ATLANTA — A former Atlanta Public Schools teacher testified that she lied to local and state investigators about cheating at Deerwood Academy and only came clean once she was granted immunity from prosecution.
Lavonia Farrell taught for 34-years before retiring. She says she was brought back to become the testing coordinator at Deerwood Academy. While there, she said, her assistant principal Tabeeka Jordan, convinced her and another teacher to cheat on the 2008 and the 2009 CRCT.
Jordan is one of 12 former APS educators on trial for their alleged participation in the cheating scandal.
“We termed it as trying to help students,” said Farrell during her day long testimony. “We weren’t trying to cause them any harm. We were just trying to help them move on. So it’s something hard to admit that you’ve done something so derogatory as a cheating scandal.”
Farrell testified that Jordan calculated they needed an additional 21 students to pass the CRCT in 2008 in order for Deerwood to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
According to Farrell, Jordan rounded up the tests of 21 low-performing students and had her and another teacher change their wrong answers to right ones. Farrell said they sometimes used the answer sheets from Deerwood’s “smart kids” as a key for changing the wrong answers.
Under cross examination by Jordan’s attorney Akil Secret, Farrell admitted that she tried to keep other teachers quiet about the cheating and encouraged to them stick to their story and lie to investigators. She also admitted that she lied to investigators during an APS tribunal. She also said she knew about cheating going on at another Atlanta elementary school.
She told jurors she was testifying under immunity from prosecution, but insisted she was telling the truth now.
“It’s been seven years, and I’m tired of it,” said Farrell. “What else can you tell after you’ve told the truth? What can you say to make people believe you?”
The trial will be delayed the rest of the week because one of the defense attorneys had a death in her family, and the judge wanted to allow her time to attend the funeral. Testimony will begin again Monday morning.