member pointed out. The cheating scandal also led to School Superintendent Beverly Hall's decision to resign. The search for her replacement is another pressing issue.

Aman said "I think the cheating issue is a huge problem. If it was not directed centrally, it was allowed to flourish amid system processes."

The GBI is investigating the cheating scandal and is to release a report in May. Aman said the probe could lead to criminal prosecution of school system officials, but not teachers, who acted as whistleblowers.

For more on Aman's talk, as well as other coverage of the North Buckhead Civic Association meeting, see Buckhead Patch later in the day.