Garden Hills cleared in CRCT investigation

, the only Buckhead APS school not in the "clear" category in the state's CRCT answer erasure findings, received a clean report from the GBI, the school's principal said.

The school had 9.7 percent of its classrooms flagged for erasures above the Georgia average on the 2009 Criterion Referenced Competency Test, placing it in the "of minimal concern" category, according to the state's APS cheating report released July 5.

Principal Amy Wilson Alderman in a phone interview said that the GBI in a related investigation "didn't find anything of concern" at the school.

The GBI in interviews with Garden Hills teachers and administrators found the school to have "airtight" test procedures, Alderman said, and that the school was not named in the state report.

Garden Hills was in the "of minimal concern" category in the Governor's Office of Student Achievement's CRCT findings on erasures per classroom, according to a database of results on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution web site.

Alderman said in a previous e-mail to Buckhead Patch that the school administrators conducted their own investigation.

"We did follow up on the classrooms that were flagged for erasures, interviewing teachers and proctors that were in the rooms during testing. Although the classrooms were flagged, the results for the classroom were in line with student's performance all year long and did not improve or support the school in making AYP (adequate yearly progress) or targets, " she said.

The state report showed the percentage of classrooms at each school with the number of changes from wrong to right answers as compared with the state average. Those with 0 to 5.4 percent were in the "clear" category; 5.5 to 10.4 percent of "minimal concern"; 10.5 to 24.4 percent "moderate concern," and 24.5 percent or more "severe concern."

Other Buckhead schools' results were 3.7 percent; , 1 percent; 0 percent; , 1 percent; and , 0.9 percent.