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'WE ARE ALL APS'
New Superintendent Meria Carstarphen's vision for Atlanta's schools
By Collin Kelley
INtown Editor
Atlanta Public Schools’ new
superintendent, Dr. Meria Carstarphen,
arrived at last months Buckhead Council of
Neighborhoods meeting early to introduce
herself individually to each member of the
audience.
“Hi, I’m Meria,” she said, extending her
hand and offering an easy smile to parents
and community members.
She’s probably already tired of being
called a “breath of fresh ah;’ but Carstarphen’s
combination of friendliness and frankness
is a refreshing change of tone and demeanor
after years of the old guard that aided in
ruining APS’s reputation after the cheating
scandal, which is still playing out in Atlanta’s
courtrooms.
As the new and very public face of APS,
Carstarphen knows she has a mountain to
climb in restoring faith in the school system.
Her turnaround of the Austin, Tx. school
district - in attendance numbers, innovative
programs, graduation rates - has given
Carstarphen the surely unwanted moniker of
“savior” of APS. But the Selma, Ala. native has
been lauded for her track record in Austin,
St. Paul, Minn, and Washington DC, while
also gaining a reputation - if you believe all
the press accounts - for her demanding and
sometimes confrontational style of leadership.
“Austin was gracious enough to
understand the challenges facing APS and let
me come out early’ Carstarphen said about
her arrival this past spring in Atlanta.
Although she didn’t officially begin work
until July, Carstarphen was given full access
to APS, had meetings with outgoing interim
Superintendent Erroll Davis, a retreat with
the Atlanta School Board, zeroed in on the
district’s most pressing issues and also started
pressing the flesh by showing up at schools
and meetings around the city.
Before opening day on Aug. 4,
Carstarphen was also dealing with
transportation, hiring, vendors, safety,
security and a laundry list of other issues
that needed quick solutions. “We wanted to
open this school year with more cohesiveness
and less craziness,” she said. “That’s part of
building trust back with the community”
One of her top priorities was hiring
new principals since there was a two-thirds
turnover in school leadership. Carstarphen
was candid about the sorry state of hiring
when it came to principals at APS.
“We brought more rigor to the principal
selection process,” she said, “because it was
clear that background checks hadn’t been
performed and there was a disconnect
between finding principals that had vision
and direction for the school we were hiring
them to lead. There was this looseness about
hiring and accountability. Those days are
over.”
With principals in place, Carstarphen said
the dismal job APS had done in the past of
recruiting teachers early would also be a thing
of the past. “This has been a problem that has
plagued APS,” she said. “Were going to begin
looking for teachers early in the year instead
of a month before school starts.”
Carstarphen was also able to shake
loose money to hire more teachers over the
summer so that when classes resumed on
Aug. 4 there were only a handful of openings
left Rather than hire unqualified teachers,
Carstarphen frankly said there were long
term substitutes who were better qualified
than some of the teaching candidates, so those
subs would be in place until more talented
teachers could be found.
“This might have been the smoothest
opening day APS has had in a long time,”
Carstarphen said. “We had so few calls about
concerns and issues that I thought our phone
system was broken.”
While there are many short-term fixes
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen speaks.
that need to be made, Carstarphen is also
looking ahead. While fielding questions from
the audience, she again spoke candidly about
her opinions and feelings on everything from
early learning and charter schools to high
stakes testing and classroom size.
It’s widely known that Carstarphen is
a firm supporter of early learning, but she
said funding and a commitment from the
state and community would be big factors in
expanding the opportunities. One potential
funding source: the Georgia Lottery.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 24
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