Gwinnett Underreporting Spurs Probes, Angry Parents

The Gwinnett County district attorney and state educators plan to launch separate inquiries after a joint investigation by Channel 2 Action News and the AJC found that Gwinnett schools have been underreporting the number of disciplinary cases on their campuses, a revelation that has angered parents.

Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said Wednesday that he will conduct a probe into whether school administrators knowingly submitted false figures to state educators. He said deliberately filing false information is a felony offense.

Porter probe comes on the heels of a planned investigation by state education officials, who have said they also plan to look into the matter.

Stuart Bennett, the deputy superintendent of Georgia schools, said Tuesday that the inquiry into the state's largest school system will begin this week.

Officials want to know whether Gwinnett County intentionally underreported incidents such as fights, thefts, and drugs and weapons offenses to the state.

The state Department of Education can withhold money from local school systems that fail to follow state law that requires such cases be reported.

More Resources Video on Demand: Tom Regan reports-Pt. 1 Video on Demand: Tom Regan reports-Pt. 2 Gwinnett School Safety Numbers QuestionedAJC: Gwinnett Student Discipline ReportsGwinnett County School System

The probe follows findings reported this week by a joint investigation of Channel 2 Action News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the state's largest school system withheld at least 24,568 serious incidents, including fights, thefts and drug, sex and weapons offenses.

After initially denying problems with the report, Gwinnett school officials later acknowledged they underreported the infractions.

Associate Superintendent Don Fielder said it was not intentional. On Tuesday, Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks told Channel 2 Action News that he took full responsibility for the situation.

He also accepted the blame Tuesday night during a school board meeting, which was interrupted by parents, many of whom shouted and jeered the superintendent and school board about the underreporting of offenses.

"You guys act like you're God and you're not God!" said parent Elise Doran. "You represent the taxpayers of this county and I expect you to do your job."

Board member Daniel Seckinger pleaded with the audience to allow the superintendent to speak without interruption.

He said the inaccurate reports were filed because of human and computer error.

"As supertintendent, I take full responsibility for reporting inaccuracies," Wilbanks said. "We were not aware of the problem when it was brought to our attention a few weeks ago."

Some parents said irreperable damage had been done.

"The public trust is gone," parent Shannon Sanderson said. "The problem is when you start filtering databases, that's exactly what filters are, they they exclude information. To me, that sounds like a deliberate act. It doesn't sound like an accident."

Channel 2 Action News reporters Tom Regan and Richard Elliot contributed to this report.