The APS cheating scandal casts a long shadow, all the way to Texas.
After the release of the state’s devastating report on cheating in Atlanta schools and the culture that fostered and tolerated it, many people concluded that it would be unlikely that the APS top leadership would ever work again in education.
They could be right.
Tonight, former APS superintendent deputy Kathy Augustine lost her new post in a suburban Texas system. The DeSoto Independent School District board of trustees canceled Augustine’s three-year school chief contract and negotiated a buyout with her. That 3-2 vote to remove Augustine makes her the highest-ranking Atlanta administrator to lose a job because of the scandal.
The board bypassed monthly business to take up the matter in a closed session. They deliberated more than 90 minutes before voting. Augustine’s contract stipulates that in case of termination, she and the board must mutually agree on the terms.
“This is nothing personal,” said Sandra Wheeler, a DeSoto school board member who had cautioned against hiring Augustine. “This is about leadership in this district. It’s about ethics and integrity. At this time, I don’t feel the leadership ability is there. I have chosen to support the severance. I think our children are owed what’s best.”
Board member Aubrey Hooper, while acknowledging he found the investigation of the APS scandal “troubling,” said DeSoto had to move forward and get its students prepared for college.
“I don’t feel 100 percent that the leader we have chosen can make that happen,” Hooper said. “I have some questions there.”
Augustine was placed on administrative leave in July after only one day of work in her $188,000 job while the board looked into her involvement with APS cheating. A photo of her in a collegiate robe standing with the DeSoto board remains on the Texas district’s website. Yet she spent little time actually working on DeSoto Schools business with her board.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
67 comments Add your comment
Top School
August 9th, 2011
5:27 pm
Yes, Chilly Willy you’ve got …There is still too much wrong…and not enough going in the right direction.
The “Atlanta Way” is still running the show. Kathy Augustine was thrown under the bus by those behind all of this…the Business Community is still calling all the shots.
See the Buckhead Spin below:
http://topschoolatlanta.blogspot.com/2011/08/open-records-atlanta-public-schools.html
Atlanta Principal
August 9th, 2011
6:31 pm
Lord they fire me where can I go to get a job now
Atlanta Principal
August 9th, 2011
6:32 pm
New York City, Washington Dc, Philadelphia and Chicargo is hiring.
Mac
August 9th, 2011
8:43 pm
This blog is entertainment.
Sarah
August 9th, 2011
9:05 pm
All you nattering nabobs of negativity are idiots as well. While there was obviously cheating going on you let a vengeful Governor (Purdue) and a puppet ( Mathers from GOSA) team up to destroy a majority Black district. While I do not condone the leadership at APS and the climate of the past, the aforementioned people seized a moment in history to reinforce the perception Black kids can’t learn! If you read the report by the special investigators you can’t but help be left with the notion of how can they prove most of the allegations. That was never their intent! There are numerous good people whose career has been destroyed because they were convicted in the AJC court of public opinion. What you will find out if the DA’s are truthful is that they were handed manure for possible prosecution. What is also absurb about this whole thing is the haters and idiots the AJC chose in the form of former teachers and parents (Hayes-Tavares) who have had the “15 minutes of fame” for far too long. Now THE SYSTEM IS LEFT WITH INTERIM PRINCIPALS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS AND AN ACTING DEPUTY FOR C & I who seem to have been chosen by a lottery system rather than ability or potential. Wow! Punish the truly guilty but let sanity prevail!!!!!
ErasureGate goes national: recent developments
August 9th, 2011
9:32 pm
[...] The APS cheating scandal casts long shadow, all the way to Texas – Repercussions from the Atlanta cheating scandal cause former deputy superintendent of Atlanta public schools to lose her job as superintendent of a Texas school system. [...]
Questions
August 9th, 2011
10:09 pm
Sarah….You are one of the few rationale people I’ve read. People who stand for nothing fall for anything!! Reading the report and following the story from Deerwood to now, clearly spells “WITCH HUNT!” Let those who truly did wrong pay. However, reading the words of some of the whistleblowers, people in the system can tell you that they are some/were some of the WEAKEST TEACHERS IN THE SYSTEM. They were granted a “free pass” to lie. It was that group of people that the Bowers-Wilson, Jekel-Hyde and the GBI chosed to make their STARS!!!
Burroughston Broch
August 10th, 2011
4:08 am
I am surprised that the DeSoto ISD mustered enough political courage (cajones in TX) to terminate Ms. Augustine. The vote was 3-2 with 2 members absent or abstaining. Of course, what do you expect when the Board Chair is 23 years old and hasn’t found his first real job yet.
It will be interesting to see whether the DeSoto ISD voters recall the School Board over the money they squandered in this matter. It is pocket change compared to what the Atlanta and DeKalb County Boards waste every year, and yet we give them a free pass.
Sharon Pitts must Go
August 10th, 2011
6:36 am
Pure EVIL!!!!!!!!!!
funny
August 10th, 2011
9:23 am
its a mad house; a mad house i say
Burroughston Broch
August 10th, 2011
11:11 pm
It turns out that Ms. Augustine was not the only former APS administrator planning to move to Desoto ISD in Texas. From yesterday’s Dallas Morning News:
“Clearly, the search firm and trustees didn’t do their due diligence in calculating both the scale of the investigation and Augustine’s potential culpability.
Hiring her simply was a bad move.
And it almost got worse.
When Augustine traveled to DeSoto in the spring to interview for the job, she brought another Atlanta Public Schools administrator with her. That administrator, Joyce McCloud, was hoping to hop aboard the gravy train out of Atlanta and into DeSoto, too.
Come to find out, according to property records, McCloud lived with Augustine in the same Atlanta abode. McCloud was a special assistant to Atlanta’s superintendent and aspired to be Augustine’s well-paid chief of staff, a Cabinet-level position created soon after Augustine was hired.
And as the news story points out: “A June 21 email from Augustine to DeSoto ISD’s director of human resources included a job description for the chief-of-staff position that Augustine herself wrote.”
Sharon Pitts must Go
August 11th, 2011
6:51 pm
@B B
Come to find out, according to property records, McCloud lived with Augustine in the same Atlanta abode. McCloud was a special assistant to Atlanta’s superintendent and aspired to be Augustine’s well-paid chief of staff, a Cabinet-level position created soon after Augustine was hired.
How cozy!
David Sims
August 11th, 2011
8:41 pm
I think that I make more mistakes in this blog than I do anywhere else.
“The investigation only discovered the fact that APS was dysfunctional was discovered by the state’s investigators.”
Active voice on one end; redundant passive voice on the other.
Payback is a mother
August 12th, 2011
12:21 am
Kathy Augustine was and still is the worse human being on earth. She was rude, mean and nasty to all of her subordinates and everyone should know that she and Beverly Hall orchestrated this whole thing and put the teachers and principals jobs in jeopardy. They should be tarred and feather and run out of town on a rail. They single-handedly destroyed the lives of many APS students and employees. They should get life in prison without parole for the catastrophe damage that they caused. It would be a travesty if they are not prosecuted.
Angry Parents
August 12th, 2011
12:46 pm
There was one Desoto Board Member who tried to tell the other board members not to vote for Augustine. That board member was out voted. Whoever said that all Desoto Board Members voted for Augustine is simply not true. Go back and read the news.
Aiming High
August 12th, 2011
9:31 pm
Is anyone looking forward to Supt. Beverly Hall’s Perp walk? I am looking forward to seeing her in handcuffs waddling past the TV news cameras.
I’m looking for a nice big fat ripe tomato to throw at her when she does. With a behind as broad as a barn I’m sure to get a nice big splat.
New Day
August 13th, 2011
12:11 pm
There was nothing that Augustine or Hall didn’t know about APS, especially the cheating! They wrecked the careers of ethical hard working educators that either quit or were fired by them way before the GBI investigation. We have been suffering a long time. If you were not willing to do the dirty work, you were a target for termination no matter what department you worked in. Intimation, retaliation and humiliation were the way they operated . Being placed on a Professional Development Plan (PDP) under Hall went from being a support and professional growth process to a symbol for being marked for termination if you didn’t buy into their dirty work. M. FEW and S. PITTS helped to set the stage for this unethical processes. They destroyed documents and changed policies to accommodate Hall and Augustine’s bad behavior. As everyone that worked for APS knew – It was all about the “H” ( employee inside joke) and Augustine, Pitts, Few , L. Butler Burke and the Chambers jobs were to protect her at all cost.
How dare the Desoto Board even consider Augustine! While it is wasteful, the 300,000.00 Desoto paid to buy her out, pales in comparison to what they would have lost if they had kept her. 300, 000.00 was a bargain. That small school district had NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE IN FOR. THE INK WAS NOT COLD ON THE CONTRACT BEFORE AUGUSTINE was beginning to assemble the same machine that bought Atlanta to it’s knees. If Augustine truly cared about children, she would have left the money there for the children. We however are left with a broken school district and people dehumanizing our children as they make their comments on line and elsewhere.
Lastly, as we blog about this topic let’s keep the focus on the real villains – Hall and Augustine. They are self centered monsters! Attacking the children of Atlanta resolves nothing.