Clayton Schools Will Not Appeal Accreditation Loss ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - Clayton County's school district will not appeal the loss of its accreditation. Today would have been the deadline to challenge the decision by SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The day the accreditation loss was announced, Clayton County schools superintendent John Thompson vowed to appeal. But the district now says it will instead channel the financial and personnel resources that an appeal would have required, toward earning back accreditation.

Mark Elgart, president of SACS, says the decision lays the ground for a positive collaboration, rather than an adversarial relationship:

ELGART: What we've agreed to do is establish a time frame where we collaborate on developing a plan with benchmarks so that the school district and our organization can monitor the progress that the school system is making towards reinstatement.

SACS had offered to work with the district's old board of education, but was rebuffed.

If the county fully meets eight remaining SACS mandates by September first of 2009, its accreditation will be reinstated.

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