Erroll Davis: "We're focused on educating our children"

ATLANTA — As 35 Atlanta Public School educators get ready to head to court Friday, the district's superintendent is opening up about what it was like to see 35 former district administrators and educators indicted for their alleged roles in the CRCT cheating scandal.

Erroll Davis sat down exclusively with Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant Thursday afternoon shortly after he met with district principals.

"I did not have the best of weekends, let me say that," Davis told Diamant. "It is a tragedy to see educators going into and out of a jail house, and I have reflected very hard on why did this happen, how could it have been avoided?"

As for how the district bounces back from a scandal that's made national headlines, "If you're successful, people soon forget, and that's what we're focused on, we're not focused on looking backwards," Davis said.

Davis ran down the long list of changes the district has made moving forward.

"We've changed our testing protocols. We've changed security measures. We've changed chain of custody," Davis told Diamant.

Davis said automatic triggers have been put in place if test scores go up or down dramatically from year to year that will launch an automatic investigation.

"What we will do, we will do it openly, we will do it transparently," Davis said.

While working to repair the district's reputation, Davis' promised parents it will all be for the improvement of the students.

"We are focused on doing what we should be doing and that is educating our children. We're not focused on prizes, we're not focusing on showcasing anything. We're focused on educating our children," Davis said.

Davis also admitted that it's impossible to go back an identify every student harmed by employee cheating, but the district has ramped up its efforts to ID and get extra help to all students performing below grade level.

WSBTV