SACS to Begin On-Site Visit for DeKalb’s Accreditation Review
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the DeKalb County schools on probation a year ago. SACS gave the district a year to address a list of concerns. That year is up and today the accrediting agency will begin an on-site review of the district.
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Mark Elgart, the CEO of SACS’ parent company said in December 2012 that DeKalb was in a state of “conflict and chaos” that developed over a ten-year period.
“There’s been poor, ineffective governance,” Elgart said at a press conference. “There’s been a decline in student performance and there’s been a depletion of the financial resources of this system to a position today which is very dangerous.”
In the past year, Gov. Deal replaced two-thirds of the school board and former state labor commissioner Michael Thurmond took over as superintendent. The district has gone from a deficit to a surplus. The school board also voted last week to settle a long-term lawsuit that cost the district millions of dollars. Despite those changes, Elgart now says it will be tough for DeKalb to come off of probation completely.
“The type of issues and challenges that this school system faced were not created over night, nor will their problems be resolved overnight,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s going to take a patient, sustained, stable approach to improvement over a period of one to two to three years.”
Elgart says SACS will likely release review results in mid-January.
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