Citizens at board meeting blame Parrott for CHS grade scandal
Ginger Cook and Courney Atnip sit ready to criticize Anderson County Schools and defend teachers accused of manipulating grades at the July 11 Board of Education meeting. (photo:Ben Pounds )
Courtney Atnip and Ginger Cook spoke negatively about Parrott and the school system’s handling of the incident, and they defended the teachers.
Atnip said the school system did not have policies in place to determine how to help students recover grades, and so the teachers could not have violated those policies.
She also said she planned to go to state authorities and ask them to intervene.
“I think there needs to be clear guidelines of what this credit-recovery program is about and who’s ultimately in charge of it,” Atnip said.
Even though several CHS staff members have already resigned or been fired, debate over grade recovery continued at the board meeting.
The board spent some time discussing the accusations privately, and an investigation is still ongoing.
Publicly, however, at the same meeting, Parrott gave his thoughts and a timeline of events, and said rumors about a “mass exodus” of teachers were false.
During its recent investigation, the school system found that “multiple” CHS students were on track for graduation without completing the required course work.
Some CHS graduates from the 2022-23 school year may not have finished or passed the required tests.
Due to the accusations of manipulating grades by methods including students skipping assignments and test questions, or school staff just changing recorded grades, CHS Principal Dan Jenkins resigned, and the school system fired tenured teacher Rachel Jones and non-tenured teacher Clay Turpin.
Parrott said he did accept some responsibility for the grade manipulations occurring, but also said he wanted to set the record straight, giving more details during the June 11 meeting than he had before — including how the central office became aware of the incidents, on Jan. 11.
He said Paula Sellers, director of student services, reported to Greg Deal, assistant director of schools, about an issue that came up in Juvenile Court.
A juvenile had told the judge that he had graduated, but Sellers’ documentation showed that he was still enrolled. Deal told Sellers to call Jenkins, which she did.
After some other discussions among school staff, Parrott directed Deal to lead an investigation on March 20.
“Anderson County Schools’ motto is ‘Every student every day,’ and in this situation, we did not live up to it,” Parrott said.
“As director of schools, I share in this blame,” he said.
“I am ultimately responsible for the students, the employees and our school system,” Parrott said. “But I cannot be everywhere all at once any day.”
He said he needed to trust principals and administrators to make the right decisions, and in this case they hadn’t.
Parrott also addressed the issue of the school system mistakenly concluding that a student who played for the Dragons’ football team was ineligible to play due to lacking certain credits.
Parrott and others have referred to that report as a mistake and said the school system was working with the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association to consider him eligible again.
He said, however, that this player having the required credits did not make the case against the teachers at CHS invalid.
“This was always bigger than one ineligible player, and quite frankly, it was always bigger than sports. This was about grades, graduation requirements, student transcripts, grade modification and more.
“As I want to continue to stress through this, Clinton High School is a great school with a rich history and a lot of pride,” he said. “It is also filled with amazing students, outstanding teachers and wonderful staff members.”
Parrett said Robbie Herrell, the new CHS principal, is a graduate of the school and has “hit the ground running.”
“There has not in any way been a mass exodus of teachers that’s been alluded to,” Parrott said. “However, we still do need a math teacher.
“I hope this finally clears up a lot of misinformation,” he said.
“I also hope that we as a community stand behind Mr. Herrell and his staff and his students as they focus on every student, every day.”
Atnip and Cook in their comments spoke in support of Jenkins and the teachers who left, and against the school system.
Atnip said during the time for citizen comments that she was speaking on behalf of Jenkins’ family.
She said the school system punished Jones and Turpin for not following rules “that don’t even exist,” that she would have preferred that the school system have a clearer policy.
After hearing Parrot’s comments, which came after hers, she criticized him for not responding sooner after Jan. 11.
“We don’t trust the school system; we’re asking for the state to come in and help,” she told reporters.
“The impropriety, the unprofessionalism of the way this has been handled after well-meaning educators has been very suspect, and we don’t trust the school system.
“It’s people’s lives; I mean, they cared about these kids,” she said. “They cared about this community, and instead of leaders standing up for their educators and working through a problem, they came after the educators.”
Cook said, “What I find so hard to understand is why there was not one person to stick up for those educators.
“This whole ordeal showed a terrible lack of leadership.”