Letter Puts School System on Defense

The regional accrediting agency for the has joined parents, teachers and the county grand jury in demanding some answers from the Cobb Board of Education.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI) sent a letter dated March 29 to Superintendent Fred Sanderson, questioning the governance of the school district and giving the school board until April 28 to explain its actions. If the school system’s answers don’t satisfy the accrediting agency, it could appoint a special review team to investigate the district.

The school board will address the SACS letter at its monthly work session Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., said Chairwoman Alison Bartlett, who will miss that meeting while she recovers at home March 30. She declined to comment on the allegations in the letter.

“I do not think it’s ethical at this time to respond to the letter without the board having open discussions and reaching a consensus on the response,” said Bartlett, whose Post 7 includes . “Furthermore, to publicly respond to this is a violation of our Code of Ethics that all of us signed in February.”

Such violations are among the issues raised in the March 29 letter from Mike Bryans, the director of the Georgia office of AdvancED, the parent organization for SACS CASI. Bryans wrote to Sanderson in response to county residents’ complaints sparked by, but not limited to, the that has divided the school board, produced heated public comments at meeting after meeting this year, and led the for questioning April 1.

Jennifer Oliver, the SACS vice president for communications, said AdvancED has received “just over 100 (letters) at this time.”

Board member David Banks, whose Post 5 includes , Pope and high schools, said he heard that SACS received as many as 350 complaints from Cobb County residents.

“I get copied on a lot of them, but not all of them, so I hate to even guess” how many, Banks said. “I think it’s very serious. If there’s validity to it, yeah, they’re going to have to take some action, and there may be more things when they do their investigation. This could wind up costing Cobb County parents millions of dollars.”

In recent months, SACS has placed the Atlanta, DeKalb County and Warren County school districts on accreditation probation or advisement after investigations of governance issues.

Cobb board member David Morgan, whose Post 3 includes , and high schools, said the board needs to take Bryans' letter seriously.

“Any kind of inquiry that comes from SACS, we need to regard with the utmost importance, and I don’t see this as any different,” he said. “I think we need to do all in our power so that SACS is satisfied that we are governing properly.”

Bryans' two-page letter states that most of the “allegations pertain to governance issues,” suggesting that the school district is failing to meet two AdvancED standards: “Standard 1: Vision and Purpose and Standard 2: Governance and Leadership.”

“The allegations run much deeper than the decision relating to the calendar as complainants claim that with the recent election of new board members, the Board of Education has eroded public trust and confidence in their ability to govern,” Bryans wrote. “Numerous examples have been cited in the complaints regarding the efforts of four board members to exclude their fellow colleagues and use their personal and political agendas to drive school board decisions, including the decision regarding the calendar.”

His letter identifies six areas of concern:

• The board’s “lack of focus on the vision and purpose of the school system.”
• The board’s decision to , delaying the school year’s start by two weeks.
• The board’s “interference in the day-to-day operations of the system by working to minimize and neutralize the administration of the school system.”
• Allegations that the four board members who formed the calendar majority, Bartlett and newcomers Kathleen Angelucci, Tim Stultz and Scott Sweeney, violated Georgia’s open-meetings law. That appears to be a reference to claims that the four had improper contacts with candidates to replace Sanderson, a charge .
• Allegations that board members shared confidential information from closed, executive sessions with the media. Banks has been accused of doing that in questioning his colleagues’ actions in the superintendent search.
• The board’s “lack of effort to meet requirements for training, especially since this was an area identified as a required action in the 2009 Quality Assurance Review.” The board took action March 24 to initiate training through the Georgia School Boards Association.

Bryans ended his letter by reminding the school system that it must have its response in his office within 30 days of March 29. “If, after review of your response, we believe the Cobb County School District may be in violation of the AdvancED Accreditation Standards or policies, a Special Review Team may be appointed to visit the district.”

Such a review team is exactly what the Restore the Trust website sought in a prepared letter it urged Cobb residents to copy and paste so they could e-mail complaints to AdvancED President and CEO Mark Elgart, Sanderson and the seven school board members. The school calendar is the focus of Restore the Trust.

In a released statement, Sanderson said the district will meet the April 28 deadline.

“The letter from AdvancED indicates they have been contacted by members of our community regarding concerns about the actions of our Board of Education,” said the superintendent, who is retiring June 30. “AdvancED has asked us to respond to those concerns, which we plan to do within the designated 30-day timeframe.”

Stultz of Post 2 (), Angelucci of Post 4 (, ), Sweeney of Post 6 ( and ) and Lynnda Crowder-Eagle of Post 1 (, , and ) couldn’t be reached for comment.