Representative Mike Jacobs

On a 6-3 vote earlier today, the DeKalb County Board of Education voted to hire Dr. Cheryl Atkinson to be the new superintendent of schools. Board members Nancy Jester, Pam Speaks, and Don McChesney voted against the choice. All others voted in favor.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to call or e-mail the school board members about the proposed contract for Dr. Atkinson. Click here and here to read my previous messages on the subject.

I hope Dr. Atkinson turns out to be a good superintendent. However, the contract that is bringing her to DeKalb County reveals that our school board has learned nothing from its colossal failures with two recent superintendents, Crawford Lewis (who was indicted) and Johnny Brown (who was dismissed).

As I showed you in one of my previous messages, Dr. Atkinson’s contract contains the following “termination for convenience” clause requiring a vote by three-fourths (3/4) supermajority of the school board in order to terminate her if her performance is sub-par:

“The BOARD, upon a three-fourths (3/4) vote of its members, may at its option unilaterally terminate this Contract for its convenience by giving the SUPERINTENDENT a minimum of ninety (90) days written notice of termination at any time. In the event of such termination, the BOARD shall pay to the SUPERINTENDENT severance pay, either all of the aggregate salary she would have earned under this Contract from the actual date of termination to the termination date set forth in this Contract, or a sum equivalent to twelve (12) months of the annual base salary as stated in Paragraph 4 of this Contract, whichever is less.”

In responding to citizen concerns about this clause, a couple of school board members chose to hide behind a subsequent clause of the contract, the “termination for cause” provision, which reads:

“Termination for cause shall constitute conduct which is seriously prejudicial to the District, including but not limited to, neglect of duty, or breach of contract. Notice of termination for cause shall be given in writing and the SUPERINTENDENT shall be entitled to appear before the BOARD to discuss such causes. If the SUPERINTENDENT chooses to be accompanied by legal counsel at such meeting, if allowed in closed, executive session under applicable law, she shall bear any costs therein involved. Such meeting shall be conducted in closed, executive session unless specifically prohibited by State law. The SUPERINTENDENT shall be provided a written decision describing the results of the meeting.”

The concept of termination for cause is a breeding ground for litigation. It is unclear what, short of a criminal indictment, would constitute a sufficient basis for invoking this provision.

The provision that is most likely to be invoked is the termination for convenience clause, the one with the three-fourths restriction. It is odd for a government entity to contract away its right to take an action by simple majority vote. I’m not 100% convinced that the three-fourths restriction would pass legal muster if challenged in court.

Dr. Atkinson’s contract already includes high compensation, abundant fringe benefits, and an overly generous “golden parachute” if the termination for convenience clause is invoked. If you couple the generosity of these provisions with a three-fourths barrier to termination, the school board has gone too far.

In 2012, the DeKalb school board will shrink from nine to seven members. Right now, all it will take is three of nine board members to keep a lackluster superintendent in place. After the board membership is reduced to seven, just two members can prevent our school system from moving forward.

It’s easy to see how a superintendent and very small minority of school board members could abuse the three-fourths provision. Let’s hope it never comes to that, but the fact that the contract allows this to happen is an unfortunate byproduct of the decisions that have brought Dr. Atkinson to DeKalb.

Something has come to my attention that requires immediate citizen action. In the message (click for link) that I sent earlier this week, I told you about the DeKalb County School System’s choice of Dr. Cheryl Atkinson to be the new superintendent of schools.

Embedded in the proposed contract between Dr. Atkinson and the school system is the following, very troubling termination clause:

“The BOARD, upon a three-fourths (3/4) vote of its members, may at its option unilaterally terminate this Contract for its convenience by giving the SUPERINTENDENT a minimum of ninety (90) days written notice of termination at any time. In the event of such termination, the BOARD shall pay to the SUPERINTENDENT severance pay, either all of the aggregate salary she would have earned under this Contract from the actual date of termination to the termination date set forth in this Contract, or a sum equivalent to twelve (12) months of the annual base salary as stated in Paragraph 4 of this Contract, whichever is less.”

You read that correctly. The DeKalb County Board of Education proposes to require a three-fourths (3/4) supermajority of its members to terminate the new superintendent’s contract.

That makes it difficult to fire a superintendent whose performance is lackluster. The contract should provide for termination upon a simple majority vote. Our school board is failing us on this one.

The school board has a poor track record of picking superintendents. Our most recent superintendent, Crawford Lewis, was indicted. The superintendent before him, Johnny Brown, was a failure and released from the position. Why on earth would our school board want to make it more difficult to dismiss a superintendent who is failing our children?

The three-fourths termination clause, standing alone, is terrible. When viewed in context with DeKalb’s history of hiring bad superintendents, it’s unconscionable. And if Dr. Atkinson won’t come to DeKalb without the three-fourths clause in her contract, we don’t need her.

Please take a minute to call or e-mail the members of the board of education and ask them to rewrite the termination clause to allow the superintendent to be released by simple majority vote of the school board. Here is their contact information:

Tom Bowen, Chairman
(404) 392-1621
thomas_bowen@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Paul Womack, Vice Chairman
(404) 680-8790
h_paul_womack@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Sarah Copelin-Wood
(404) 371-1490
sarah_copelin-wood@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Jay Cunningham
(404) 392-3091
jay_cunningham@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Donna Edler
(404) 394-1238
donna_edler@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Nancy Jester
(404) 394-8750
nancy_jester@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Don McChesney
(404) 664-2458
don_mcchesney@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Pam Speaks
(404) 931-7971
pam_speaks@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Eugene Walker
(404) 593-5095
eugene_p_walker@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

I am told that some of the school board members would prefer that the contract provision be eliminated, but a majority of the school board is intent on proceeding with the contract as written. You can read the full contract by clicking here.

Please consider forwarding this message to your neighbors and urging them to take action.

The DeKalb County School System has announced its choice to be the new superintendent of schools: Dr. Cheryl Atkinson, the current superintendent of the Lorain, Ohio city schools.

This choice is cause for concern. The school system in Lorain, Ohio has approximately 8,000 students. DeKalb County has approximately 98,000 students. Plus, Dr. Atkinson lacks a clear track record of improving student achievement in her present school district.

The board of education had other choices and attempted to negotiate with two candidates hailing from larger school systems. Details of those talks were leaked by someone with inside knowledge of the process in an effort to scuttle the negotiations.

Unfortunately, this tactic succeeded.

Senator Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur), and I — among others — lent our support to Brad Bryant, a former member of the DeKalb County Board of Education and State Board of Education and former State Superintendent of Schools, whom we hoped would be named to the post on an interim basis. This would have been similar to the stabilizing role that Erroll Davis, the former Chancellor of the University System of Georgia, is currently playing as the interim superintendent for the Atlanta Public Schools.

This suggestion was ignored.

Dr. Atkinson likely will arrive in DeKalb following a non-unanimous vote of the school board. Board members Nancy Jester and Don McChesney already have announced that they disagree with the choice. Click here to read what they had to say.

I encourage you to review the facts and, if you agree with Nancy Jester and Don McChesney, contact the other school board members. This is a crucial decision for a school system that is standing at a crossroads with its SACS accreditation on the line. Click here for contact details for the school board.

For further information, please click here for a blog post about an upcoming opportunity to meet Dr. Atkinson this Saturday, August 27, and for details about her proposed contract.

The 2011 session of the General Assembly is finished and in the books. Shortly before adjournment, we passed Senate Bill 79 (click for information), a bill that among other things will reduce the size of the DeKalb County Board of Education from nine to seven members. Governor Deal signed SB 79 into law a couple of weeks ago.

The provision of SB 79 that shrinks the DeKalb school board was taken from House Bill 63 (click for information), legislation that I authored earlier this year. It downsizes the school board by eliminating the two “super districts” that each cover half the county, leaving seven single-member districts of equal population.

In addition to yours truly, Senators Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) and Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) and Representatives Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) and Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur) were instrumental in seeing to the passage of this important legislation. Despite the fact that just about every other DeKalb County legislator refused to see past the purely political arguments that were made against SB 79, this bipartisan group of five legislators worked together to take a major step forward for the DeKalb County School System.

In 2001, the DeKalb County Board of Education saw its membership increase from seven to nine seats. The current size of the school board is a major impediment to its operating at a high standard. This is why the passage of SB 79 was crucial.

Experts agree that smaller school boards provide higher quality governance than larger boards. The Commission for School Board Excellence, a group of leaders that wrote Georgia’s school board ethics law, has recommended that boards consist of no more than seven members. Georgia law already provides that school boards may have no more than seven members, but unfortunately school systems like DeKalb were grandfathered into this 2010 enactment.

DeKalb County, Clayton County, and the Atlanta Public Schools are the only districts in Metro Atlanta that do not meet this standard. Of the latter two districts, Clayton lost its accreditation in 2008 over alleged corruption among board members, and APS has been placed on probation by the accrediting agency known as Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). SACS is in the process of reviewing school board governance in DeKalb County as well.

Mark Elgart, the president and CEO of SACS, recently told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “all of the problems in these systems are about board governance, power struggles, and unethical behavior – not teachers or lack of funding.”

Reducing the size of our school board can help eliminate these problems. “As you increase the number of actors that are on the board, you sometimes end up with an inability to act in conformance with anybody’s set of standards,” former State School Superintendent Brad Bryant, who hails from DeKalb County, told the AJC.

The Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) regularly selects Georgia’s best school boards as “Distinguished Boards of Education” after a review of their performance and organizational structure. More than 90 percent of the boards chosen for 2008 through 2010 have only five members, according to GSBA’s website.

The Gwinnett County School System has the largest student enrollment in Georgia. It also has an award-winning board of education with only five members – two less than SB 79 will require for DeKalb County and four less than comprise DeKalb’s current board.

Of the four largest school districts in the state (Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett), DeKalb is the only one with a board of more than seven members.

My hope was that this necessary change could be made through local legislation, approved by a majority of the 19 representatives and 7 senators from DeKalb County working together to do what is right for our school system and our children.

In this regard, Representative Mary Margaret Oliver had proposed House Bill 22 (click for information), local legislation that could have addressed this issue from a local perspective. I supported HB 22 throughout this year’s legislative session and hoped for its passage, but watched with dismay as certain school board members and their friends in the legislature worked to ensure its defeat.

Within the past two years, our school system has seen the indictment of its superintendent and has spent millions of tax dollars in attorney’s fees for lawsuits against construction contractors.

Reducing the DeKalb school board to seven members is a necessary first step toward a better-run school system. I am pleased that we were able to overcome purely political obstacles in order to make it happen.