PSC investigator following up with those in CRCT report

ALBANY, Ga. — The Herald has learned that the Georgia Professional Standards Commission has an investigator in town and is conducting interviews with witnesses, teachers and administrators involved in the Dougherty School System’s CRCT cheating investigation.

According to DCSS attorney Tommy Coleman, PSC Investigator John Grant has been in Albany since late Wednesday and will likely interview all 49 teachers and administrators named in December’s CRCT report to Gov. Nathan Deal.

Grant is expected conduct interviews throughout the coming week.

Some 24 teachers and administrators faced local administrative tribunals beginning in August, and many accepted suspensions. Others were cleared and returned to work outright — including Albany High School Principal Angela Shumate and Dougherty High Principal Jose Roquemore.

The Professional Standards Commission has responsibility for the preparation, certification and professional conduct of certified personnel employed in Georgia public schools.

After completing its local investigation, the PSC can accept the DCSS board’s decisions or suspend or revoke teacher certifications.

Calls to Grant for comment were not immediately returned.

Roquemore reinstated as Dougherty Principal

Dougherty High School Principal Jose Roquemore, suspended in the turmoil of Dougerty County’s CRCT probe, was reinstated as Dougherty’s principal during the DCSS School Board’s work session last Wednesday at Sylvester Road Elementary.

Roquemore was the principal at Morningside Elementary in 2009 when he was accused in the CRCT report of “directing teachers to alter grades and coercing or intimidating them.”

He was scheduled to appear before a tribunal immediately after former Northside Principal Angela Shumate, but the case was dropped after the panel recommended she be rehired by the system.

At the time, school system attorney Flin Colemen said the Roquemore and Shumate cases were virtually identical, and he elected not to pursue the Dougherty principal’s case because he expected the same outcome.