Clayton News Daily

By Greg Gelpi

Although the ethics case against Clayton County schools Superintendent Barbara Pulliam has been closed, the complaint will be re-filed.

John Trotter, a teachers' advocate who filed the original complaint, said he will resubmit the complaint to the Educator Ethics Division of the Professional Standards Commission. Trotter is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Metro Association of Classroom Educators, although he said he filed the complaint as an individual.

"This is nothing but a jaded process where administrators can rape and pillage," Trotter said. "They evidently don't know the law or are determined not to apply the law to administrators, but I am determined to hold Pulliam to the law."

The PSC cleared Pulliam of any wrong doing with regards to the complaint.

"The commission found no probable cause," Gary Walker, the director of the Education Ethics Division, said, adding that the case is closed and sealed. "You don't reopen a case."

Trotter called the PSC a "good old boy club for administrators" and said he is working to resubmit the complaint.

"If they didn't find any probable cause on that, they wouldn't find probable cause if you put it on their nose," he said.

Walker, who spoke with Troter extensively on the matter, said Trotter is allowed to file any complaint and resubmit complaints he has already filed.

"We have people who file the same thing and get the same results," Walker said. "We never ask people to file complaints. We never tell people what to do."

Trotter alleged in his complaint that Pulliam violated state law by not advertising that three senior level positions were vacant when she filled them in March. She changed the administrative rule regarding personnel prior to making the recommendations that the Clayton County Board of Education accepted.