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For those of us who live in Gwinnett County and are a little closer to the facts and DO NOT share the suburbia-bashing sentiment of the AJC, or the political ambitions of certain politicos in the Gwinnett school system, a different view of the facts are in order.

ALL (OK, 99.x %) incidents involving students being 'paneled' for infractions and incidents were indeed recorded in the database. (How else could they find the missing 40,000 +/- so accurately?). They were coded differently than perhaps guided by policy (I'll grant the Harpies that). Also, the way the data are recorded, it is difficult to readily derive multiple infracrtions from a single comma-delimited entry. So if you're looking to get really high numbers, you exercise the EXISTING data really hard to get the highest possible number of qualifying infractions. IF you want the lowest numbers, you code the infractions a little left of policy, but record ALL the infractions.

The data are NOT missing. They are there. The Supt. is not a bad guy. He has many long knives after him. The Gwinnett County Public school system is actually a pretty good one. Collins Hill High School (ours) is pushing 4300 students. There are bad eggs there. Same for Central/North Gwinnett/Parkview/Grookwood, etc., all BIG high schools. Creekland Middle School is/was the biggest in the nation. On big campuses with a large student population from 'diverse' backgrounds you have "incidents". In the old days, we handled our own disputes. Now the 'gummint' has to get involved and catalog everything for the lawyers.

So all things considered, this is not a school system with an order of magnitude discipline cover up "crisis." When confronted by the courageous investigator, the school system produced complete data. AS a parent of public school students, I was distressed by the outcome and the numbers, but not dismayed or driven into crisis mode.

So, lighten up.

One more comment.

From the article "Meanwhile, school administrators are investigating themselves to see whether any staff member intentionally withheld information to cause some of the errors on the original report. State officials have not received any information that would indicate Gwinnett tried to defraud the state. "We just haven't seen any evidence of that," Bennett said. "No teachers have contacted us with a report of something that was not handled or reported by Gwinnett."

No information was withheld. The data were all in the database as a matter of public record. The report is submitted monthly, I believe, and the data had been 'coded' this way for some time. Bust them for improper coding, a decision NOT made by the Supt., but he is a big enough man to take the rap, instead of pushing it off onto his hapless 'Janet Reno'.

Bear in mind, also, that our local Public Safety leaders had an ax to grind here because the school has its own 'safety officers'. That dilutes the power and influence of other parts of the government. This is not all that it reads, especially as written by a reporter from the AJC.

Lastly, the Supt. is a 'Godly Christian' who has prayer with some of his staff members, goes to church, makes public references to God, Christ, and his faith. So, he makes enemies just by holding faith-based principles.

AS a parent of public school students, I was distressed by the outcome and the numbers, but not dismayed or driven into crisis mode.

I am going to make you a promise. If things were done my way, the valid numbers WOULD BE 4,258. It is simply going to have to go back to old school operation, or the consequences are not going to be palatable.