At the March 5 meeting during which APS Superintendent Erroll Davis revealed that 14 players on the Grady football team were found guilty of address fraud, he fielded questions from the public.

“I have been told just about every time I come here that there are people who are attending who should not be attending this school,” Davis said. “My response has always been, ‘Then tell me who and I’ll investigate them.’”

The parent of one Grady football player argued that the football team was being unfairly targeted in the investigation.

“To investigate the football team separately—I just want to say what everyone here is thinking: that is discrimination,” the parent said. “Everyone in the school system should have the same registration process, and it should be a great process.”

Davis responded to the several demands from parents that the district investigate every student’s enrollment by saying there are not enough resources and assets to feasibly do so. He did say, however, that the district will look into making procedural changes going forward, particularly in athletic programs across the board.

“We cannot afford to say, ‘Let’s go look at every sport everywhere,’ but what we can and should do is look at what processes and policies and procedures that we have in place that easily allow this to happen,” Davis said.

The Blame Game

Another concern among several of the attendees of the meeting was that district and system employees did not do enough to prevent this systemic address fraud. Davis acknowledged that the district might be more involved in the process in the future.

“There has been a push to delegate more and more things back to the schools, and I do not believe that the athletic department of the system gets involved in the verification of address and eligibility for students,” Davis said. “And that is clearly one of the things we are going to have to look at.”

Former Grady parent and chair of the Grady High School Foundation Anne McGlamry recounted a time a few years ago when she and other concerned parents went downtown to seek assistance for the problem of overcrowding and out-of-district transfers at the school.

“I don’t want [Erroll Davis]—not necessarily just [Erroll Davis], but also the people downtown—to insinuate to the rest of the community that Grady’s administration and staff were not trying to correct this problem even before you came,” McGlamry said to Davis.

The Issue of Registrars

Several people pointed out that one of the largest flaws in the school’s registration process is the fact that Grady’s single registrar Chinaester Holland is responsible for registering approximately 1,400 students. As it took a district team of investigators more than three months to investigate the football team, Davis acknowledged that no blame was being placed on the overworked registrars and that no findings from the investigation should reflect negatively on them.

“We are looking at our budget to make sure that we do have additional support as necessary,” Davis said. “We are looking at system changes to try to minimize these occurrences in every school across the board.”

Some parents, such as Chip Miller, alleged that principal Vincent Murray’s reported reassignment was a punitive action taken because of this incident. Davis, however, denied those allegations.

“Let me make something very very clear,” Davis said. “I don’t want Dr. Murray’s reassignment in any way associated with this.”

Impact on the players

One of the most widely shared concerns about the investigation was what would happen to the students on the football team.

“What are we as district hoping to do for these young men who have strived hard, who have gotten the grades, who have done what they can to do the right things, but yet they’ve now been put on the back burner because of what has gone on?” parent Aimee Smith said.

Davis said GHSA will look at the management and integrity of the football program but did not know what courses of action it would take with regards to last year’s record, the eligibility of the team, and the eligibility of specific players or whether they will impose fines or penalties on the system.