A Fulton County judge on Friday ordered an Atlanta schools para-professional to talk to investigators in the test-tampering probe, rejecting a request to dismiss a subpoena demanding the woman's cooperation.
During a brief hearing, Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall resolved a showdown between special investigators appointed by the governor and a reluctant witness whose lawyer accused state officials of intimidation.
As part of his order, Schwall directed the investigators to provide Cynthia Harris, who works at White Elementary School, with an immunity agreement that says she will not be prosecuted if she provides truthful information.
Former state Attorney General Mike Bowers, one of the investigators in the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test probe, told the judge that would be no problem. The investigation, which so far has conducted more than 800 interviews, routinely provides such agreements, he said. Bowers said the investigators, from the outset, have said that no teacher or para-professional will be criminally charged if they cooperate and provide truthful information.
After the hearing, standing outside the courthouse, Harris said she was relieved by the outcome.
"I'm happy it turned out the way it did," she said. "I just don't know what's going on with the questioning."
Harris, who has worked at White for seven years, also said she did not have any information to give about cheating on the CRCT tests. When asked if she knew if cheating occurred, she replied, "I don't know anything."
Bowers said the governor's investigators are targeting White because its classrooms had had an inordinately high number of wrong-to-right erasures on the CRCT tests.
School employees received bonuses of $50 to $500, depending on their jobs, in 2009 for meeting district goals to raise test scores. But state officials later flagged nearly half the school’s classes for having suspiciously high numbers of erased wrong answers on the tests.
A former White educator told investigators that he had seen another educator changing answers during the 2008 CRCT when students took bathroom breaks, according to a report issued last year by a blue-ribbon commission that investigated cheating. In 2009, the school was one of six that failed to turn in their tests to a central location as expected after students finished, instead holding onto completed answer sheets and question booklets over a weekend.
In 2010, under the close watch of monitors, White’s failure rate in reading jumped 18 percent. The math failure rate increased 22 percent.
The hearing was scheduled after Harris' lawyer, Charles Thornton, filed a motion Thursday to quash the subpoena directing her to testify at Bowers' law office on Friday. The investigators responded by asking Schwall to order Harris to show cause why she should not be held in contempt for refusing to comply.
At the outset of the hearing, Schwall questioned why Harris should be treated any differently than any other APS employee in the investigation. When told Harris didn't know anything, Schwall said then it would probably be a short interview.
"She's going to have to cooperate," Schwall said. "I don't see any reason under the law why she shouldn't comply with the subpoena."
Thornton said after the hearing that White teachers have been intimidated by investigators and agents, being pulled out of their classrooms with no notice and asked to give statements.
Bowers said no witnesses are being mistreated. "Are the interviews stressful?" he asked. "Darn right they are. But we don't intimidate people."
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