House passes local school board reform bill
The Georgia House passed legislation that would give the power to remove local school board members — in life after Clayton County’s accreditation problems.
The bill, which passed the House 137 to 33, was introduced last year at the behest of Gov. Sonny Perdue and promoted by the business community.
It now goes back to the state Senate, where members will have to consider changes made by the House.
Rep. Jim Cole (R-Forsyth), one of the governor’s floor leaders in the House, said, as Georgia seeks to attract new industries, the state does not need the black eye that has come with accreditation problems in metro Atlanta’s Clayton County and in Warren County near Augusta.
“In 40 plus years, only two school systems lost accreditation, and they came from the same state,” he said. “That’s Georgia.”
He called the bill pro-active and reactive since it requires local boards to have ethics policies and gives the governor the power to remove local school board members, subject to a recommendation from the state Board of Education.
In Clayton County’s case, most of the criticism fell on school board members for trying to micromanage the system, Cole said.
“This bill’s not about power or about a governor wanting to have more power,” he said.
Cole described it as a firewall — “not something the governor wants to use, but that he might have to use.”
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5 comments Add your comment
Keith
March 8th, 2010
1:40 pm
Maybe they’ll start in Bartow County with Board Chairman Lamar Grizzle. (1) He wras arressted almost 2 years ago on domestic violence charges for attacking his wife and his attorney’s have kept filinf motion to delay a trial so he won’t get booted. (2) He calls a special meeting of the board while the system was out for fall break knowing only 3 of the 5 board members could attend. The purpose of the meeting was to hire Lamar’s new gilrfriend to be an assistant department director. A position eliminated thru reduction of force just weeks earlier. (3) He convinces the school board to pay for his personal lawsuit against the state because current state law would prevent him from running again. (4) He micromanages the system instead of serving in the policy making role a board member should serve in.
You Asked
March 8th, 2010
2:41 pm
It is pretty sad that a local community won’t boot a board member who is so bad that the state has to step in and do it. The lesson is: if we abuse our freedom we lose our freedom.
d2
March 8th, 2010
2:55 pm
It ain’t much reform unless you can elect the superintendent–we use to why can’t we do it again?
Rhonda
March 8th, 2010
3:01 pm
I am very happy about this new bill, and wish it had been in place years ago. I’m still in Clayton County, and am hoping that one day it will return to being the great county that it once was. It is difficult to realize how great the scope of damage was done, to not only Clayton County, but even to the State of Georgia by Clayton County’s previous Board. Personally, I think each of the offending Board members should be sued for breach of fiduciary duty.
unclefast
March 8th, 2010
5:21 pm
d2, I agree completely. One of the worst things Georgia voters ever did was to narrowly amend the State constitution to change to elected Boards and an appointed Superintendent. Ironically, the selling point was that the change would remove politics from education.
Superintendents should be elected and the school boards should be appointed by the Grand Jury. When they were, the Board members were almost always solid citizens with lots of common sense, and no agenda.