The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is heading to DeKalb County, and parents there are holding their collective breaths.

The school accreditation agency will be looking into specific complaints against the county school board, complaints stemming from three issues.

"First and foremost is the Board of Education, effectively, governing the system?" says SACS President Mark Elgart.  "We have standards of practice that define effective governance."

"The second is, is the system, including the board, managing its financial resources in accordance with their own policies and state law?"  Elgart says.  "We have complaints related to financial mismanagement."

"The third is in the area of human resources," he says.  "We have complaints of individual board members influencing the hiring, appointment, compensation and termination of staff throughout the district."

As for the finances, Elgart tells WSB, part of it centers on spending practices.

"In each of the past five years, they (the board) have budgeted $1 million for legal fees," says Elgart.  "In each of the last five years, they've spent over $10 million per year."

Elgart says not to expect anything close to what happened in Clayton County a few years back when that school system lost accreditation.

But, he does say it possible that SACS will drop DeKalb's accreditation status.  That could lead to a loss of accreditation within the next year.

SACS first investigated the DeKalb school system following the indictment of then-Superintendent Crawford Lewis over construction contracts.

SACS gave the school board a list of steps it needed to take to keep the board free of scrutiny.  The board did follow most of the recommendations.  But SACS investigators suggested the DeKalb system remain under the advisement status.