Furniture left outside Athens school wasn’t meant to be given away, say officials

May 31, 2024
A few student desks left on the sidewalk outside Clarke Middle School are what remains after an official mistakenly posted on social media that furniture was there for the public to take.

The Clarke County School District did not circumvent its policy on disposal of surplus or unserviceable property in connection with stacks of chairs, chair-style desks and other items left recently on a sidewalk on the old Clarke Middle School campus, a school district spokeswoman said this week. 

The school will be moving into a new building next door and is clearing out a number of items as a part of the transition into the new Clarke Middle School. 

Concerns that the district might have violated its policy surfaced shortly after a May 23 post on the Facebook page of the Athens Area Teacher Reuse Store. The post stated the items were “available for anyone to come and take” on a first-come, first-served basis “before they are thrown in the dumpster.” 

Within a couple of days, all the items, except a few desks, were taken from the sidewalk. 

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The Athens Area Teacher Reuse Store is an enterprise of the Athens-Clarke County government that takes suitable items that would otherwise be discarded by local business and industry, or are donated from other sources, and offers them for free to public, private, home-school and collegiate educators. Artists and social workers can also use the Reuse Store. 

Items offered through the enterprise include classroom supplies like paper, pencils, pens, scissors and art supplies, as well as crafts materials, science equipment, working computer equipment and furniture. 

As the Reuse Store’s post was reposted elsewhere on Facebook, some people wondered why the items were offered for free, rather than sold, auctioned or disposed of in a way that would bring money to the school district. 

As it turns out, that was what was supposed to have happened. 

In response to an email query from the Athens Banner-Herald, Cyndee Perdue Moore, the Clarke County School District’s executive director of public relations and communications, said the district had, in fact, put the items out for bids, had found a buyer, and had stacked the items on the school sidewalk to facilitate pickup. 

“All of the items in question were offered on GovDeals, an auctioning platform, for bid in accordance with district policy,” Moore wrote. “The furniture placed on the sidewalk was purchased by one of the bidders through that site and placed on the sidewalk to be picked up by the bidder.” 

“CCSD did not advertise free furniture for pickup and did not authorize any other entity to do so,” Moore added. 

Apparently, an administrator at Clarke Middle School inadvertently set in motion the process by which the chairs, desks and other items were advertised as being available for free to the public. 

Sandy Cederbaum, Athens-Clarke County’s reuse coordinator, who posted the item on the Reuse Store’s Facebook page, said she was at the school recently to pick up some bins of donated school supplies assembled by Clarke Middle School teachers as the school year came to an end. 

As she and the school administrator were searching for the bins, Cederbaum said, they saw the desks and other items on the sidewalk. The administrator indicated that the items apparently were bound for a dumpster, a conclusion bolstered by the fact that similar items already were in a nearby dumpster. 

Cederbaum went on to say that she offered to post the items on Facebook, took some photos, and posted them along with the message that they were available to anyone for pickup. The post did not include any language limiting the availability of the items to teachers or others served by the Reuse Store.  

Had she known the actual circumstances, Cederbaum said, she “never would have posted” the Facebook item. Part of the reason that the items were placed on the Reuse Store’s social media, Cederbaum added, was that the store, located at 1005 College Avenue, does not have room for storing much furniture. 

School officials this week didn’t immediately reply to subsequent questions regarding the status of the winning bid. 

According to the CCSD policy manual, unserviceable or surplus items are to be sold by sealed bid, public auction, online auction, or through a contract for recycling. Items purchased with federal funds must also follow federal law, or conditions included in federal grants, for disposal. 

Among other conditions for the sale of surplus or unserviceable items, the school district “should give preference to the citizens of Athens-Clarke County when practical and legally permissible,” according to district policy. 

In the coming days, the school district will be offering items from the old Clarke Middle School for sale to school district employees and to the public, Moore stated in her email. 

On a somewhat related note, according to the CCSD website, the school district is currently accepting bids on five pallets of surplus technology equipment. Each pallet requires a minimum bid of $1,000. Bids must be submitted on an online form provided by the school district at . The deadline for submitting bids is June 10.  

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