For all the drama surrounding the indictments of former Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other educators in a widespread cheating scandal, one of the most intriguing details has been the fact that the district’s long-time deputy superintendent was not criminally charged.
Kathy Augustine, who served as the deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction for most of Hall’s dozen years at the helm, was the highest-ranking Atlanta administrator not to be ensnared by the recent Fulton County grand jury indictments. Ever since, the speculation has been widespread that Augustine must be cooperating with authorities in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Augustine, people have said, would be in the best position to implicate Hall.
But a weekend story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that not only is Augustine not a “cooperating witness” in the case, but that Fulton County prosecutors never even questioned her about the cheating. Her attorney also told the newspaper that Augustine was never called to testify before the grand jury either.
Not that Augustine hasn’t already paid a price for the cheating scandal. In 2011, she had left Atlanta with a new contract to be the superintendent of a Dallas-area district. But after the state’s bombshell report in July 2011 exposed the widespread cheating scheme in Atlanta and said that Augustine either knew, or should have known about the wrongdoing, the school board in the DeSoto school district decided to buy out her contract after Augustine had served only one day on the job.
Augustine, according to the AJC, has been back in Atlanta ever since and is not working.