CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. -- A high-ranking official for a major South Metro business organization said Saturday it may take drastic action from Clayton County School Board members to fix their district's mounting pile of problems.

"All the board members need to resign. We need to have a special election and start over with qualified candidates," said David Barton, Vice President of the Metro South Association of Realtors. He said that during the last four years of turmoil in the Clayton County schools, property owners in the county have lost a half billion dollars in value.

Barton's statement came in response to an announcement Friday from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). That organization reported that Clayton County public schools are on the verge of losing their accreditation, a move that could put scholarships, colleges acceptances and key education funding at risk for the system's more than 50,000 students.

READ: Full SACS Report

A SACS review team recommended that the suburban county be stripped ofits accreditation in September if the system doesn't undertake a host of changes, including a shakeup of the "dysfunctional"school board.

Citing "a conclusion that the effectiveness of the Clayton County Board of Education is fatally flawed" the report recommends suspending the accreditation on September 1 of this year.

The full National Accreditation Commission meets in Chicago next month and will vote on the review team's recommendation. A team member said Friday it is likely the board would accept the recommendation.

It would be the first time in a decade the regional agency has stripped a system of its accreditation -- and the first time in Georgia history.

The agency, which has been investigating Clayton since November, said it found evidence that the county's school board is "fatally flawed" and said the school board is in violation of the agency's governance and leadership standard for accreditation.

The report said, "It is time for the Clayton County Board of Education to accept responsibility for their actions and behaviors and commit to making needed changes in the operation of the Clayton County Public Schools or resign from the board."

Accreditation is used by some colleges as a factor in accepting students, and it plays a role in the level of pre-kindergarten funding a district receives. It also affects Georgia's Hope Scholarship, which pays the in-state tuition for students who maintain a "B" average -- and graduate from an accredited high school.

The report from the team said the school system can keep its accreditation if the board can "provide irrefutable evidence that the results of the investigation are incorrect or the school district must take decisive and immediate action" to correct problems uncovered by the review team.

If the system loses accredition, students will be ineligible for HOPE scholarships and some colleges and universities would not accept their high school transcripts. The current senior class would not be affected.

The agency's chief executive, Mark Elgart, said, "The decision on how they respond is up to the local school district. They have options as to how to handle the recommendations. We're looking for an effective board. We're not telling them how to accomplish that."

No Georgia school system has ever lost accreditation. In the past 20 years, only school districts in Biloxi, Miss.; Hartford, Conn.; and Duval County, Fla. have lost accreditation, according to SACS.