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Jonathan Cribbs

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Board approves $15K raise for schools superintendent

The DeKalb County Board of Education approved a $15,000 raise for Superintendent Crawford Lewis this month, angering educators who said they’ve been denied raises due to the poor economy. The board voted 8-1 on Jan. 4 to increase Lewis’ salary fr...

DeKalb employment numbers stagnate over last several months

The percentage of unemployed workers in DeKalb County has hovered around 10 percent for the last several months, and local officials believe that number could slightly worsen before it improves. The county’s unemployment rate was 8.4 percent in Jan...

Principal helps McNair Middle make the grade

Susan Freeman was named principal of McNair Middle School four years ago.
Susan Freeman reached into a desk drawer inside her office in November and pulled out an old copy of The Champion. It featured a front-page article several years old detailing serious disciplinary problems that plagued the school years before she arr...

Trapped in your car? It might cost you $250 to escape

If you find yourself trapped inside your car following a wreck in the future, you’ll also have your pocketbook to think about. The DeKalb County Fire Department will charge $250 to extract trapped drivers from their cars – a service that had prev...

Ellis’ 2010 budget includes tax increase, job cuts

DeKalb County will have to raise taxes and eliminate more than 700 jobs to balance a $582.7 million budget in 2010 – a $23 million cut from this year’s budget, county CEO Burrell Ellis said this month. Ellis released details of the budget Dec. 15...

DeKalb employment numbers stagnate over last several months

The percentage of unemployed workers in DeKalb County has hovered around 10 percent for the last several months, and local officials believe that number could slightly worsen before it improves. The county’s unemployment rate was 8.4 percent in Jan...

Commission drops effort to ax CEO position

The DeKalb County CEO’s office isn’t going anywhere – at least for now. The board of commissioners voted 4-3 on Dec. 15 against a resolution supporting a referendum asking voters if they wanted to remove the county’s elected CEO position and ...

Communication is the key to catching serial rapist, police say

The best weapon to combat the string of sexual assaults along Hambrick Road is not a gun, a knife, or even pepper spray. Communication, both police and residents believe, is the best way to help catch a serial rapist who is responsible for at least t...

Former principal pleads guilty to falsifying test answers at Atherton Elementary

James Berry
Former Atherton Elementary School Principal James Berry pleaded guilty to falsifying state documents – his students’ state-standardized tests, more specifically – this month and received two years probation and a fine, officials said. The final...

Rep. Hank Johnson struggles with hepatitis C

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson announced this month that he has struggled with hepatitis C, a serious liver virus, for more than a decade. “Over the past year, I have been on a robust course of treatment for hepatitis C, a virus that affects more than four...