Candidates for DeKalb School Board share views on superintendent, SAP at Tucker forum

The five candidates for the DeKalb County School District Board of Education District 4 seat met at Northlake Church of Christ on May 7 to discuss the superintendent, the Student Assignment Project (SAP), technology in schools, school choice, and other issues impacting the district ahead of Election Day on May 19.

Candidates Tracy Brisson, Alison Cundiff, Crew Heimer, Jamison Murphy, and Sonja Szubski met with constituents and answered questions during Thursday’s forum, hosted by the Tucker Civic Association. The candidates were asked three questions by moderator Neal Stubblefield, the President of the Tucker Civic Association: two questions directed to each candidate, and one directed to the whole group.  

Related story: Meet the candidates running to represent Tucker on the DeKalb school board

Hiring a new superintendent

All the candidates were asked to share their views on the superintendent position. Dr. Norman Sauce III was named the interim superintendent following the resignation of Dr. Devon Horton, who is facing federal charges accusing him of fraud in a school district where he worked in Illinois. Dr. Sauce was given a one-year contract, which expires in November.

Each candidate spoke in support of hiring Dr. Sauce for the position except for Cundiff, who said she “wasn’t promising a particular candidate.”

“We have talent at home,” she said. “We don’t need to go far afield for someone who’s going to have a learning curve getting used to Georgia, getting used to Atlanta and DeKalb. We need someone who is from around here… [The hired superintendent needs] to have a demonstrated track record of ethical behavior, that is extremely important, and they need to also have a demonstrated track record of expertise.”

Murphy discussed the flaws in the process that led to the hiring of Dr. Horton.

“I think a person with lingering allegations in his past or his present should not have been placed over DeKalb County Schools because of the fact that he can bring instability to the school system,” he said. “…I think that he shouldn’t have been hired, and I think we need to audit the process with the stakeholders that his position affects in the community and in the county.”

Individual questions

Each candidate answered two questions directed to them relating to their particular views and expertise.

Brisson discussed how she would ensure student outcomes were properly captured during whatever process succeeds SAP. The DeKalb County School District announced on May 5 that it would be shifting in a new direction after months of feedback and protests against the SAP, which proposed closing dozens of schools. Brisson said that student performance should be prioritized over a buildings-first approach when considering which schools to close and that performance data should be regularly presented to the Board.  

Related story: DeKalb Student Assignment Project shifts into different gear after stakeholder protests

Brisson was also asked what she believed the top fiscal accountability issues in DeKalb County were and how she would address them. She said that she would like to have the board or district publish what contracts under $50,000 – which therefore do not have to be approved by the board – were granted as part of their financial report. She also spoke in support of auditing the ESPLOST program.  

One of the questions directed to Cundiff covered what skills she would bring to the board as the president of the Georgia Association of Educators and how her position could pose a potential conflict of interest. She said that if there were ever a conflicting situation, like the GAE suing DeKalb County, she would recuse herself. Cundiff also said her role as president gives her experience working with other Boards of Education, which she would bring to the position.

Cundiff was also asked about school, which she has criticized for deepening inequities. The DeKalb County School Districts offers a school choice program that allows families to apply for schools outside of their assigned neighborhood. She said the district should focus on making all schools ones that parents would choose to send their kids to by concentrating more resources in underserved areas.

Heimer was asked how he would approach recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers after saying his daughter, who wanted to be a teacher, was told by her teachers not to pursue the career. Heimer spoke in favor of having quarterly meetings between principals and teachers so that issues were documented, and patterns could be easily seen and addressed.

Heimer was also asked about his feelings on charter schools. He said charter schools “offer an opportunity to figure out what they’re doing that we’re not doing that we should be doing.”

Murphy, who is a STEM teacher, was asked about how he would replicate or expand an initiative similar to the Presidential AI Challenge Showcase to encourage technological education. He said the district needed to expand AI curriculum in school with guardrails in order to prepare students for the workplace.

Related story: Tucker Middle School students recognized for innovative AI solutions

Murphy was also asked about how DeKalb’s middle schools could better make students feel safe and socially and emotionally supported. He said the public middle schools have to be competitive in what private and charter schools are offering.

Szubski, who is the communications director for the City of Tucker, was asked what steps she would take to enhance communications across the district. She said that while the rollout of the SAP was “not done well,” she believes that district is doing an “exceptional” job with communicating with parents.

Another question posed to Szubski covered how she would curb behavioral disruptions in the classroom, to which she answered in support of the state law that was recently expanded banning cell phones in K-12 public schools.  

Thoughts on SAP

During each of the candidates’ closing statements, Stubblefield asked for them to share their thoughts on the SAP.

“The Student Assignment Project was the final straw that put me into the race,” Brisson said. “…The words I’ve used for it are morally appalling and fiscally unsound.”

“What I see so often is children treated like little bags of money that go from school to school,” Cundiff said, “parents and staff treated like inconvenient furniture for district executive staff to get some money out of because they don’t want to change anything, because it’s working great for them.”

“Part of SAP is very necessarily, very overdue,” Heimer said. “We have very many schools, particularly in South DeKalb, that are half empty… Something needs to be done about that. What seems to be a problem is that they combine SAP with where we are going in the future… If we build a school, then we’ll have to force other schools to close in the future.”

“Building bigger schools doesn’t fill seats,” Murphy said. “You need to figure out what’s causing people to leave DeKalb County and go elsewhere, to those private schools and those charter schools. How can we make DeKalb County a better experience for families in pre-K and elementary schools, so they go on to the middle schools and they graduate from our high schools?”

“I do recognize that the small steps in going cluster by cluster and starting with the ones that are going to be directly affected by the openings of the schools that are coming in 2027 is the correct step forward,” Szubski said. “From there, we can recognize where there is success in our programming and try to duplicate it throughout all the clusters so that everybody has an equitable access to the same programming and the same resources.”