(AJC) — With Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El finally bowing to pressure to remove himself from leadership, it’s now make-or-break for the faltering Atlanta school board. Over the next several weeks, a small delegation of members will fan out across the city and meet with key stakeholders to seek at least tacit approval for the change, which is meant to signal consensus among feuding board members. Notification will go to perhaps its most imperative stakeholder: the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which put the school district on accredited probation with a Sept. 30 deadline to improve. Just as important, key legal issues must be decided by July 1, a state-imposed deadline that could end in the entire board’s removal. The decision “is the most significant step that has been made so far and allows the board to get serious,” said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who disavowed El both for the controversy he created when he claimed the board’s chairmanship last year and the way he responded to the school district’s accrediting agency as it ultimately sanctioned the board.
