Once the Atlanta Public Schools’ human resources director and a close confidant of Superintendent Beverly Hall, Millicent Few pleaded guilty Monday to a reduced charge of malfeasance in office.

In exchange, she will tell everything she knows about Hall’s efforts to cover up a growing scandal involving at least two schools - Parks Middle School and the Deerwood Academy.

Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis told the court Few will testify that “Defendant Hall told defendant Few… that they were to shred all copies of the Deerwood Report in APS possession.”

The Deerfield report outlined the school district’s own investigation that, according to Few, found substantial evidence of cheating on CRCT tests administered in the summer of 2008 to students who had failed the tests in the previous school term.

According to Few, the test showed substantial – and suspicious – improvement on the part of some of the district’s most challenged students.

This appears to be the smoking gun prosecutors have been looking for. Few, for the first time, can link Hall to allegations that former superintendent orchestrated both cheating and the cover-up that followed.