Dublin schools appeal ruling on fired teachers

The Dublin City School District plans to appeal a local judge’s ruling that the district wrongfully terminated teachers mid-contract during the school system’s dire financial crisis last fall.

The district has filed a notice of appeal in Laurens County Superior Court, the first step in appealing the ruling to the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Documents show the district is appealing the summary judgment issued in August by Superior Court Judge Jud Green in favor of former Dublin City teachers Ashley White, Chelsea Taylor, Latonia Butts, Adisyn Walsh and Julie Kight.

No damages have been awarded.

An attorney for the fired educators argued in court that the Dublin City Board of Education failed to do its due diligence in budgeting its finances and issuing contracts. The teachers also claimed those contracts did not include termination clauses, and that they had violated no school system policy that would have allowed for their employment to end. 

District attorneys countered that the school board had been misled by its former finance director and was unaware of the district’s true financial condition when it issued contracts. Facing a then-projected budget deficit of $13 million, the school board fired about 50 teachers and staffers last year. 

Just days after Green’s ruling, the members of that school board were suspended and removed from office by Gov. Brian Kemp, who was acting on the recommendation of the state Board of Education. Kemp later appointed seven new members to the local board.

The Dublin district has toiled under a budget deficit for most of the past two decades but reached a financial flashpoint last August when state officials revealed the system owed $6 million in back payments to the state health benefit plan. 

A subsequent examination by the state’s Department of Audits and Accounts revealed a widespread lack of financial controls, patterns of overspending, over-hiring and lax bookkeeping and even personal usage of district credit cards. Also, for at least eight months the district withheld insurance and benefit premiums from employees’ paychecks, but never paid that money to the state until it got caught.

In its notice of appeal, the school district requests the “entire record,” underlined for emphasis on documents, be sent to the Court of Appeals.

“No part of the record on appeal is to be omitted,” the notice says.

The school board has scheduled a called meeting for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Dublin High School auditorium. Items on the agenda include an update on its accreditation status. The board will also be presented with the new tax digest and vote on advertising a new millage rate.