MARIETTA - In a surprise move, longtime Cobb school board attorney Glenn Brock is expected to resign at today's Board of Education meeting, the Journal has learned.

Although the 30-member, Marietta-based Brock, Clay, Calhoun and Rogers law firm will continue its contract with the school board, Brock is expected to suggest to the board that partner Clem Doyle take over the board's work. Brock will likely continue to work with Fulton and Clayton county school systems, both of which the law firm represents.

Doyle has been a partner in the Brock Clay law firm since 2006 and was the attorney for Marietta City Schools before joining the firm. When he joined Brock Clay, he brought that district's account with him.

A native of Athens, Doyle is a graduate of Princeton University, where he played football, and of University of Georgia law school. His specialty is education law.

He and his wife, Mary Margaret Hines, have two young sons who attend Marietta City Schools.

Brock reportedly will tell the Cobb school board today that he is "transitioning" from the Cobb board rather than resigning. He has been involved in several controversies with the board in recent years, especially over repeated board violations of Georgia's Open Meetings laws and high profile lawsuits of which the board has lost.

In 2005, Brock and his attorneys advised the school board to go ahead with spending more than $100 million in special purpose local option sales tax money on laptops for all district middle and high school students. That decision spiraled out of control and cost the district an expensive lawsuit, resulting in then-Superintendent Joe Redden to step down.

In July 2009, Brock admitted that the school board had been voting secretly in executive session since January 2007, a violation of the Georgia Open Meetings Act. At the time, Brock said he took full responsibility for the secret votes, saying: "Mistakes have been made. We're making efforts correcting them."

Also, in July 2009, Brock provided legal advice to Dr. John Crooks and the board, allowing them to place an item on the agenda the day of the meeting regarding a controversial cell tower vote. The decision to place the item on the agenda on the day of the meeting eventually led to a lawsuit against the board for violating state Open Meetings Act by failing to give proper notice of the vote. The court issued a restraining order for any work on the tower, but that became moot when Crooks called for a second vote on the tower. The cell tower issue also led to an unsuccessful effort to recall Crooks.

Another controversy centered on Brock's secretly approved contract in 2007 that provided it would roll over automatically every four years unless the board voted to cancel, which was exposed by the Journal a year later. That contract is worth about $2 million a year in legal fees, much of which is a result of the many special education issues Brock Clay handles for the district. Although the current contract is not set to expire until the end of 2012, Brock wrote the board - after the Journal exposed the secret contract - that it could disregard the contract whenever it wanted, but did ask for six months notice should the board ever want to terminate the contract.

The fact that the legal services contract has not been bid out since Brock took over the account more than 20 years ago has been a source of controversy as well. Several school board members campaigned on unfulfilled promises to bid out the legal work, including both Crooks and Dr. John Abraham in 2006. More recently Kathy Angelucci, who was elected to succeed Abraham on July 20, and Scott Sweeney, the Republican candidate who is vying for Crooks' east Cobb seat, also promised to bid out the legal services once sitting on the board. The controversy surfaced again weeks ago when it was reported that Sanderson had bid out a small audit contract for SPLOST III, but did not bid out the much more costly legal services.

It is not known if Doyle and his Brock Clay partners will work under the old secret contract or void it and work for the board on an hourly basis.

Also today, the school board will hear an update from the superintendent regarding the district's Strategic Plan, but has no plans to talk about a reimbursement for the roughly $41,000 in legal fees Crooks accrued to fight the unsuccessful effort to recall him.

Board Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle said the board is still waiting on some information from Crooks, as well asBrock Clay, before it plans to further discuss possible reimbursement.

"As soon as we receive that, we will put it on our agenda, or if Dr. Crooks prefers we will call a special meeting," Crowder-Eagle said.

A heated debate among board members regarding the reimbursement occurred at the July 22 meeting.

The board eventually voted 5-1, with David Banks dissenting, to table the decision for reimbursement and seek legal advice from Brock Clay on whether there were previous rulings involving such situations.

As for the Strategic Plan, Crowder-Eagle said the board will hear an update from Superintendent Fred Sanderson, although the board chairwoman doubted it would be a full update since she didn't think the district had received all of its test scores yet.

The board will also discuss implementing the district's new scheduling plan to all of its high schools.

In February, the board awarded a contract to Edupoint Educational Systems to install a new scheduling system on a trial basis at three middle schools and four high schools. During this preliminary period, Sprayberry, Lassiter, Harrison, and Pope high schools, and McClure, Lovinggood and Garret middle schools briefly tested the system. Based on that successful implementation, the board is poised to install the system at the rest of its middle and high schools for a cost of $500,842.