The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved a new policy that calls for the Cobb County School District to hire armed, non-police professionals to help provide security.
Right before the board’s vote on Thursday night, however, several citizens in the board room chanted “delay the vote!”
Board chairman David Chastain called for a recess.
After the board reconvened few minutes later, the protestors continued.
Board member Jaha Howard, attending the meeting remotely, made a motion over the chanting to postpone the vote to August, and some in the crowd applauded.
His motion was seconded by Tre’ Hutchins, but it failed by a 2-4 vote (board member Charisse Davis was absent from the meeting).
The original motion, to approve the policy, was approved 4-2, with Chastain, David Banks, Randy Scamihorn and Brad Wheeler voting in favor.
“Shame on you!” shouted some of the protestors, and as it was the last item on the agenda, Chastain adjourned the meeting.
Several of the protestors spoke earlier during a public comment period, opposed to more guns in schools and questioning the identities and qualifications of those who would be hired.
Some wore shirts that said “End Gun Violence” and “Moms Demand Action,” the name of a gun-control organization.
Parent Charles Cole said the policy is “rash, dangerous and vastly open-ended.
“Let’s get some more guns in schools and add some specifics later is not the way we should operate. . . . I understand the intent, but I do not understand or support the execution.”
The policy does not include numerous details due to security concerns, but the new personnel—who could be recruited from the ranks of retired military, law enforcement, and other agents—will assist existing resource officers on campuses, buses and various school functions and extracurricular activities.
While they will be trained as officers in the CCSD Police Department, the armed guards will be paid on a different scale and do not have to be certified by the Georgia POST (Police Officer Training Standards) Council, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said.
He announced last month the addition of such personnel, along with a new security alert system and Code Red drills at every school in the 2022-23 school year that begins Aug. 1.
During a school board work session Thursday afternoon, Ragsdale said the district, like public safety agencies in general, is struggling to hire police officers. POST certifies all law enforcement in Georgia, including school districts that have their own police departments.
“If the board gave me a blank check” to hire a resource officer for every school, “I could not do that,” he said.
The Cobb school district has 67 police officers to cover 114 school campuses. The new armed guards would be “badged” employees of the school district, and select personnel on those campuses would be notified of those who are carrying arms in the schools on a “need to know” basis.
The new guards also will undergo background checks and psychological evaluations and will have annual firearms training.
“We are not going to arm personnel who are not fully vetted,” Ragsdale said.
“This policy will allow us to embark upon that path to make sure we are doing everything possible” to beef up security, he added, in the wake of the deadly elementary school shootings in Uvalde, Texas in May.
Ragsdale also said he is adamant that teachers will not be armed, and the new policy bars teachers and other personnel with classroom supervisory roles from bearing weapons.
The initial policy proposal would have allowed teachers to be armed if they met certain qualifications and in extraordinary exceptions, but Ragsdale withdrew that provision.
When asked by Banks if every elementary school in the district currently has a resource officer, Ragsdale said that “we cover every school but we don’t have an officer at every school.”
Hutchins asked if the new guards would be under Ragsdale’s purview. He said they would report chiefly to Ron Storey, the district’s public safety director, “but I won’t say they won’t only report to Storey.”
Howard said he had concerns about the policy, saying that he’s seen “no data or evidence that more armed professionals will make our students and staffers safer.
“It sounds like we are creating a group of gun-carrying professionals who are not police officers.”
Other commenters who spoke against the policy included Alisha Thomas Searcy, a former Cobb legislator and the Democratic Party nominee for Georgia School Superintendent, and Cobb SCLC president Ben Williams.
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- East Cobb students receive appointments to military academies
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- Cobb schools change crisis alert system; plan Code Red drills
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