On Wednesday, education law expert Rodney Moore answered parent questions on many issues facing DeKalb County School District at the ELPC meeting. His opinions on a few of these issues are as follows:
Regarding Eugene Walker’s lawsuit protesting the removal of our Board of Education members, Rodney does not feel the court will rule in Walker’s favor. Rodney gave the audience a detailed handout explaining the applicable law for recalling and removing BOE members. If you would like a copy of the handout, email Allyson Gevertz.
In the TSA (Tax-Sheltered Annuity) lawsuit, DeKalb teachers are suing DCSD for freezing their benefits in 2009. Rodney feels that it is not too late for DCSD to address this. The DeKalb BOE can make changes now that could impact the case.
Since the Druid Hills Charter Cluster petition was not approved, some Druid Hills residents want their neighborhood to be annexed by the City of Atlanta. Rodney noted that becoming part of Atlanta Public Schools could be good since APS has a positive feeling towards charters. However, he warned that charters founded by parents tend to do will while those parents’ kids are in the system, but are not always sustainable once those kids graduate.
Rodney spoke about the Crawford Lewis/Pat Reid/Tony Pope case. He discussed the civil issues verses the criminal issues. [Later in the day on Wednesday, Reid and Pope were found guilty of racketeering and theft in connection with DeKalb school construction.]
Some recently-formed cities are wanting to change the Georgia Constitution to allow cities to create their own school systems. Rodney is not a big fan of cities breaking off and forming their own school systems. It is very expensive for small systems to purchase books and provide services that are discounted on a larger scale. One solution to the problems in public education in our state would be to restore full funding to public education. The time and effort spent focusing on city schools could be spent convincing the Governor and State Legislature to backtrack on all the years of austerity cuts and other funding cuts to our schools. Restored education funding would make a huge impact on all Georgia schools.