A west Georgia school district has five months to make improvements or face losing accreditation.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools voted last week to place the Haralson County schools on probation, SACS president and chief executive Mark A. Elgart said.

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Haralson County, which has 4,000 students, is about 50 miles west of Atlanta on the Alabama border. Buchanan is the county seat.

SACS cited Haralson for problems similar to the issues that led to Clayton County Schools’ accreditation loss. On Sept. 1, Clayton, which has 50,000 students, became the nation’s first district to lose accreditation in nearly 40 years.

SACS investigators said they found governance problems by Haralson school board members, including micromanaging, not following their own policies and ethics violations.