Mark Elgart of Cognia speaks to the Cobb school board in March 2022.
Another eventful year for the Cobb County School District got rolling in March when the district’s accrediting agency abruptly reversed findings of a special review it had issued in late 2021.
Dr. Mark Elgart of Cognia went before the Cobb Board of Education in a special-called meeting to say that most of his agency’s special review findings were being overturned because they were “inconsistent with evidence” the Cobb school district brought to Cognia’s attention.
The review was conducted after the board’s three Democrats and others in the Cobb school community issued complaints in a number of areas, including school board governance and fiscal and procurement issues.
Before the reversal, the Cobb school board had been told it had until late 2022 to show improvements in areas designated by the review team.
Elgart did say that Cognia special review findings of board relations and governance remain valid.
“The evidence remains that this is a divided school board,” Elgar told the board members.
A bill was introduced in the Georgia legislature later in the 2022 session by former State Sen. Lindsey Tippins, a former Cobb school board member, to remove political concerns from academic reviews, but it did not pass.
In May, the school board approved a $1.4 billion fiscal year 2023 budget that included raises between 8.5 and 13.10 percent, in what Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said were “historic” pay increases.
The $36.7 million rebuild of Eastvalley Elementary School is taking place on the former campus of East Cobb Middle School, across the street from Wheeler High School on Holt Road.
Construction is expected to be completed for the start of the 2023-24 school year in August.
A $6.738 million athletic complex is being built for Walton High School on land the school board purchased last year along Pine Road and Providence Road.
The facility will house Walton’s varsity tennis and baseball teams, beginning with the 2023-24 school year.
School board elections in November left the party makeup unchanged, with Republicans holding a 4-3 lead.
GOP chairman David Chastain of Post 4 in Northeast Cobb was re-elected to a third term in what became a bitter campaign with Democratic newcomer Catherine Pozniak.
Democrats were elected to posts in South Cobb to succeed outgoing first-term Democrats Charisse Davis and Jaha Howard. They were at the center of a number of partisan battles on the school board but did not seek second terms.
Howard lost in the Democratic primary for Georgia School Superintendent. Davis, whose Post 6 included the Walton and Wheeler clusters, never publicly explained her decision not to run again.
Her successor will be former teacher Nichelle Davis (no relation), and Becky Sayler is succeeding Howard in Post 2.
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A good bit has been made of Walton High School sports teams that had to compete off-campus when a new classroom building was being constructed.
Another extracurricular organization, the Walton Robotics Team, also had to conduct its activities elsewhere due to the same construction project.
After being located at East Cobb Middle School during that time, the team is now back on campus, in a separate building in the back parking lot that was a practice gym.
A new $307,000 robotics lab recently opened at Walton, approved last year by the Cobb Board of Education with funding from the Cobb Education SPLOST V.
Cobb County School District and Walton officials and dignitaries, including longtime former Principal Judy McNeill, were on hand for a ribbon-cutting and demonstration from Robotics Team members.
One of the hallmarks of the Walton Robotics program is community outreach, as team members visit with students from Title I schools such as Powers Ferry Elementary, and also with students at Eastvalley and Timber Ridge elementary schools.
“We’re not just about building a robot,” said Anish Saknuratri, a Walton Robotics team member who dedicates about 50 hours per week to the team, according to a release from the Cobb school district. “We also like to tell our team story, saying, ‘we built this robot. Yes, it’s amazing. We’re a championship robot, but we also give back to our community, and that’s what’s more important to us.’”
Last summer the team played host to a summer robotics camp for Cobb elementary and middle school students, and they’ve mentored robotics students at Dickerson and Dodgen middle schools.
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Zac Adkins, second from left, with Wheeler students on a “One Percent Harder” day at the school.
A Wheeler High School graduate who started a club at the school to address the health issues of his fellow teams is expanding his cause.
Zac Adkins played varsity football and soccer for the Wildcats and earned 3.944 grade-point honors.
Now a student at Berry College, Adkins last year launched One Percent Harder, a merchandise business that’s meant to encourage young people to fostering open communication about mental and physical health among teens.
He started wearing his merchandise to school and shared his story with students, athletes and his church youth group. On Wednesdays, some Wheeler students got into the habit of wearing One Percent Gear to school, and the school’s highly ranked boys basketball team donned the outfits while warming up during a state playoff game.
The club was suggested by Wheeler principal Paul Gillihan, and it’s an accountability group that discusses a specific topic and challenges participants to set goals and “work one percent harder each day to achieve them.”
Currently One Percent Harder is raising funds for a professional mental health counseling at Wheeler, with an initial goal of $50,000.
Adkins is donating 10 percent of his merchandise proceeds to the fund, which will go to providing counseling services to any Wheeler student who needs one.
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Members of the Pope Class 6A softball state championship team with Cobb school board members and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale. Photos courtesy Cobb County School District
The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday recognized the 2022 state champion softball and volleyball teams from Pope High School.
They were honored before a Cobb school board meeting and introduced to the audience.
The Pope softball team went 35-1 in capturing the Georgia High School Association Class 6A title, the third state championship in school history.
The Extra Innings softball information service named the Greyhounds their “national champion” in their final rankings.
The senior class of Natalie Klingler, Jadyn Laneaux and Emily Ricci ended their careers with their second state championship and an overall record of 126-17.
Laneaux and pitcher Kendall Scott earned region player of the year honors.
The Pope volleyball team claimed its fifth state championship in winning the Class 6A title, led by Cooper Abney. Coach Erica Miller was a regional honoree by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.
After winning the Region 7 championship, the Greyhounds went 5-0 in the state playoffs. They trailed Sequoyah by two sets in the state championship match before rallying for a 3-2 victory.
“Our sports state champions are more examples of why Cobb is the place to be and where families want to raise their children. In Cobb, success extends beyond the classroom and long after graduation,” Cobb school board chairman David Chastain said in a statement issued by the Cobb school district.
The Pope volleyball team won the school’s 5th state championship in November.
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The final meetings for two members of the Cobb Board of Education take place on Thursday.
Charisse Davis
First-term Democrats Charisse Davis of Post 6 (Walton, Wheeler clusters) and Jaha Howard of Post 2 (Campbell, Osborne clusters) did not seek re-election this year.
Howard ran for Georgia School Superintendent but was defeated in the Democratic primary in May.
Davis has not publicly stated her reasons for not seeking re-election. East Cobb News has left a message with her seeking comment.
The Cobb school board will have a work session that begins at 2:30 p.m. and a voting session starts at 7 p.m. in the board room of the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover St., Marietta.
The full agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here. An executive session follows the work session.
Among the agenda items is a request for $100 million in short-term construction notes for 2023, which would be repaid with Cobb Ed-SPLOST revenues at the end of next year.
The board also will be asked to approve contracts for new flooring at Lassiter High School and for concession and restroom renovations and replacements at Pope High School.
Pope’s state champion softball and volleyball teams also will be recognized,
Proposed administrative rule modifications to be presented to the board cover such topics as employee transfer policies, animals in schools and a parents’ bill of rights.
In the 2018 elections, Davis, a Fulton County librarian and former school librarian, unseated Republican incumbent Scott Sweeney in Post 6, which stretches from East Cobb to the Cumberland-Vinings area.
Davis and Howard’s arrival on the school board tightened the Republican majority from 6-1 to 4-3.
During their tenure, the school board was deeply divided and at times contentious on a number of issues, including racial, diversity and equity topics and the Cobb County School District’s COVID-19 response.
In late 2019, the GOP majority approved a policy to ban school board member comments at public meetings, triggering a series of mostly partisan disputes over the following two years.
That culminated with the three Democratic board members going to Cognia, the school district’s accrediting agency, to conduct a special review of the district in 2021.
After giving the district a year to make certain improvements, Cognia reversed its findings earlier this year.
By then, Davis and Howard had been drawn into the same post in redistricting. Post 6 was shifted entirely into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area, with Post 4 and Post 5 covering East Cobb.
Davis will be succeeded in January by Nichelle Davis (no relation), a Democrat who was unopposed in the primary and general election. She is a former Teach for America teacher and is the operations manager for Achieve Atlanta, an education non-profit.
Howard’s successor is Democrat Becky Sayler, who has been an English as a Second Language teacher and preschool teacher.
Thursday’s meeting also is the last for Post 4 member David Chastain as chairman.
He was re-elected to a third term in November, as the Republican majority will remain at 4-3.
In 2024 the terms of four members will expire, including three Republicans, among them four-term member David Banks of Post 5 in East Cobb.
In January Post 5 will include the Pope, Walton and Wheeler clusters.
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The East Cobb Middle School PTSA is teaming up with the school’s social worker to sponsor what it’s calling an “Angel Tree” program to support families in need during the holiday season.
According to Monica Bright, the ECMS social worker, each “angel” has an item on a family’s wish list that typically range from $10-$20 and are personalized to student needs.
She said Walmart and Kroger gift cards in $20 increments are being accepted to help families purchase food during the winter break.
All items purchased for the Angel Tree students must be returned wrapped to the front office at ECMS (825 Terrell Mill Road) by Dec. 7. Bright says to make sure the angel is attached to the item so it can be distributed to the correct family.
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The group provided a donation of $800 as the lead gift for All Girls Forward, whose goals include raising and distributing $2.5 million over the next five years.
The Numbers Too Big to Ignore luncheon event at the Georgia World Congress Center, drew more than 1,000 business, civic and political leaders, most of them women.
The East Cobb Middle School girls also got to meet actress Rita Moreno, who was the keynote speaker.
According to Kari Love, an East Cobb native who is the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s CEO, the East Cobb students raised the $800 by hosting a leggings day fundraiser at the school.
The luncheon event raised more than $150,000 for the All Girls Forward Program.
The foundation, which was formed in 1998, has invested more than $20 million in more than 350 Atlanta-area non-profits to assist and empower girls and women and help break the cycle of poverty.
It also provides leadership and philanthropic training for professional women and their communities.
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East Side ES students scored 100 percent in content mastery in the 2022 CCRPI, one of 9 schools in East Cobb with a perfect score in that category.
On Wednesday, the Georgia Department of Education released partial results of the 2022 College and Career Ready Performance Index, its primary academic performance measurement tool.
The CCRPI is a comprehensive indicator that includes content mastery, progress, closing performance gaps and readiness. It takes in an array of standardized test scores and other metrics.
For 2022, only content mastery and readiness were scored, as well as graduation rates for high schools.
Individual schools also did not receive an overall score. That’s because state received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education from scoring schools on a 0-100 scale, saying that data was limited due to closures and disruptions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several East Cobb schools at all grade levels scored among the best in Cobb in the two categories that were scored.
Students at nine schools scored a perfect 100 in content mastery, which “includes student scores on state assessments in English Language Arts, mathematics, science, and social studies,” according to the state education department.
Those schools are East Side, Mt. Bethel, Mountain View, Murdock, Sope Creek, Timber Ridge and Tritt elementary schools, Dodgen Middle School and Walton High School.
The content mastery calculation is unchanged from 2019, the last year the Georgia Department of Education is recommending that comparisons be made.
The state education department release said that results of the Georgia Milestones test, which forms the basis for the content mastery score, are up from 2021.
Those East Cobb. schools also scored 90 percent or higher in readiness, as did Dickerson, Hightower Trail and Mabry middle schools and Lassiter High School.
At the elementary- and middle-school level, readiness “includes literacy scores and data on the percentage of students passing ‘Beyond the Core’ instruction,” according to Georgia DOE, comprised of fine arts, world language, and computer science. The middle school level includes those ares plus physical education/health and career exploratory.
High-school readiness areas includes literacy scores, pathway completion data, and accelerated enrollment data.
In the Cobb County School District, elementary school students scored 73 percent in content mastery and 78.3 percent in readiness.
Middle-school level scores were 79.6 and 79 percent, and at the high school level they were 71.1 and 80.6 percent.
In a release, the Cobb school district said its all-level content mastery score was 14.9 percent higher than the state average and the readiness score was 5.8 percent higher than the state average.
Content mastery scores statewide are down to 64.7 percent, compared to 70 percent in 2019.
Cobb’s graduation rate of 88.2 percent is 3.5 percentage points ahead of the state average, according to the release. The College and Career Readiness metric was not included in the 2022 report due to incomplete data, according to the state education department.
The Georgia Department of Education said 2022 scores will form the baseline for evaluating academic progress.
Elementary Schools
Content Mastery
Readiness
Addison
80.4
79.9
Bells Ferry
68.9
77.1
Blackwell
63.4
76.5
Brumby
36.0
66.2
Davis
86.4
84.6
East Side
100
90.5
Eastvalley
78.2
79.8
Garrison Mill
99.0
89.6
Keheley
72.0
86.0
Kincaid
87.5
86.7
Mt. Bethel
100
93.9
Mountain View
100
92.4
Murdock
100
91.9
Nicholson
78.2
83.1
Powers Ferry
51.5
68.3
Rocky Mount
97.1
89.2
Sedalia Park
59.4
72.0
Shallowford Falls
97.8
88.9
Sope Creek
100
93.5
Timber Ridge
100
93.9
Tritt
100
92.4
Middle Schools
Content Mastery
Readiness
Daniell
71.8
81.8
Dickerson
99.7
92.8
Dodgen
100
92.9
East Cobb
56.7
76.2
Hightower Trail
94.3
91.9
Mabry
98.0
90.2
McCleskey
70.1
79.7
Simpson
93.0
88.9
High Schools
Content Mastery
Readiness
Grad Rate
Kell
79.7
82.8
91.3
Lassiter
97.8
91.9
97.0
Pope
96.9
88.8
97.1
Sprayberry
78.8
77.7
89.1
Walton
100
92.5
97.2
Wheeler
85.9
80.1
87.9
You can look through more school-, district- and state-level data by clicking here.
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Eastvalley ES in East Cobb is one of 17 schools in the Cobb school district still being used as a voting precinct.
The Cobb County School District announced Friday there will be what it’s calling “a virtual learning day” on Tuesday, Dec. 6, the date of the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff.
A release by the district said that because some school facilities will be in use for the election, that day will be an “asynchronous virtual learning day for all students. Students will work independently, at home, and teachers will have reviewed expectations with students the previous school day. There will not be required, live, virtual sessions.”
The runoff was declared after neither Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock nor his Republican opponent, former UGA football star Herschel Walker, failed to get a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s general election (results here).
Schools are traditionally closed for the primary and general elections. Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff won U.S. Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, 2021, but that was during a school holiday break.
The Cobb school district has 112 school campuses, and 17 of them are voting precincts. They include Kell High School, Shallowford Falls Elementary School, Sope Creek Elementary School and Eastvalley Elementary School in East Cobb.
“As was the case on Election Day, this run-off election also impacts the entire county, not just a few schools,” a district spokeswoman said. “We are confident this is the safest decision for all students who have access to standards aligned content and a high quality platform, CTLS.”
In recent election cycles Cobb Elections has moved voting precincts away from schools at the request of the Cobb and Marietta districts for access, security and scheduling issues.
In 2020, 15 precincts in East Cobb that had been at schools were relocated to community and senior centers, houses of worship and other facilities.
Those schools were Lassiter and Pope high schools; Daniell, Dickerson, Dodgen, Hightower Trail, McCleskey and Simpson middle schools; and Addison, Blackwell, Davis, Kincaid, Garrison Mill and Nicholson elementary schools.
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The concert begins at 7 p.m. in the Lassiter Concert Hall (2601 Shallowford Road) and features the 116th Army band, the Lassiter NJROTC and choruses from Mabry and Simpson middle schools and Davis, Garrison Mill and Rocky Mount elementary schools.
All veterans and active duty military members and their families will be welcomed into the concert hall for early seating beginning at 6:30 p.m.
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The Cobb County School District will be conducting interviews for a number of staff support positions at a job fair in early December.
The fair takes place on Tuesday, Dec. 6, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Centre (2800 Galleria Parkway).
Open positions include bus drivers, food nutrition workers, school nurses, substitute teachers, custodians, and campus police. The job fair will also include positions with the maintenance, fleet maintenance, and special education departments.
Ahead of the job fair, candidates can preview current vacancies by clicking here.
Online registration is available by clicking here; and a district job application can be completed in advance by clicking here.
Cobb school district staffers will be at the fair to assist those who are unable to submit an advance application.
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Walton, Wheeler, Pope and Lassiter students in the Class of 2022 posted average scores on American College Testing (ACT) exams that are among the best in Georgia.
According to a Cobb County School District release, they were among the five Cobb high schools with average scores of 25 or higher.
Walton High School led the district with an overall score of 26.0, followed by Wheeler (25.2), Pope (25.0) and Lassiter (24.7).
The district said those four schools, along with Kennesaw Mountain (24.0) were among the top 30 in the state.
The composite score at Sprayberry was 21.4 and Kell’s was 21.2 (see table at bottom).
The Cobb district’s average score was 23, down from 24.3 in 2021, as were most individual school composites, including those in East Cobb.
Cobb students averaged scores of 22.7 in English, 22.0 in math, 23.9 in reading, and 22.7 in science.
The district’s composite score is tied for the top in metro Atlanta along with Fulton County Schools, according to the release, and 1.4 points higher than the statewide average of 21.6.
Marietta City Schools had a composite score of 22.9, comprising students at Marietta High School.
The ACT is a standardized test similar to the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) that is taken by college-bound high school students.
The ACT tests students in English, mathematics, reading and scientific reasoning on an overall score range of 1-36.
The Georgia Department of Education released district- and school-level numbers on Wednesday, with more detailed numbers from ACT testing in the six high schools in East Cobb.
The 21.6 statewide average is a point below 2021 scores. More than 35,000 Georgia students took the ACT in 2022, compared to more than 29,000 last year.
Walton (294), Lassiter (231) and Pope (214) were among the small number of schools that had 200 or more students taking the ACT in 2022, according to the Cobb release.
Four Cobb students had perfect scores of 36, the district said, including one at Walton and another at Wheeler.
The Top 15 ACT scores by school in Georgia is as follows:
Gwinnett School of Science, Mathematics and Technology—30.2
Northview (Fulton)—26.5
Alliance Academy for Innovation (Forsyth)—26.4
Lambert (Forsyth)—26.3
Walton (Cobb)—26.0
South Forsyth—25.5
Decatur—25.4
Johns Creek (Fulton)—25.3
Columbus, Wheeler, McIntosh (Fayette), North Forsyth, North Gwinnett, Savannah Arts Academy—25.2
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Venya Gunjal, a junior at Wheeler High School, was recently elected State President of Georgia 4-H at the State 4-H Council in Eatonton.
She will lead more than 200,000 students in Georgia 4-H, which is a youth development program that conducts projects in health, agriculture, science, civic engagement and public speaking with the aim of helping students acquire life skills.
As a representative of Georgia 4-H, Gunjal will be speaking at State 4-H Congress, State 4-H Council, 4-H Day at the Capitol, and Fall Forum. She has attended the State Officer Training to prepare for this role, where she met the Dean and President of the University of Georgia.
“Serving as a State 4-H Officer will help me touch the lives of so many more of my peers in a positive way. I’ve seen the work that past State Boards have done, and they’ve all left feeling completely inspired,” she said in a release issued by the Cobb County School District.
“It’s been a dream of mine to serve on the State Board for years. A position on the State Board of Directors will help increase my impact in communities all over the state of Georgia.”
Gunjal, who is enrolled in Wheeler’s magnet program, The Center for Advanced Studies in Science, Math and Technology, has been involved in 4-H since the 5th grade. She is a three-time master 4-Her, Dean’s award in STEM winner, and first place winner at the State Congress level for her presentation in the Environmental Sciences category.
She was honored in 202 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as the “Taking the Pulse of the Planet” award recipient and won first place in the public speaking competition at the State 4-H Congress;
Gunjal also was awarded the highest honor given by Georgia 4-H Master 4-Her, and earned the Water Wise Scholarship for water conservation and education within the community.
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After easily winning election to the Cobb Board of Education in 2014 and 2018, incumbent Post 4 member David Chastain is facing opposition that has prompted a different campaign approach than in the past.
Typically circumspect and mild-mannered in public, the Republican chairman of the seven-member board has issued newsletters, press releases and other statements that are anything but reserved.
The intensity of his campaign against political newcomer Catherine Pozniak (our profile of her is here), a Democrat, has ramped up as the Nov. 8 general election date approaches.
Pozniak denied the charge, saying Chastain “has stooped to mining my father’s obituary and weaponizing the details of his death and his estate to launch personal attacks.”
She previously accused him of campaign finance violations he has rebuked, although he has hired a former Congressional candidate and state ethics chairman to defend him in Pozniak’s complaint that will be decided after the election.
In a Post 4 area (Kell, Sprayberry, Lassiter clusters) that was redrawn by the GOP-dominated Georgia legislature to preserve a Republican seat, Chastain acknowledges there’s a different dynamic this year.
Since his last election, Democrats have become the majority party on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the Cobb legislative delegation.
Until recently, she held a sizable campaign finance advantage over Chastain, who recently held a fundraiser at Atlanta Country Club. As of the end of September, both campaigns reported raising around $45,000 each, which is much higher than other recent school board elections in Cobb.
“Voters here have to show up and participate,” Chastain said in a recent interview with East Cobb News, referring to his conservative base. “I’m being attacked for things that have nothing to do with policy. You’re seeing this at the federal and state levels too.
“It’s not like me,” he said when asked about the charged rhetoric from his campaign, including his taking a shot at Harvard, where Pozniak earned a doctorate degree.
A proposal analyst at Lockheed Martin, Chastain is campaigning on the Cobb school district’s test scores and defending its academic accreditation, and is hailing a high employee retention rate and designation by Forbes magazine of being one of the top employers in Georgia.
Chastain also is a stalwart supporter of retaining the senior exemption in Cobb County for school taxes.
But he’s also frequently referencing what he thinks Democrats have in mind to in their attempts oust him, saying much of Pozniak’s support comes from “outsiders.”
“My opponent isn’t so much about our kids but to fulfill some sort of an agenda, more oriented toward more liberal social reforms and away from academics,” he said.
“It boils down to a power struggle and they want the power.”
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the board. Chastain is the only GOP member up for election this year; Post 6 will stay in Democratic hands and Post 2 in the Smyrna area is Democratic-leaning.
Those new representatives will replace outgoing members Charisse Davis and Jaha Howard, respectively, Democrats who were at the center of several mostly partisan disputes on the Cobb school board the last four years.
Chastain has twice been chairman in his second term, including in 2019, when he proposed a policy to ban board member comments.
He said it was necessary because some members had become “too political” in some comments that weren’t related to schools. Howard and Davis complained they were being censored, but Chastain defends the policy.
He also defended Superintendent Chris Ragsdale for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response.
“He’s done a good job,” Chastain said. “We are getting back now close to where we were before and are planning for the future.”
He rattled off some areas of emphasis, including expansion of digital learning, improving Individual Education Program options and increasing school safety.
Pozniak has been critical of the Cobb school district for flagging reading scores at the third-grade level as well as others, and said Chastain is mistaken in asserting that “things are good enough.”
Chastain said it’s at the third-grade level “when you first see who is going to need some help. I think we’re doing as much as we can. COVID was a mess but the resources have come together” for a recovery.
He also took issue with criticisms that he and the Republican majority on the board haven’t been responsive to some parents and students.
“Who are we talking about?” Parents and their children’s educations? Our policies and curriculum are aligned with state standards,” he said, adding that the Cobb school district is “building on success.
“We’re doing well for a school district that’s so diverse,” Chastain said, adding that “there’s this desire on the part of the Democrats to take power.”
A Wheeler High School graduate, Chastain doesn’t think his alma mater needs a name change, as some in that school community and beyond have been advocating due to Joseph Wheeler’s role as a Confederate general in the Civil War.
The board hasn’t taken up the issue since a board majority is required to add meeting agenda items other than those submitted by the chairman and superintendent.
That’s another controversial matter that’s come up in Chastain’s second term, as was a vote last year to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. A board discussion wasn’t allowed, and the Democratic members abstained, but Chastain said the topic is “still relatively new.
“It’s difficult to define,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure that there’s no curriculum that limits a child’s perspective about their color and ethnicity.”
The Cobb school district has come under fire for some finance and spending issues, including some that were part of a special review by Cognia, the district’s accrediting agency, pertaining to COVID-19 safety measures.
“That became a dumpster fire,” he said of the Cognia review.
While Pozniak has said the district’s finances and contractual procedures are “opaque” and lack transparency, Chastain said he’s confident that the district’s procurement processes are solid and claims that the district “is a great steward of taxpayer money.”
Chastain said maintaining Cobb’s academic progress is his ultimate priority, and cited recent managerial issues and changes in the Gwinnett school district, the largest in Georgia, as a cautionary tale.
Once a solid conservative area, Gwinnett now has a Democratic majority on its school board that terminated the contract of 25-year superintendent Alvin Wilbanks in 2021, a year before his planned retirement.
“What has happened in Gwinnett—I don’t want that to happen here,” he said.
“Cobb is still the best place to teach, lead and learn in metro Atlanta. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
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After leaving home to attend college, teach and become an educational administrator, Catherine Pozniak has returned to her Northeast Cobb roots to put that background to local use.
When she moved back to her family home in 2020 following the death of her father, she said she hadn’t thought about running for elected office.
But the effect of the COVID-19 response on schools and eventful developments in the Cobb County School District where she graduated prompted her run for the Post 4 seat on the Cobb Board of Education.
Pozniak, 43, is an educational consultant and Democrat who’s challenging two-term Republican incumbent David Chastain for the post that represents her alma mater, Sprayberry High School, as well as the Kell and some of the Lassiter clusters.
“This is an important moment in time in education,” Pozniak said in a recent East Cobb News interview. “This is an opportunity now to build something better than what is there now.”
You can visit Pozniak’s campaign website by clicking here; East Cobb News has interviewed Chastain and will be posting his profile shortly.
In addition to addressing what she says are lagging test scores and curriculum issues—especially for grade-school reading—Pozniak also said she is running on behalf of parents, students and other stakeholders who feel they’re not being heard by the current board majority.
“My opponent is saying that things are good enough,” Pozniak said. “But for so many families and students, they are not good enough.”
Although she is a first-time candidate in the political world, her candidacy quickly caught notice. Neither she nor Chastain had a primary opponent, but over the summer, she outraised him with more $20,000 in contributions.
He held a fundraiser at the Atlanta Country Club and both are reporting having raised around $45,000 each.
With Republicans holding a 4-3 majority, party control of the school board is on the line, and the highly-watched contest has led to mutual and even third-party mudslinging.
Republican legislators also have said that if Pozniak is elected and Democrats gain control of the school board, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale will be replaced and Cobb schools will indoctrinate students in social and cultural issues instead of basic academics.
Despite the charged rhetoric, Pozniak said she’s been encouraged with what’s she seen, heard and learned on the campaign trail.
“I’m optimistic about the involvement from the community on both sides,” she said. “People get how important the school system is. It’s pretty remarkable how a school board race is getting this kind of attention.”
Pozniak, a 1997 Sprayberry graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sydney in Australia, a master’s from Cambridge University in Britain and an educational leadership doctorate degree from Harvard.
She taught on a Native American reservation in South Dakota and was an assistant secretary in the Louisiana Department of Education. She currently consults on educational fiscal policy for Watershed Advisors.
Her priorities include improving the Cobb school district’s literacy curriculum, which she says “is lowly rated and not founded in the science of reading.”
She said she wasn’t pushing for a particular curriculum to replace it, but hears from teachers “who say they’re frustrated” and that “kids aren’t reading proficiently.”
As a school board member, she said it would be one of her primary responsibilities to help set academic expectations for the Cobb district, the second-largest in Georgia.
Pozniak also has been critical of Cobb’s algebra curriculum and noted the Cobb school district’s 50.5 percent score in that portion of the Georgia Milestones end-of-course test.
“That’s even lousy for high school students in Post 4,” she said, arguing that Cobb needs a comprehensive math curriculum.
On the subject of the senior tax exemption for schools, Pozniak said she doesn’t favor revisiting that—Chastain has been adamant that it should not be touched—and said it’s a matter for the legislature to take up.
On fiscal issues, Pozniak said the Cobb school district is not as transparent as it should be. She said that not all contracts are made publicly available before board meetings or even voted on.
“Except for SPLOST [construction and maintenance projects whose contracts are required to be disclosed by law], you really don’t see that in Cobb. It’s really an opaque system.”
“That’s a $2.9 million contract,” she said. “To not have it come up for approval, it’s stunning. There’s no oversight.”
Chastain, the current chairman, Pozniak said, “has been part of how we got to this point. There’s an erosion of transparency and accountability and he hasn’t taken any measures to change that.”
Pozniak has tried to steer clear of cultural wedge issues that have flared up recently on school boards across the country.
She called the clamor over Critical Race Theory—the teaching of which the Cobb school board banned last year—as “political theatre” and said that’s not a concern she’s hearing from parents.
“It’s not about issues that are hot-button issues,” she said. “It’s about what is going on in the schools and the students’ experiences there.”
As for diversity, equity and inclusion issues that also have been raised in schools, including Cobb, Pozniak said she understands “why the partisan narrative gets the play that it does.
“But not until recently was this an issue. It’s just where we are.”
She said the opportunity she sees this year “is to get educators on board” to help address learning issues in the wake of COVID-19 disruptions.
“I have a crossover of bipartisan support,” she said, “parents of kids with dyslexia, special-education students. These are very frustrated parents who are looking for something better.”
Pozniak has been accused of taking campaign contributions from outsiders. Her biggest donation, $3,000, is from Democrats for Educational Equity.
There’s not much publicly available information, but it’s a Washington, D.C. political action committee that “is dedicated to helping to elect a new generation of leaders, who will bring their shared experiences for the goal of educationalequity,” according to information Pozniak provided at the request of East Cobb News.
She said that “I am one of many educators that Democrats for Educational Equity supports, but being an educator is not a requirement.”
Pozniak said most of her other campaign donors are from those oriented around education issues or people she knows.
“If they’re not a friend, they’re a friend of a friend.” she said.
“They know what I’m trying to accomplish,” Pozniak said, adding that a number of local contributors, including educators, are doing so anonymously.
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A float and participants at Walton’s 2021 homecoming parade. Photo courtesy of Amanda Brown
Two high schools in East Cobb are having homecoming parades this week that will affect traffic in some areas.
On Wednesday, a portion of Holt Road will be closed from 6-7 p.m. for the Wheeler homecoming parade.
The route starts at Grace Marietta Church (675 Holt Road) and heads south to the school (375 Holt Road) and the student parking lot behind the football stadium.
That’s where a festival will be taking place until 8 p.m. There will be food, games and other activities that are open to the public.
On Friday, the Walton homecoming parade takes place, starting at the Target store at Merchants Festival at 2:15 p.m. The route continues westbound on Providence Road, then to Pine Road and Bill Murdock Road before arriving at the school (1590 Bill Murdock Road).
The class councils for each grade will compete for best float, and the Walton band will lead the athletic floats and homecoming court in the parade.
Both football teams are battling for playoff berths in the Georgia High School Association’s Class 7A Region 5.
Wheeler is 4-3 and will be playing Osborne, which is 5-2. Walton is 5-2 and will be playing host to Cherokee.
Kickoff times for both games are 7:30 p.m. Friday.
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The Cobb County School District has modified a new crisis alert system after an employee accidentally triggered a Code Red signal in 11 schools this week.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale made brief, prepared comments at a Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday night but didn’t give many specifics, including the names of the schools.
He said it was a “human error,” and not the new system itself, that led to the inadvertent Code Red alert at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, putting the affected schools on a short lockdown.
The Cobb school district recently switched to a new crisis alert system provider and said it would conduct Code Red drills on all 112 school campuses this school year.
The district spent $2.9 million to purchase the Centigex system, which was dropped by the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district in North Carolina when parts of the system weren’t working properly.
That replaced AlertPoint, which cost the Cobb school district $5 million when it was implemented in 2017.
But that system malfunctioned in 2021 when all 16 Cobb high schools were put on lockdown due to what district officials said was a deliberate cyber attack.
Ragsdale also would not elaborate on what the changes were to the new system, called CrisisAlert System, saying that “training will be repeated to certain groups of employees.”
Nor would he saw how one employee could have triggered such an alert.
“The steps we have taken will reduce the chance of human error,” he said, adding that he couldn’t explain more because a personnel matter also is involved.
“I apologize that we have to engage in these kinds of drills,” Ragsdale said. “This is the world in which we live and we must take every step possible to ensure our students and our staff are safe.”
The Cobb school board voted Thursday night to approve a $2.8 million roofing contract for Mt. Bethel Elementary School in East Cob that is expected to be finished by July 2023.
The board also approved a contract to spend $419,518 co purchase 11 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicles for use by the Cobb County School District’s police department.
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The Cobb Board of Education will be asked Thursday to spend $2.836 million to replace the roof at Mt. Bethel Elementary School in East Cobb.
That request is coupled with a $1.14 million roof replacement request for Kennesaw Mountain High School that will be presented during a work session Thursday afternoon and is expected to be acted on during a voting session Thursday night.
The work session begins at 3 p.m. and the voting session starts at 7 p.m. in the board room of the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover St., Marietta.
The full agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here. An executive session follows the work session.
Funding for the Mt. Bethel and Kennesaw Mountain roof projects comes from the Cobb Education SPLOST V sales tax collections. According to an agenda items, both projects are expected to be finished by July 2023.
Also on the school board’s agenda is the request for a $419,518 contract to purchase 11 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicles from Hardy Chevrolet, Inc. for use by the Cobb County School District’s police department.
The funding for that also comes from SPLOST V, which continues through the end of 2023.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Four high schools in East Cobb reported graduation rates of 90 percent or higher in the Class of 2022.
The Georgia Department of Education released district- and school-level figures on Thursday, with Harrison High School leading the Cobb County School District with a 97.2 percent graduation rate.
Lassiter High School in East Cobb was second at 97 percent, followed by Walton at 96.5 percent and Pope at 96.2 percent. Kell graduated 91.3 percent of its seniors this year.
Sprayberry had a graduation rate of 88.2 percent and Wheeler’s is 86.8 percent.
Federal law requires that graduation rates must be calculated by including all students expected to graduate in 2022, including those enrolled for a single day.
The Cobb County School District reported an overall graduation rate of 87.4 percent, second in the metro Atlanta area to Fulton County schools (89.3 percent), according to a district release.
The state average of 84.1 percent is an all-time high.
The Kell graduation rate of 91.3 percent is 2.4 percent better than 2021, and Sprayberry’s rate rose 1.9 percent from last year, according to the Cobb school district.
The district said that its graduation rate would be 92.6 percent if calculated to include students who were enrolled for at least two years, 95.2 percent for three years and 96.5 percent for students in the 16 traditional high schools enrolled all four years.
The Georgia Department of Education has full scores that you can read through by clicking here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
From L-R: (l-r) Courtney Green of the Cobb Schools Foundation; Brenda Reid of Publix; Cobb School Superintendent Chris Ragsdale; Cobb Schools Foundation Executive Director Felicia Wagner. Photo Courtesy Cobb County School District
Publix Super Markets has awarded a $175,000 donation to the Cobb Schools Foundation as part of its “Tools for Back to School” campaign.
The foundation is a non-profit organization that supports students, teachers and educational needs in the Cobb County School District.
“Tools for Schools” includes participation from Publix patrons during the month of July, resulting in a donation to Cobb schools that was the largest in the state of Georgia.
The donation of gift cards will be used to purchase basic learning materials like pens, markers, crayons, and notebooks, particularly for students who are economically disadvantaged.
A district release said an estimated 50,000 of its 107,000 students fit that description, and their teachers often have had to buy those materials for them.
“Cobb Schools Foundation received the largest donation in the state of Georgia for this campaign,” Brenda Reid, the Publix community relations manager for the Atlanta region, said in the release. “We appreciate the generosity of our customers in donating to the school systems and foundations in our 7-state service area. Thank you for the partnership and all the great work Cobb School District does year-round.”
Said Felicia Wagner, the Cobb Schools Foundation executive director, said of Publix: “They can know that their support at the register is appreciated and is helping students in their own community. This donation will be distributed throughout our schools to serve students in need as well as teachers who are doing all that they can to create the best learning experience for students.”
For more about the Cobb Schools Foundation, click here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
