State rests case in APS cheating trial

ATLANTA — The state rested its case in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal trial Wednesday.
 
Channel 2's Tom Regan said the last witness called to the stand was a 16-year-old girl who said she was given answers to a CRCT test by her teacher. She was then told not to tell anyone.
 
Twelve former APS educators are on trial for their alleged roles in the cheating scandal.
 
The investigation into the school district's test scores started when a small group of reporters with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noticed odd patterns in Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests scores.
 
Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis said educators were under intense pressure to make target student achievement goals on the CRCT. Those goals were attainable only by cheating.
 
Some teachers, said Willis, gave students the right answers in the classroom. Others, she said, held erasure partiers to change wrong answers to right ones.
 
Former Deerwood Academy teacher Lavonia Farrell said she was just trying to help students.
 
"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."

Defense attorneys for the dozen accused former educators are now getting ready to call witnesses in this trial.

Stay with Channel 2 Action News for updates on this developing story.