Brian Vanderhoff's North Fulton Real Estate Blog: July 2011

End your search for the perfect Atlanta real estate! Stonecrest Homes has opened two new communities, Cochran Farms and Pine Grove Estates, in the highly touted Roswell High School district with homes available for move-in just in time for the beginning of the school year.

Cochran Farms is a private enclave of just 14 homes located behind Roswell High School and priced in the low $400,000s.

Pine Grove Estates, a community of eight homes, is within a mile of Roswell’s historic square with prices starting in the high $400,000s.

“These two new home communities offer families the opportunity to move into a fabulous home in an area with award-winning schools. Cochran Farms is on a quiet, private street but is close to main thoroughfares and students can walk to Roswell High School. Pine Grove Estates is in one of the most popular areas of Roswell, just a short distance from shopping, dining and other activities in Roswell’s historic downtown area,” said Joe Gary, sales agent with About Sales, Inc.

Both communities offer elegant two-story traditional homes designed for today’s families. The homes have five or six bedrooms and four to four-and-a-half baths, three-car garages and are on 1/3 to ½-acre lots. The homes are three sides brick, stone or shale and have upscale features such as coffered ceilings, 42-inch cultured stone fireplaces, elegant trim details, luxury master suites and gourmet kitchens with walk-in pantries and islands.

Homes ready for move-in at both communities include the Belmont Plan, a five-bedroom, four-bath home with an open floor plan, two-story foyer with an arched opening leading to a study, two-story family room open to the kitchen and breakfast area, formal dining room and large master suite. The Belmont on a slab with nine-foot ceilings on the main level is priced at $420,000 at Cochran Farms. The same plan on a full basement is priced at $503,900 at Pine Grove Estates and includes numerous upgrades including 10-foot ceilings on the main level and 9-foot ceilings on the upper floor, upgraded appliances and a mahogany stained front door.

The Churchill plan, available in both communities, features a chef’s kitchen with a huge walk-in pantry, a two-story family room, a formal dining room, a study, a large master suite with his-and-her walk-in closets and a three-car garage with an extended bay. The home is available at Cochran Farms for $435,900 and is on a slab with nine-foot ceilings on the main floor. At Pine Grove Estates, the home has a full basement and upgrades that include a mahogany stained front door, upgraded appliances, 10-foot ceilings on the main floor and nine-foot ceilings on the upper floor and is priced at $518,900.

The Saratoga plan is the grandest of all. The master suite is on the main level with a huge walk-in closet with his and hers sections. The secondary bedrooms are enormous with large closets. The butler’s pantry is just off the banquet sized dining room. There is a mud room as you enter from the 3 car garage. The Saratoga is available in Pine Grove with 10” ceilings on the main level and 9’ ceilings on the upper level. The plan boasts aver 4,100 square feet and has a full basement to add to its magnificence. The home will be completed in August at an incredible $534,900.

Labels: Cochran Farms, Pine Grove Estates, Roswell, roswell high school, StoneCrest

If you've still got an unlimited AT&T data plan that you're holding onto for dear life to stream gigs and gigs of Spotify and Netflix and god knows what else, your life is about to suck a lot more.

Even if you're grandfathered in with one of those good-old-days unlimited plans, the all-you-can-eat-as-fast-as-you-want data plan as we know it is gone. But it gets worse.
The official word:

Starting October 1, smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle. Before you are affected, we will provide multiple notices, including a grace period.

That means there's effectively a rolling cap for people with an unlimited data plan: If you're in the top 5 percent of data users in a month, your internet's going to be slowed down for the rest of the month. It won't apply to anybody that's on a tiered data plan and paying for every byte they use.

AT&T says that "to rank among the top 5 percent, you have to use an extraordinary amount of data in a single billing period." Sounds reasonable. But! How much data is the top 5 percent using? Well, consider that a year ago when AT&T moved to tiered plans, AT&T said that 2GB satisfied 97 percent of their customers. No doubt, that number's shifted a bit over the last year, as services like Rdio and Netflix have gotten more popular but 2GB is probably not a bad baseline to start potentially sweating over. Speaking of Rdio, that's exactly who AT&T's complaining about—people who are "streaming very large amounts of video and music daily over the wireless network, not Wi-Fi" or using "streaming video apps, remote web camera apps, sending large data files (like video) and some online gaming."

While AT&T makes the point that this slowdown business is never going to screw normal users by definition, since as the average data usage grows, so will the cap, it does effectively kill unlimited data for the people who most rely on it. Verizon's doing the same thing, slowing down its top 5 percent of data users. And T-Mobile throttles users who bust their allotted cap for their month. Throw in rumors that Verizon (and I'd suspect AT&T) are pushing to only allow FaceTime chat for users with tiered plans. They're all effectively throwing down: Speed or volume. You pick. But you're gonna pay for it, one way or another.

Neither AT&T nor Verizon are saying how much they're gonna slow down the big bandwidth eaters, but T-Mobile officially slows down data overeaters to EDGE speeds. (Unofficially, there are isolated reports of T-Mobile throttling to be so severe phones are practically unusable.) God knows it can't be much worse than some of the speeds I see in NY on my iPhone.

The thing is, AT&T isn't full of shit when they say bandwidth on mobile networks is not an infinite resource. It's true that there's only so much backhaul and so much spectrum. What's shitty is that AT&T is using this as another ploy in their PR war to convince people that the T-Mobile merger has to happen. At the end of the press release, AT&T says slowing down the biggest data hogs on the network isn't enough, that "nothing short of completing the T-Mobile merger will provide additional spectrum capacity to address these near term challenges."

They're basically saying that if the merger doesn't happen, their service—which is already miserable (if improving) in NY, SF and LA—is going to continue to get worse as people simply expect to get what that they pay for from their data plans and smartphones. And that's even as they keep changing the rules of the game, killing unlimited data plans and now crippling them for their heaviest users. AT&T's holding their own services hostage, even while for the last couple of years they kept telling us how things were going to get better.

So when do things start getting better? I'm still waiting. [AT&T]

Labels: ATT, Unlimited Data Plan

Milton resident Mandy Gawley performs at Birmingham Park Aug. 5
MILTON, Ga., July 28, 2011 - The third and final installment of "Concerts in the Park: Boogie Down at Birmingham" presented by Doctors Express is here to help end your summer right Friday, Aug. 5. So why not spend one of the last weekends before school starts with friends, food and free music?

Milton's own Mandy Gawley, a wife and mother of two who is living her lifelong dream of singing, will bring the summer concert series to a close. She will perform cuts off her album "Life So Sweet," including "Biscuits and Chicken," as heard on 94.9 The Bull's Backyard Country.

This show, like the other two in the series, will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m at Milton's Birmingham Park, located behind Milton Fire Station No. 43, just west of the Birmingham Crossroads at 750 Hickory Flat Road (click here for directions). The 200-acre setting means lots of safe, open space to spread out and let the kids dance and play. And make sure to bring Frisbees, footballs, beach balls and whatever else you want to make it a fun time.

There will also be food and beverages at the park provided by The Pup Truck, but feel free to bring a picnic and blanket and just enjoy the summer evening and free music. No alcohol is allowed in the park.
For more information on Gawley, including links to her debut album, visit www.mandygawley.com.

For more information on this summer concert series, contact Tom Gilliam, Recreation Programs Coordinator, at 678-242-2519 or tom.gilliam@cityofmiltonga.us.

Incorporated on Dec. 1, 2006, the City of Milton is a distinctive community that embraces small-town life and heritage while preserving and enhancing the city's rural character. The City of Milton is committed to maintaining the unique quality of life for its constituents while efficiently delivering essential services to residents and businesses in an interactive community environment. For more information, visit www.cityofmiltonga.us, or call 678-242-2500.

Labels: birmingham park, Concert, milton, Milton City, milton county

Come to Milton High's stadium for a night of free fun
MILTON, Ga., July 29, 2011 - Don't forget that this Sunday, July 31, the Milton High School Touchdown Club and the cities of Milton and Alpharetta present the Milton High School Community Kickoff from 6 to 8 p.m. at the school's football stadium.

The free, family-friendly event features a "Flick on the Field," a pep rally, food and information from the program's Community Partners, games and rides for the kids and much, much more. Come and enjoy the atmosphere of fall football in the South, all at no cost.

There will be a crowd from the school's varsity, junior varsity and ninth-grade football, cheerleading and feeder programs, plus the Alpharetta Youth Football Association. Everyone, regardless of affiliation with the teams, is invited, so bring the kids and connect with friends missed over the summer.

For more information about the Community Kickoff 2011, contact Melody Cookson at 678-234-5801 or cruisedirector@bellsouth.net.
Incorporated on Dec. 1, 2006, the City of Milton is a distinctive community that embraces small-town life and heritage while preserving and enhancing the city's rural character. The City of Milton is committed to maintaining the unique quality of life for its constituents while efficiently delivering essential services to residents and businesses in an interactive community environment. For more information, visit www.cityofmiltonga.us, or call 678-242-2500.

Labels: milton, Milton Georgia, Milton High School

ATLANTA -- Nearly 50 years ago, two brothers from Ohio – Forrest and Leroy Raffel – set out to shake-up the fast food industry. Their vision: a quick service restaurant that served something other than the standard burgers and fries. Thus, on July 23, 1964, Arby's was born. In celebration of its anniversary, this Saturday, July 23, Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. is offering customers nationwide its signature sandwich, the Classic Roast Beef, for just 64 cents all day long, with purchase of a 22 oz. drink (coupon required).

To receive a coupon, people must "like" Arby's at www.facebook.com/arbys.

Labels: Arby's

Could be oldest building in N.F.

MILTON, Ga. - The Hopewell House is known by many names – a stagecoach inn, the McClesky-Day House - however no one can dispute one major fact – it's one of the oldest buildings in Fulton County. And now Milton owns it.

The red tin-roofed house sits on 2.5 acres of woodland at the intersection of Hopewell Road and Birmingham Road. Walking through the building, it is apparent that owners have added to it countless times in the past 200 years. Aging wooden slats can still be seen within the home alongside modern flooring and lights.

"It was a stagecoach inn that was built between 1805 and 1830," said Council member Bill Lusk. "It's possibly the oldest house in Fulton County."

The city bought the site for $250,000. The property was acquired through a foreclosure, meaning the city got a good deal on the historic site.

The house has seen many uses throughout its life, the most recent being a residential home. One historic use was as an inn for travelers on their way through Cherokee country.

"Moravian missionaries used to come through here and stay at the Hopewell House," explained Travis Allen, a member of the Milton Historic Preservation Commission. Indeed, Moravian stars can be seen painted in the home, including one situated on the ceiling above a chandelier in the main room.

There are currently no plans for the site. The city recently bought and renovated the Bethwell Community building at the corner of Hopewell and Cogburn. That building was once used as a gathering place for residents and has been improved to become a home for summer camps and private events.

"I like to think it may be used as a Milton Mansell House," Allen said. "I think it was great opportunity for the city to buy it and preserve it."

"It's a real historic treasure," Lusk said.

Labels: milton, Milton City, milton county

Possible 5 seats up for grabs on council, Sunday alcohol, $29M city hall bond too


by Hatcher Hurd
write the author

July 20, 2011
ALPHARETTA, GA. – If Councilman Doug DeRito does indeed run for mayor in November (he says he hasn't quite decided), then the special election for his seat will be Nov. 8 with the other four council seats up for election.

With the first reading at the July 18 City Council meeting for the ordinance for the Nov. 8 council elections of posts 4, 5 and 6 – held by incumbents Cheryl Oakes, Jim Paine and D.C. Aiken respectively – a second was added at the request of Councilman Doug DeRito.

DeRito put his own Post 1 up for possible election should he qualify for the mayoral race. But DeRito left the door open to change his mind. He said he would not make his formal announcement until closer to qualifying time.

Qualifying is the term for formally tendering one's name for election to the post during the three-day qualifying period – Aug. 29, 30 and 31 – and paying the qualifying fee. According to City Attorney Sam Thomas, should DeRito qualify, by law his seat as a councilman would immediately be vacated.

By introducing this ordinance calling for a Nov. 8 special election for his seat concurrent with the General Election, DeRito said he was preventing a special election the following March. Not only would his seat be open for seven months, the city would be liable for the cost of the special election – estimated at between $50,000 and $100,000 that the city would have to pay Fulton County for conducting it.

If DeRito opts not to run for mayor, he would keep his seat and the special election ordinance for Post 1 would be rendered void since there would be no empty seat.

Councilmen Aiken and Chris Owens expressed concerns that introducing the ordinance with the intention only that DeRito may run for mayor, introduces a certain amount of doubt for prospective candidates for his council seat.

"How will anyone know if the post is really available? " asked Aiken.

Owens posed the opposite side of the dilemma. If anyone qualified for the seat and DeRito did nothing, they would have no seat for which to run and would be out the $450 qualifying fee for a council seat (it is $9000 mayoral qualifying fee).

That means there could be as many as five new faces on the council come Nov. 9.

Mayor Arthur Letchas has reached the end of his term limits for mayor and is retiring. Paine, who is serving the unexpired term of David Belle Isle, will have that term expire at the same time as that of mayor, i.e. Dec. 31.

For that reason, Paine will not have to resign his post to run for mayor and so will remain on council at least through December. Meanwhile, David Belle Isle, who resigned that post to run unsuccessfully for state senator, has announced he will also run for mayor.

"Is there any assurance the seat will be open," Owens asked.

Thomas said there are no guarantees (that DeRito will ultimately resign his post by qualifying) and that potential Post 1 candidates would file at their own risk.

DeRito spoke up to say that he only wants to prevent a costly March special election.

"However, I would not be doing this if I did not have a strong interest [in running for mayor.] My intent is to run for mayor. I am committed to making a firm announcement two weeks before [qualifying]," DeRito said. "I am not announcing now because I am not yet sure I want to do it. I want to make sure I have the full support of my family first."

After the meeting, he said he has a son studying in Oxford, England, and is waiting for him to come home and participate in the decision. He said the rest of his family are behind his running for mayor, DeRito said.

"I am not the kind of guy to get ahead of the curve," he said.

Labels: Alpharetta, alpharetta city hall, alpharetta community center, City Council, City Council Meeting

Barring Congressional action, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan limits will revert back to rates determined by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act for single-family housing. This will affect loans insured by the FHA on or after October 1, 2011 and could affect those searching for Atlanta real estate. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has stated that FHA loan limits would likely decrease in 669 of the 3,334 counties that are currently eligible for FHA insurance. Below is a partial list of the counties in Georgia that would be affected by these cutbacks. The following counties would see FHA limits decrease from $346,250 to $320,850:

Clayton
Cobb
DeKalb
Douglas
Fayette
Forsyth
Fulton
Gwinnett
Paulding
Walton
Because FHA loan limits restrict the size of mortgages that can be insured by the Federal Housing Administration, decreasing them, may have significant impact on homebuyers. While Congress temporarily increased the limits in 2008, it is now seeking to return those rates to normal levels. Overall, Georgia would experience less than a five percent decline in FHA loan limits. According to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a total of 10,017 FHA-endorsed loans were issued from January 2011 to April 2011. Of those loans, just 153 (two percent) are above the new proposed limits. States like California, Connecticut and Nevada would face a decline greater than 10 percent.

To read the full document released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, click here.

Labels: fha, fha loans

ATLANTA, Ga. - Educators have begun to lose their jobs, and the widespread terminations could cost taxpayers millions. Atlanta Public Schools tells FOX 5 they’re not sure how much they’ll have to spend to try to purge corrupt educators in the wake of the CRCT cheating scandal.

Interim superintendent Erroll Davis has vowed that none of the 178 educators implicated in the governor’s report on the CRCT cheating investigation will appear before students in his district again. But that process of purging educators from school could cost the district a pretty penny.

Several educators have already been removed from their positions, but for many, a pink slip doesn’t mean automatic termination. Many of those educators, including principals and teachers, will be entitled to administrative hearings, and that means the district must continue to pay them—while at the same time, paying for others to replace them in the schools.

FOX 5 has learned that the average salary for an APS principal is $109,256, while a teacher in the district makes an average of $65,904. Those implicated in the scandal who are removed from their jobs will continue to remain on the payroll until they are officially terminated, while the district will have to hire and pay others to do their jobs in the school system. It may easily become a costly proposition.

The district will also have to fund preparations of the cases against those educators, hiring experts and attorneys to make their cases.

Atlanta schools involved in the cheating scandal could have to pay back nearly a quarter of a million dollars in federal money. According to the state education department, 44 schools received up to $12,000 a year for their performance on federal benchmarks.

Attorney Michael McGonigle, legal services director for the Georgia Association of Educators, told FOX 5 it could take months to resolve some of the cases, based on past situations in other districts. McGonigle says there is no way around the cost, and the system has to safeguard the interests of both the district and the employees alike.

McGonigle also told FOX 5 he is getting lots of calls from educators who say there are errors in the report on the scandal, and he’s looking into those complaints.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/cheating-scandal-could-cost-taxpayers-millions-20110713-es

Motorists must have a Peach Pass account to access new I-85 Express Lanes

ATLANTA – The State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) officially opened Peach Pass account registration for motorists who want the option to use the new I-85 Express Lanes when they open later this summer. The Peach Pass, a small, thin toll collection device, will provide access to the new I-85 Express Lanes and the all-electronic toll lanes on GA 400. Peach Pass registration is available online at www.peachpass.com, by phone at 1-855-PCH-PASS (724-7277) and in-person at two Department of Driver Services locations in Gwinnett County: 2211 Beaver Ruin Road, Norcross and 310 Hurricane Shoals Road, NE, Lawrenceville.

"We are thrilled to offer multiple ways for motorists to sign up for a Peach Pass account, especially through our partnership with the Department of Driver Services," said SRTA Executive Director Gena L. Evans. "It is important that citizens have a choice as to how they want to open an account whether in person, online or by phone."

Peach Pass registration is required for all vehicles using the I-85 Express Lanes, including toll-exempt carpools with three or more occupants, transit vehicles, motorcycles, emergency vehicles and Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFV) with the proper AFV license plates (not including hybrids).

To register for an account, motorists will need their address, phone number, vehicle tag information and an initial prepaid amount of $20 dollars for Personal Toll Accounts. The Peach Pass transponder adheres to a vehicle's windshield (or front bumper if using a bumper mount transponder) and is electronically linked to a registered Peach Pass account. When customers decide to use the I-85 Express Lanes, tolls will be automatically deducted from their Peach Pass account.

Motorists who enter the I-85 Express Lanes without having a valid Peach Pass account will receive a Uniform Toll Violation notice and be charged a $25 administrative fee in addition to the toll. Existing Cruise Card holders can immediately use the I-85 Express Lanes when they open and do not have to do anything since their accounts are now considered Peach Pass accounts as of June 20, 2011. Peach Pass customers can switch between toll and toll-free mode by phone or online at www.peachpass.com.

The I-85 Express Lanes project converts approximately 16 miles of the existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes on I-85 from Old Peachtree Road to Chamblee Tucker Road. Scheduled to open later this summer, the I-85 Express Lanes Project is part of a $110 million Congestion Reduction Demonstration Program grant awarded to the Atlanta region by the United States Department of Transportation. The grant supports investments aimed at providing trip time reliability, commuter choices and regional transit enhancements that will double the Xpress service in the I-85 corridor, support Xpress facilities throughout the region and add more Xpress coaches.

For more information on how to register for an account, visit www.peachpass.com.

Labels: Cruise Card, Peach Pass

CUMMING, Ga. — The property belonging to a state senator from Cumming was never foreclosed.

Sen. Jack Murphy (R-27) faced foreclosure in downtown Cumming July 5 on his one-acre property, 304 Tribble Gap Road.

Murphy, who serves as Senate Banking Committee chairman, is working out a deal with holders on the site, MultiBank 2009-1 CRE Venture LLC, according to news reports.

Murphy bought the property with a $228,000 loan with Integrity Bank in 2006, when he served on its board of directors.

Integrity failed in 2008 and was taken over by Regions Bank.

Murphy and seven others with the bank are being sued for $70 million in a FDIC lawsuit over Integrity's failure. Murphy says he did nothing wrong.

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.

Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.

In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.

The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases.

The decision whether to prosecute lies with three district attorneys — in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties — who will consider potential offenses in their jurisdictions.

For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.

The investigators conducted more than 2,100 interviews and examined more than 800,000 documents in what is likely the most wide-ranging investigation into test-cheating in a public school district ever conducted in United States history.

The findings fly in the face of years of denials from Atlanta administrators. The investigators re-examined the state’s erasure analysis — which they said proved to be valid and reliable — and sought to lay to rest district leaders’ numerous excuses for the suspicious scores.

Deal warned Tuesday “there will be consequences” for educators who cheated. “The report’s findings are troubling,” he said, “but I am encouraged this investigation will bring closure to problems that existed.”

Interim Atlanta Superintendent Erroll Davis promised that the educators found to have cheated “are not going to be put in front of children again.”

Through her lawyer, Hall issued a statement denying that she, her staff or the “vast majority” of Atlanta educators knew or should have known of “allegedly widespread” cheating. “She further denies any other allegations of knowing and deliberate wrongdoing on her part or on the part of her senior staff,” the statement said, “whether during the course of the investigation or before.”

Don’t blame teachers?

Phyllis Brown, a southwest Atlanta parent with two children in the district, said the latest revelations are “horrible.” It is the children, she said, who face embarrassment if they are promoted to a higher grade only to find they aren’t ready for the more challenging work.

Still, she doesn’t believe teachers should be punished.

“It’s the people over them, that threatened them, that should be punished,” she said. “The ones from the building downtown, they should lose their jobs, they should lose their pensions. They are the ones who started this.”

AJC raised questions

Former Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered the inquiry last year after rejecting the district’s own investigation into suspicious erasures on tests in 58 schools. The AJC first raised questions about some schools’ test scores more than two years ago.

The special investigators’ report describes years of misconduct that took place as far up the chain of command as the superintendent’s office. The report accuses Hall and her aides of repeatedly tampering with or hiding records that cast an unflattering light on the district.

In one case, Hall’s chief Human Resources officer Millicent Few “illegally ordered” the destruction of early, damning drafts of an outside lawyer’s investigation of test-tampering at Atlanta’s Deerwood Academy, the report said.

Another time, Few ordered staff to destroy a case log of cheating-related internal investigations after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested it, the report said. Few told staff to replace the old log with a new, altered version. When the district finally produced the complaints, the investigators wrote, it illegally withheld cases that made it “look bad” — either because its investigation was poor or because wrongdoing received minimal sanction.

Few also made false statements to the investigators, the report said.

Few, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, denied to the investigators that she tampered with documents or ordered anyone else to do so.

Lying to investigators and destroying or altering public records are felonies under Georgia law with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Deputy Superintendent Kathy Augustine, as well as area superintendents Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman, also gave the investigators false information, the report said, and the district’s general counsel Veleter Mazyck “provided less than candid responses.”

The report also said Hall and Augustine illegally suppressed a report by a testing expert last year. Andrew Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, largely confirmed an AJC analysis that suggested cheating occurred, but the district withheld his findings from the media and public.

Augustine, Pitts and Cotman could not be reached Tuesday. Mazyck referred questions to her attorney. “I’m shocked that they would characterize her statements as less than candid,” said Richard Sinkfield, Mazyck’s attorney. “She was fully cooperative, fully open, and has not participated in any wrongdoing.”

The investigators said district officials misled them and hampered their investigation.

“Dr. Hall pledged ‘full cooperation’ with this investigation, but did not deliver,” the report said. “APS withheld documents and information from us. Many district officials we interviewed were not truthful.”

‘The chosen ones’

The district passes its scores on to the state each year and pledges they are accurate. Giving a “false official writing” is also a felony.

In some schools, the report said, cheating became a routine part of administering the annual state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. The investigators describe highly organized, coordinated efforts to falsify tests when children could not score high enough to meet the district’s self-imposed goals.

The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.

At Venetian Hills, a group of teachers and administrators who dubbed themselves “the chosen ones” convened to change answers in the afternoons or during makeup testing days, investigators found. Principal Clarietta Davis, a testing coordinator told investigators, wore gloves while erasing to avoid leaving fingerprints on answer sheets.

Davis refused to answer the investigators’ questions. She could not be reached Tuesday.

At Gideons Elementary, teachers sneaked tests off campus and held a weekend “changing party” at a teacher’s home in Douglas County to fix answers.

Cheating was “an open secret” at the school, the report said. The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster.

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

“If anyone asks you anything about this just tell them you don’t know,” the report said Salters said. 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 said. He could not be reached Tuesday.

At Kennedy Middle, children who couldn’t read not only passed the state reading test, but scored at the highest level possible. At Perkerson Elementary, a student sat under a desk, then randomly filled in answers and still passed.

At East Lake Elementary, the principal and testing coordinator instructed teachers to arrange students’ seats so that the lower-performing children would receive easier versions of the Fifth Grade Writing Tests.

Principal Gwendolyn Benton, who has since left, obstructed the investigation, too, the report said, when she threatened teachers by saying she would “sue them out the ass” if they “slandered” her to the GBI.

When the investigators interviewed Benton, she denied knowing cheating took place. She could not be reached Tuesday.

District employees suffered intense stress — enough to send at least one to the hospital — in a workplace where threats from supervisors kept them from reporting wrongdoing for fear of losing their jobs.

Area superintendents, who oversee clusters of schools, enforced a code of silence. One made a whistle-blower alter his reports of cheating and placed a reprimand in his file — and not the cheater’s. Another told a teacher who saw tampering that if she did not “keep her mouth shut,” she would “be gone.”

“In sum, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation permeated the APS system from the highest ranks down,” the investigators wrote. “Cheating was allowed to proliferate until, in the words of one former APS principal, ‘it became intertwined in Atlanta Public Schools ... a part of what the culture is all about.’ ”

Three key reasons

The investigators gave three key reasons that cheating flourished in Atlanta: The district set unrealistic test-score goals, or “targets,” a culture of pressure and retaliation spread throughout the district, and Hall emphasized test results and public praise at the expense of ethics.

Because the targets rose each time a school attained them, the pressure ratcheted up in classrooms each year. Cheating one year created a need for more cheating the next.

“Once cheating started, it became a house of cards that collapsed on itself,” the investigators wrote.

Educators most frequently cited the targets to explain cheating.

“APS became such a ‘data-driven’ system, with unreasonable and excessive pressure to meet targets, that Beverly Hall and her senior cabinet lost sight of conducting tests with integrity,” the report said.

The investigators said Hall’s aloof leadership style contributed directly to an atmosphere that fueled cheating.

She isolated herself from rank-and-file employees, the report said. Mazyck, the district’s general counsel, told investigators that her job was to provide Hall with “deniability,” insulating Hall from the need to make tough choices.

Sinkfield, Mazyck’s attorney, said the investigators took her statements about law practice in general “totally out of context.”

A major reason for the ethical failures in Hall’s administration, the investigators wrote, was that Hall and her senior staff refused to accept responsibility for problems.

“Dr. Hall and her senior cabinet accepted accolades when those below them performed well, but they wanted none of the burdens of failure,” the report said.

The district’s priority became maintaining and promoting Hall’s image as a miracle worker.

After an earlier investigation into cheating by a group of civic and business leaders, Hall was under pressure to crack down. The investigation was flawed, however, producing allegations but no confessions.

Nonetheless, Hall forwarded the names of about 100 Atlanta educators to the teacher licensing board for possible disciplinary action. She did so based on statistics showing high erasures in certain classrooms, despite the fact that someone other than the teacher could easily have done the erasing.

The investigators said Hall made the referral so it appeared she was taking a tough stance.

They called her actions “unconscionable.”

The report also touched on the support the Atlanta business community has provided Hall for years.

Her supporters were so concerned the district’s problems would reflect poorly on the Atlanta “brand,” the report said, that they attacked those who asked questions about the district’s purported success. A senior vice president at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, for instance, suggested a report commissioned by business and civic leaders that found cheating was limited to a dozen schools would need to be “finessed” past Gov. Sonny Perdue, the report said.

That effort failed. Perdue appointed the special investigators in August 2010.

Hall preferred to spend her time networking with philanthropic and business leaders rather than walking the halls of her schools, the investigators found.

But when the scandal erupted, she withheld key information — state data on the suspicious erasures — even from executives and civic leaders who the school board, at Hall’s urging, appointed to conduct the inquiry.

“In many ways, the community was duped by Dr. Hall,” the report said. “While the district had rampant cheating, community leaders were unaware of the misconduct in the district. She abused the trust they placed in her.

“Hall became a subject of adoration and made herself the focus rather than the children,” the investigators wrote. “Her image became more important than reality.”

Staff writers Alan Judd, Kristina Torres, and Jaime Sarrio contributed to this article.

July 06, 2011
FULTON COUNTY - The Fulton County Office of Housing and Community Development will host an information workshop on How to Prevent Foreclosure, Wednesday, July 13, from 10 until 11 a.m.

The session will be held at the Roswell Neighborhood Senior Center at 150 Warsaw Road in Roswell.

Residents who may be having trouble paying their mortgages or could face potential foreclosure in the future because of job loss, illness, a reduction in working hours or other issues that impact their incomes are encouraged to attend.

A Housing and Urban Development (HUD) certified Housing Counselor will facilitate the session.

Information will be provided to inform homeowners of strategies available to help them to maintain ownership of their residences. Information from the HUD website will be distributed as well as a listing of local housing counselors that are available to help homeowners to provide the information required to obtain a loan modification or other assistance from their banks.

The Office of Housing and Community Development is a division of the Department of Housing and Human Services.

For information or assistance with special accommodations to attend the workshop, residents may contact Audra Pender at 404-612-3024.

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