Valedictorian student's mother says issue still open

GAINESVILLE - The mother of Gainesville High School's sole valedictorian Cody Stephens Tuesday afternoon said the Gainesville School Board is accountable for putting her son through an ordeal before he officially achieved that honor.

With rain beginning to fall, Valerie Stephens credited Charlie Bryant's parents for withdrawing him for co-valedictorian honors, but added that does not let school board members who voted 4-1 for co-valedictorians off the hook.

"That does not mean that the Gainesville City School System or Gainesville High School should not be held accountable for the things they set in place," she said.

Stephens said Board Chairman Willie Mitchell voted the right way for Stephens sole honor but the others did not 'vote the right way.'

Stephens vowed to campaign against board members up for re-election, and called for dismissals for superintendent Merrianne Dyer and high school principal Chris Mance.

Stephens said the co-valedictorian issue is not going away and she wants an investigation into why the system went against its own policy of granting the sole honor to the student with the highest grade point average.

"We cannot allow this situation to happen anymore to any parent or any child," Stephens added and then she smiled and announced that "Cody Stephens is the sole valedictorian of Gainesville High School."

Founder of the Atlanta Chapter of Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network, Marcus Coleman, promised an investigative follow-up, saying the Board's closed-door vote last Friday on the co-valedictorian issue was deceitful.

"Here this school board on Friday had this emergency secret vote and it's four to one," Coleman said. "I think it's unfair to the public and definitely unfair to the system because the honesty is not there."

Coleman said the public was expecting a public meeting on the 28th, which was canceled after the board's decision was disclosed Monday. Coleman added that he was glad the Bryants had some integrity because the school board did not.

"We don't want another child, black, white, Latino, Asian, to go through this same thing when it deals with simple math," Coleman said. "We plan to do something about the members of the School Board."

http://accesswdun.com/article/2012/2/246136