Douglas Schools: System Not Involved in Alleged APS Cheating

Following Douglas County resident and Atlanta Public Schools teacher Bernadine Macon being mentioned in a report about cheating in APS, the Douglas County School System is advising that it has no employees involved in the ongoing investigation.

“No Douglas County School System employee is in any way involved in the ongoing Atlanta Public Schools test cheating investigation,” an email notification sent out today from the district reads. “Allegations have been made that an Atlanta Public Schools employee who lives in Douglas County is involved in the investigation.”

The notification says Douglas County District Attorney David McDade is investigating the allegations against Macon.

It will be up to McDade’s office to decide whether anyone is prosecuted.

The report, put together by the governor’s office, says Macon, a fifth grade teacher at Gideons Elementary, had a weekend test “changing party” in 2009 at her house in Douglas County.

She and four other fifth grade teachers snuck the CRCT tests off campus, the report says. The year before, the group had changed answers at the school.

Altering public records is a felony under Georgia law with a maximum of 10 years in prison, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The "changing party" was just one of numerous accusations in the report from Gov. Nathan Deal’s office. School officials across the Atlanta Public School system changed answers on the CRCT tests and went to great lengths to cover up their trail and silence any whistle blowers, according to the report.

Cheating was “an open secret” at Gideons Elementary, the report says.

The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster, according to the AJC report.

When investigators began questioning educators, now-retired principal Armstead Salters obstructed their efforts by telling teachers not to cooperate, the report says.

“If anyone asks you anything about this just tell them you don’t know,” the report quotes Salters as saying.

He told teachers to “just stick to the story and it will all go away.”

Salters eventually confessed to knowing cheating was occurring, the report says.

Macon also admitted to investigators that she and others changed CRCT answers at her home in Douglas County. 

The report says Salters called during the investigation to tell Macon to "hang in there" and that she would be "ok because she didn't do anything."