An Open Letter To The Clayton County School Board Members!

Well, you got what you wanted, a California-reject for superintendent and a school board attorney whose firm touts Glenn Brock as not only a lawyer but a “counselor” for superintendents. I noticed in last Friday’s edition of the Marietta Daily Journal that the Cobb County School System, one of the firm’s clients, has apparently jettisoned any newly-found transparency for their more comfortable cloak of darkness. Remember that it was Mr. Glenn Brock’s public trashing of the former Clayton County School Board that apparently gave his “buddy” Mark Elgart more gasoline for the accreditation fire. Several of Clayton’s board members were questionably removed by the State for one (or was that two?) illegal school board meetings. However, lo and behold, the Cobb County School Board has been cited recently for fifty-seven (57) illegal school board meetings. But, hey, who’s counting? Don’t depend on the fake SACS organization or its hypocritical leader, Mark Elgart, to do one single thing in the matter. I suppose Mr. Brock’s legal counseling was a tad off in those 57 meetings, as was his legal acumen when he and State Board member Bradley Bryant and SACS’s Mark Elgart met illegally behind closed doors to apparently advise the previous Clayton school board on how to act properly. But, hey, again, when you are big shots, perhaps you can break the law.

Now, I suppose that this sage “counseling” that the Brock Clay law firm is providing Mr. Heatley is telling him that despite what the Georgia Statutory Law says about teacher grievances (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5 et seq.), he doesn’t really have to obey this mundane Georgia law. Mr. Heatley and Mr. Douglas Hendrix have both sent to the MACE Office letters stating to two of our members that they did not have the right to have a Level III hearing before the school board. Hmm. Now this is quite strange since the appropriate statute on this matter states just the opposite: “…the complainant shall be entitled to an opportunity to be heard, to present relevant evidence, and to examine witnesses at each level” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[4]). I know that Mr. Glenn Brock attended a non-accredited, now-defunct law school, but I trust that he can read a statute. I do not even claim to be a lawyer (I never took the Bar and have no desire to be a lawyer), but I can read. I could read before I ever attended Mercer University Law School. (I suppose that if I were a lawyer, I couldn’t write letters like this, and I do enjoy them.) Oh, and by the way, Mr. Bradley Bryant ruled on the State Board Level (in the Gill case in Muscogee County) that they were indeed three (3) levels in the grievance process, just as the Statute so plainly delineates.

Board members, I am apprising you of Mr. Heatley’s and Mr. Hendrix’s violations of the Georgia Law. What are you going to do about it? Don’t ask Glenn Brock. Grow up and ask yourselves what you are going to do.