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The Demond Means Saga Is Over
A $637,000 SETTLEMENT FOR THE FORMER SUPERINTENDENT, AND MORE LOCAL NEWS
By Blake Aued news@flagpole.com
An eight-month negotiation ended
Thursday, July 23 when the Clarke County
Board of Education reached a separation
agreement with controversial former super
intendent Demond Means.
The vote was 5-4, with Greg Davis,
Patricia Yager, Kara Dyckman, John Knox
and Tawana Mattox in favor, and Antwon
Stephens, Linda Davis, Charles Worthy
and LaKeisha Gantt opposed. Linda Davis,
Worthy and Gantt also voted against plac
ing Means on leave in December, before
Stephens joined the board.
Gantt read a statement saying: “Dr.
Means and the board have worked dili
gently to arrive at a mutually agreeable res
olution that allows the school district and
Dr. Means to move forward with meeting
their shared objectives and goals of address
ing and achieving educational equity for
all students. Clarke County School District
would like to thank Dr. Means for his lead
ership the past three years and wishes him
well in his future endeavors.”
The settlement calls for Means to be paid
$409,000 in wages he’s owed for the nearly
two years remaining on his contract, and
$136,500 in damages. His attorneys at the
Atlanta law firm of Buckley Beal LLC will
receive $92,000, for a total of $637,500.
As part of the settlement, Means
waived his right to sue the district and
agreed to withdraw an Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission complaint.
Means was hired away from a subur
ban Milwaukee school district in 2017 to
address racial disparities in Clarke County
schools, starting what would become a
tumultuous two and a half years at the helm
of CCSD. He almost immediately became
embroiled in racial politics on the school
board, starting in October, when some
Black citizens objected to a new rule pro
hibiting Worthy from serving consecutive
terms as board president.
Soon, an exodus of principals
started, including longtime Chase Street
Elementary leader Adam Kurtz, who over
saw the school’s turnaround to one of the
best in the city. A year later, Means pushed
out Kurtz’s successor. Her replacement
didn’t make it through the 2019-2020
school year. Chase is now on its second
interim principal and its fifth overall in
three years. Popular Cedar Shoals principal
Derrick Maxwell left in October of last year.
And Means bristled when critics noted
that he hired a principal for Alps Road
Elementary who was also from Milwaukee
(she later withdrew). CCSD lost hundreds
of teachers and saw principal turnover at
almost every school during his tenure.
Demond Means
Some parents disliked how Means kept
children with disruptive behavioral prob
lems in ordinary classrooms, and others
complained that he sidelined Local School
Governance Teams. A former CCSD teacher
publicly called him “autocratic.” Critics also
opposed moves like shutting down a farm
ers market on school property, hiring con
tractors from his hometown and shuffling
ESPLOST money to prioritize an adminis
tration office over school renovations.
Opponents of the school privatization
movement viewed him warily. Means used
public money to hire a coach to try to get
him into the Broad Academy, a leadership
school for superintendents founded by
a billionaire investor who poured tens
of millions of dollars into charter-school
campaigns. The African-American head of
the Georgia Federation of Teachers accused
Means of using racial tactics to divide the
community with the goal of turning “fail
ing” schools over to for-profit companies.
While the board approved almost every
policy initiative he proposed, Means often
feuded with several individual board mem
bers, going so far as to file a complaint
with accreditation agency AdvancED (now
Cognia) alleging that Greg Davis, Knox and
Mattox tried to micromanage him. They
denied the charge and accused Means of
trying to intimidate them. As a result of the
subsequent investigation, CCSD is currently
on probation.
The last straw came during a November
meeting when, while drafting a letter urg
ing the Georgia Professional Standards
Commission to dismiss an ethics complaint
against Means, board members added a
sentence saying they would hold the super
intendent accountable.
“By virtue of that vote, you don’t want
me as superintendent, and we need to have
a discussion about how I leave,” Means said.
Later, he walked back the statement
and said he wanted to stay, and to this
day he still has a group of staunch sup
porters who’ve been demanding that the
board bring him back. But a majority of
board members felt the relationship was
irreparable.
To Means’ supporters, he was the victim
of a white supremacist attack on a strong
Black leader who for the first time put the
plight of Black children first. Former board
president Jared Bybee wrote an op-ed for
Flagpole saying Means’ critics never gave
him a chance. Supporters point to an uptick
in test scores at several majority Black
schools in 2019 (although some schools saw
test scores drop, and some had no change).
Thanks to the pandemic, Milestones testing
was canceled last spring, so there is prob
ably not enough data to judge if Means’
reforms were actually working.
Linda Davis said the board did “a great
disservice to Means and marginalized chil
dren.” The staff he hired has allowed CCSD
to keep moving forward in his absence, and
the board should have supported him, she
said.
Worthy brought up the conspiracy the
ory that C.J. Amason, executive director
of the Foundation for Excellence in Public
Education, orchestrated Means’ ouster—
although it was Means himself who first
suggested it was time for him to go. “I’m
curious about some things, I’ve heard some
things, but I don’t have any factual informa
tion,” Worthy said. “Hopefully, you all are
doing the right thing, but I don’t feel good
about this.”
The board’s youngest and newest mem
ber, Stephens, perhaps put it most suc
cinctly: “I can’t believe a room full of adults
got to this point.”
Clarke County public school students
will be learning virtually when they start
school on Sept. 8.
“It is with a heavy heart that I share the
news that we will begin the school year
in a 100% online environment,” Interim
Superintendent Xernona Thomas said in
a news release. “This difficult decision was
based on our recognition of the effects of
COVID-19 and the commitment to the
safety and wellness of our students and
staff.”
The announcement comes less than a
week after the school board voted to push
back the first day of school from Aug. 3
to Sept. 8 to give teachers more time to
prepare for distance learning. At the same
meeting, administrators also further
explained safety measures and raised the
possibility that grades 8-12 might go online
to give younger students more room to
socially distance.
But now, as COVID-19 cases continue
to spike—with a total of 1,449 cases as of
July 26, up from 1,045 a week prior—all
students will start the year online. Initially,
CCSD had planned to give parents the
option of online or in-person learning, or a
hybrid model for older children.
The decision was based on “ever-chang
ing” guidance from the CDC and Georgia
departments of education and public
health, according to CCSD officials. “What
we learned is that, if we opened our schools,
there would be a lot of interruptions in
learning,” Chief Academic Officer Brannon
Gaskins said in an interview with Mayor
Republic
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FLAGPOLE.COM | JULY 29, 2020