Judge Urges Removal of Clayton School Board Members

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – A state administrative court judge today recommended that Governor Sonny Perdue remove four Clayton County School Board members. The decision comes on the same day that Board members will learn the fate of their district's accreditation status.

In June, five Clayton County residents, four of whom who are lawyers, asked the governor to grant a hearing to remove board members. They claimed the members repeatedly violated ethics policies, the state's open meetings act, and behaved unprofessionally.

Judge Michael Malihi agreed, and recommends the removal of Sandra Scott, Lois Baines Hunter, Michelle Strong, and Yolanda Everett.

Albert Wallace is one of the Clayton residents who filed the petition:

WALLACE: The five of us who took it upon ourselves to do this, we didn't have a client, we weren't paid to do it, we weren't expecting to be paid to do it, but we felt like it had to be done because nobody else was doing it.

Clayton County Schools were not ready to respond to the development when reached. Calls to board members' lawyers and to the Governor's office were not returned by airtime.

The Southern Association of Colleges and School will make its accreditation decision public on Thursday.