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By Rickey Bevington
The State Board of Education Thursday adopted the nation’s first standards and ethics policies for local school boards.

The Local School Board Governance Standards and Model Ethics Policy is a result of Senate Bill 84 passed earlier this year.

It allows the state more control over school boards, including giving the Governor the right to remove school board members if accreditation is at risk.

Two Georgia counties –- Clayton and Warren -– have faced accreditation loss in recent years due to dysfunctional school boards.

Among the items outlined in the Local School Board Governance rule are eligibility for office, codes of ethics, new employment eligibility requirement for superintendents, and revision to training standards for local boards of education.

The SBOE is scheduled to vote on the Local School Board Governance rule at their October meeting.

New ethics, conflict of interest policies set for local school boardsBy Nancy Badertscher


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

6:01 p.m. Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The state Board of Education lays down a blueprint Thursday for how local school board members should behave – life after the accreditation controversies in Clayton and Warren counties.

Two measures are before the state board – a conflicts-of-interest policy and a code of ethics -- that are to become the standards by which all 181 local school boards operate. They spell out the big no-nos for local school board members, from pressuring staff to hire their relatives to making disparaging public comments about their fellow board members.

Calvine Rollins, a high school counselor in South Georgia and the new president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said it's appropriate that the state establish clear guidelines.

"We are definitely in agreement with this," Rollins said. "As teachers are being held accountable, board members should be held accountable."

Once the state board approves both measures, local boards will have three months to adopt them as well, or come up with even stricter policies of their own. The code of ethics is slated for a vote Thursday; the conflicts-of-interest policy next month.


Neither measure currently includes potential sanctions for violators, something education experts say is a must-have. The state board does, however, have the power to recommend suspending or removing entire local boards if their actions threaten a school system's accreditation.

Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED, the parent organization of the accrediting agency SACS (the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools), is expecting positive, if not seismic change, from the new top-down rules.

“Ninety percent of the [local school] boards will look at this, say we do this already and keep doing it," Elgart said. "For 10 percent, this will be change."

The Commission for School Board Excellence -- a group of business, community and education leaders -- recommended in 2008 that Georgia establish a uniform conflicts-of-interest policy and code of ethics for local school boards just as Clayton County was becoming the first school system in the nation in nearly 40 years to lose accreditation -- and over ethical breaches by some of its school board members, not academics.

Warren County, near Augusta, has since found itself fighting to retain accreditation and for similar reasons to those in Clayton. Gov. Sonny Perdue has forced out some members of each county's school board based on lawsuits from local residents.

“In each instance, the level of anxiety and community distress was at a dangerously high level,” said Brad Bryant, former state school board member and now state schools superintendent.

Perdue earlier this year pushed through legislation that incorporated many of the commission’s recommendations and, some educators say, will make Georgia a national model for school board governance.

The bill -- and proposed state board rules -- make clear that local board members are not to be involved in day-to-day operations of the school system, but in broader policy issues. Also spelled out is a prohibition against local board members using their elected position for personal financial benefit that extends to their family or business.

The local board can, by two-thirds vote, decide to hold a hearing on potential conflicts of interest by any individual member and, where a violation is found, issue an "appropriate sanction."

Elgert said sanctions are necessary. "It's absolutely imperative, and I've said it to the state board," he said.

Steve Dolinger, president of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, said the changes were not driven solely by Clayton County's problems.

"But that was certainly a flashpoint," he said. "There are a lot of good, ethical school boards and school board members. This does put a level of expectation out there, and the public should have an expectation that boards are committed to ethical behavior."