Ga Tenant Intent To Vacant

Process Of Firing "Cheaters" Begins Monday

A state investigation said 178 of Atlanta's teachers and principals cheated on the 2009 Criterion Referenced Competency Test. Officials don't know how many of them still work for the school system. The process of identifying and firing them will start on Monday.

The Atlanta School Board and interim Superintendent Erroll Davis spent hours Thursday discussing personnel matters. In other words, a lot of people could lose their jobs before the new school year starts early next month. Despite the tight deadline, Davis says APS will be ready come August 8th.

"It is our intent to fill all of the positions that do become vacant by the start of school," said Davis.

They'll fill those positions with new teachers and substitutes. Davis is a bit of a substitute himself. On Thursday, the school board decided to keep him for a year. That was the right decision according to Chairwoman Brenda Muhammad.

"I think this board believes that having this interim superintendent will help us with restoring our accreditation," said Muhammad.

To get off accredited probation, one of the things APS has to do is search and find a superintendent to replace Dr. Beverly Hall. The board decided to keep Davis for a year after it adopted his initial plan of action in response to the state investigation. Based on that investigation, Davis said the main problem is ethics.

"The first thing of course we'll look at is our ethics training," said Davis.

If you want to work for Atlanta's Public School system, Davis says you will have to take ethics training every year. He wants a new online training program in place just before the new school year in August. And if a teacher or employee is asked to act unethically, Davis wants them to fill out an anonymous survey.

"We want to know what our employees are thinking," said Davis. In particular, I want to know whether there is a climate of fear or intimidation."

However, teachers won't be the only ones getting training. Davis is calling for the state to train school employees who coordinate the CRCT. As for future results of that test, Davis says he wants to set realistic achievement goals. If future scores surpass those goals, that will trigger an investigation.

Those steps are focused on the future. But Davis says students who had their test answers changed need help now.

Ohio Do it yourself eviction landlord rights | Dayton Ohio Legal Blog

This post is directed to the many “do-it-yourselfers” in the residential leasing market.  This post is not meant to help the large, multi-dwelling landlords with full-time management and legal staffs. No, this is for the guy who gets transferred to another city and decides to rent out that house or condo in his current location rather than deal with market, or those budding real estate mogulists who’ve squirreled away money from their day job to have acquired 3 or 4 properties rented around town.  These are the landlords that will most likely deal directly with tenants, and those that are least prepared to do so, considering their skills lie in engineering, or medicine, or building decks, or anything besides leasing residential housing.  So here is a quick checklist for those who play landlord on the weekends:

1) Make sure to reduce the lease agreement to writing if the tenancy period is going to last over a year.  You should always reduce your agreements to writing in order to prove the deal anyway, but oral tenancies lasting longer than a year are not even enforceable.

2) Never threaten to physically remove the tenant or lock the tenant out of the premises, even if they have failed to pay rent.  Self-help is completely illegal in Ohio.  Even if you can do so peacefully, you are never allowed to personally dispossess the tenant from the premises.  The only legal way to evict a residential tenant in Ohio is through the statutory procedures proscribed in O.R.C. Sec. 2913, and the eviction must be sanctioned by a court in all circumstances.

3) You have a duty to keep the premises in a safe and habitable condition. This duty is not negotiable and you cannot shift this duty to the tenant, even in exchange for lower rent. It is ultimately the responsibility of the landlord to ensure the premises is up to building, housing and health codes, and at all times remains in habitable condition

4) Never retaliate against a tenant should they report code violations.  You could be open to damages and attorneys fees if the court finds that you initiated eviction proceedings in retaliation for the tenants reporting alleged code violations.

5) Make sure to carry-out each duty the law requires of you under the Landlord-Tenant Act (O.R.C. Sec 5321 ). Most of the duties are self-evident and require only that you conduct yourself with basic human decency in the leasing of property, but you should look them over nonetheless.