ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has learned dozens of students got apparently improper transfers to a popular Atlanta middle school, which has chronic problems with overcrowding.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Richard Belcher discovered that a senior school official nearly lost his job because of his daughter's transfer to Inman Middle School.
Many out-of-zone parents want their children to attend Inman. One measure of its popularity is the presence of portable classrooms.
Records show that Atlanta Public School Communications Director Stephen Alford ignored orders not to try to transfer his daughter to Inman in August 2010.
Alford told Belcher he lived in the Inman zone. The school's principal had the authority to authorize the transfer, and she did.
But an official reprimand said Alford was ordered not to seek a transfer and calls his actions a blatant violation of policy.
"This is a matter of ethical behavior (that) calls into question your judgment. Your breach is serious enough for me to have recommended termination," APS Chief of Staff Sharron Pitts wrote to Alford in May 2011.
Alford wasn't fired, and it turns out he wasn't the only one who was cutting corners at the overcrowded middle school.
Another senior school executive wrote Inman principal Dr. Betsy Bockman that there were 62 other students for whom the system did not have records of transfers. All of them were allowed to remain at Inman.
"We cannot confirm whether Dr. Bockman was responsible for the other 62 students," APS said in a statement. "There is no documentation Dr. Bockman received any discipline."
Bockman is now the principal at Coan Middle School. She declined to discuss the transfers with Belcher on Tuesday.
APS officials said Superintendent Errol Davis knew about Alford's reprimand but did not stop his promotion to executive director of communications nine months later. They said that's because the system was experiencing tremendous transition and needed someone who could assume leadership immediately.
Alford recently announced his resignation.