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APS professional development day: Grading papers in a coffee shop when mishap sends wrong teachers to training

3:39 pm August 25, 2010, by Maureen Downey

APS had early release today  for teacher training, and APS teachers – elementary school teachers and middle and high school science teachers — showed up at the Carver campus under the impression that they were going to have professional development in science.

But many were instructed to return to their schools as the training at that site was apparently for high school teachers only.

According to teachers, they received notices this week at school telling them that the training was mandatory, but arrived at Carver to find a hand-lettered sign on the door that the 1 p.m. training was only for high school teachers. An APS official was also on hand, advising baffled teachers to return to their schools as their principals would have alternative plans for their afternoon.

But teachers called me from a coffee shop where they were grading papers late in the afternoon because their principal was not at the school and they did not get any e-mails as to what they were supposed to do this afternoon.

Here’s what I think is a bad sign: When I asked a teacher how such a miscommunication could happen, she said, “To be honest, this is APS and there is constant chaos. You never know what is going on.”

An APS spokeswoman said the mistake affected 60 teachers:

There was a glitch at one of the six sites offering professional development for APS teachers this afternoon. Approximately 60 elementary teachers showed up at Carver for science training when the training actually was for high school teachers. Earlier in the day, schools were notified about the change. Apologies were offered to the teachers who did show up. They were instructed to return to their schools. We will follow up with schools to see which teachers did not return.

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103 comments Add your comment

Staci

September 1st, 2010
7:38 pm

Wow………….really? I am all for things being fair in the workplace. But being in corporate and HR for the past 20 years myself, and also being one that if I breathed in the direction of a man I was having an affair with him, I must ask this question, do the accusers of this act know this for a fact???? If this is slander, my heart goes out to the people that were spoken about it the two messages above. I had a similar situation several years ago and really all it boiled down to was jealously. I was chosen to work a project that someone else felt that they should have headed up or even been totally in charge of and since that was not the case they chose to try and get me fired from my job by spreading vicious rumors about me. The good thing about those days it wasn’t so easy to just log on to a computer and post lies and even use full names. For your sake I hope this is true because defermation of character carries a severe fine. I honestly hope the people that spoke about don’t get wind of this if it is false information, if it is in fact false. If it is not true, put the shoe on the other foot. How would this set with you??? If this is true, yes something should be done about it. We as a human race should really try to get along better. God is definitely not happy with us right now.

Bobbie

September 1st, 2010
7:54 pm

Maybe Dr. Hall will ask questions about CRCT scores at Bunche Middle School.

Concern about the future of APS Schools

September 2nd, 2010
7:03 pm

At some point the state should take over Atlanta Public Schools because the focus has been lost. Due do the wrong doing of the people in charge which include the chief Dr.Beverly Hall, Dr.Kathy Augustine, M.Few, LaChandra Butler-Burks.And please dont forget about the Executive Director that have the worst student in the district. It would be nice if the Governor would vote for the following to run APS Randolph Bynum, Micheal Pitts and Dr.Sharon Davis-William because they are concerned about the staff members and the students..

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