An employee at Blackwell Elementary School in Northeast Cobb has been charged with eavesdropping and cruelty to children after Cobb Police said a student saw a surveillance camera in a boys bathroom this week and reported it to a teacher.
A warrant taken out on Friday against Justin Julian, 37, of Acworth, shows that he has been charged with three counts of unlawful surveillance and one count of first degree child cruelty—all felonies—after separate alleged incidents at the Canton Road school on Wednesday.
He was taken into custody on Friday and was released from the Cobb County Adult Detention Center Saturday on a $15,000 bond, according to Cobb Sheriff’s Office records.
The warrant alleges that Julian placed a camera in a boys bathroom and on Wednesday afternoon observed a 10-year-old boy using the urinal. According to the warrant, the boy saw the camera “and was distraught and notified a school teacher.”
The warrant also alleges that Julian watched an 8-year-old boy and another 10-year-old boy use the urinal via a bathroom camera during the same time period.
Neither the warrant nor a message that went out to the Blackwell community specified Julian’s job at the school.
The Blackwell message said that school officials reported the allegations “to the local authorities and worked closely with them throughout the investigation.”
The staff member, the Blackwell message said, “is no longer allowed in our school building.”
The warrant states that Julian was required to wear an ankle monitor before he was released and he is not allowed to have contract with children 16 or under, or linger anywhere children of that age range are present.
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The Cobb school board’s Republican majority is recommending a map that would leave East Cobb with two seats. For a larger view click here.
Republican members of the Cobb legislative delegation have filed a bill that would redistrict Cobb Board of Education posts along similar lines recommended recently by the school board’s GOP majority.
State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb filed HB 1028 on Wednesday (you can read it here) as the Cobb legislative delegation—which has a one-member Democratic majority—was meeting over reapportionment.
Co-sponsors of the bill include East Cobb Republicans John Carson, Matt Dollar and Don Parsons.
The delegation is carving out Cobb commission and school board lines for the next decade following the 2020 Census.
The local reapportionment process is usually completed within a county’s delegation before being submitted as a bill that must pass the full legislature, typically in consent fashion on what’s called a local calendar.
Instead, Ehrhart’s legislation will start in the House, after getting a first reading and committee assignment next week.
(PLEASE NOTE: The process of redistricting elected school board posts has nothing to do with the boundaries of school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff and are done mainly to balance out school capacity.)
For the last three years, the Cobb school board has held a 4-3 Republican majority (after the GOP previously enjoyed a 6-1 advantage), and has been roiled in a number of controversies that generally have fallen along partisan lines.
State Rep. Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat and the Cobb delegation chairman, proposed a draft map of Cobb school board posts earlier this month that would make few changes to the current lines.
The four Republicans on the Cobb school board approved a map designed to maintain their majority. The map would take out most of the East Cobb portion of Post 6 that currently includes the Walton and Wheeler high school clusters.
That seat is currently held by first-term Democrat Charisse Davis, who under the GOP map would be drawn in the same post as Jaha Howard, another first-term Democrat who represents Post 2 in the Smyrna area.
The school board’s recommendation is advisory, but Ehrhart’s bill follows similar lines.
Post 6 would be centered in the Smyrna-Vinings area, keeping several precincts in the Powers Ferry and Terrell Mill corridors.
The Walton-Wheeler zones would mostly be shifted to Post 5, which covers the Lassiter and Pope attendance zones.
That seat is held by Republican vice chairman David Banks.
The new lines, however they might be drawn, will take effect for 2022 elections that include three school board seats.
They are Post 2 (Howard has declared his intent to run for state school superintendent); Post 6 (Davis has not announced her plans) and Post 4 in Northeast Cobb (incumbent David Chastain has said he will be seeking another term).
The Cobb delegation also will be redrawing the four district lines for the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
On Tuesday, the commission’s three Democrats voted in favor of a map drawn by Allen that makes minimal changes to the current lines.
But the two Republicans, JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb and Keli Gambrill of North Cobb, voted against that map.
They are both up for re-election this year. Birrell said she does not support the proposed map because it has taken out some of her East Cobb precincts.
Like the school board’s map, the commissioners’ action is “more of an endorsement vote,” deputy county manager Jimmy Gisi said during the Tuesday meeting.
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The Cobb County School District resumed public reporting of new COVID-19 cases this week after not doing so to start the spring semester.
But changes are underway to alter the present reporting system, and in Friday’s update only the district-wide total number of cases—1,856— were disclosed in its weekly notification report.
That’s for the past week, Jan. 14-21, and is a single-week high during the current school year.
The totals no longer include a school-by-school breakdown, as has been done for most of the past two years.
There also was no information provided on COVID case numbers reported before that. The spring semester in Cobb began on Jan. 5.
Until Friday, district’s notification report page had not been updated since Dec. 17, 2021, the last day of the fall semester.
At the time, there were 6,709 cumulative cases reported among students and staff since July 1, 2021.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday night that as the Omicron variant subsides, reporting those figures will be done differently.
“Most organizations have encouraged case counts not be the primary emphasis,” said Ragsdale, reading from prepared remarks, and citing the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House COVID-19 adviser.
“We are taking the guidance to not focus on case counts,” Ragsdale said. Changing school district protocols is a “multi-step process that will result in no numbers being seen on a web page after the Omicron variant goes through. We will still report, as required, to DPH.”
On Jan. 6. Ragsdale said the district was changing some COVID protocols, including eliminating most contract-tracing, after a new state public health order was issued for schools.
On Thursday, Ragsdale later discussed mental health issues affecting youth, as well as learning loss caused by COVID-19 disruptions, saying some mitigation efforts have been “damaging to students.”
“The bottom line is that we are having school,” he said, “and we are trying to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Because we know a normal school day for our students is what’s going to benefit them most.”
He added that parents should keep their kids home if they are sick, but “otherwise, they need to be in school, where teaching and learning are going to be going on every day.”
Board memberJaha Howard tried to question Ragsdale at that point, but chairman David Chastain told him that “if you have any questions, you can call the superintendent. We’re going to move forward with the agenda.”
Howard voted against adopting the Thursday night business meeting agenda at a Thursday afternoon work session because it contained no specific COVID-related items.
The superintendent made the COVID remarks during dedicated time for him to speak on a variety topics and that typically aren’t published on the agenda.
Howard has attempted to question Ragsdale at previous board meetings about COVID and other issues, without much success.
After a brief interchange with Howard, Chastain repeated his comments, and the board began acting on other agenda items.
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The Cobb Board of Education will be asked to approve taking out $100 million in short-term loans for construction projects on Thursday.
The board is meeting in public at a 2 p.m. work session and a 7 p.m. business session Thursday at the Cobb County School District Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta).
There will be public comment periods at the start of both meetings, but speakers must sign up in advance by clicking here.
Each public comment session is limited to 30 minutes, and individual speakers have a maximum of two minutes.
The agendas for both meetings can be found here; the work session technically begins at 1 p.m., but members will convene, go into an executive session and return for a public work session at 2 p.m.
Another executive session will take place between the public meetings.
In recent years, the Cobb County School District has taken out short-term loans to get a head start on construction projects funded by its Special Local-Option Sales Tax, and to save money.
If the board approves, the $100 million loan would be repaid at the end of the calendar year with SPLOST revenues.
The board will be asked to accept a “best bid” for the purchase of the loans that will be presented at the work session. The final vote would come in the evening session.
The board also will be asked to consider changing the policy for signing up for public comment periods.
Last year the board approved an online registration process but a proposal to be presented Thursday would revert to the previous in-person sign-up process.
The board also will be asked to spend $3 million to purchase 25 air conditioned buses that hold 72 passengers each.
What’s not listed specifically on the agenda is any mention of the Cobb school district’s changing COVID protocols that were announced in December by Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.
He said that per a new state public health order, Cobb will eliminate most contact-tracing and will be changing staff quarantine policy for employees who are identified as close contacts.
A district spokeswoman told East Cobb News last week that the policy for counting cases is “under review” and that “once determined, we will provide an update on our COVID-19 webpage about what process we will use going forward.”
There could be information provided by Ragsdale under agenda items at both meetings regarding superintendent’s remarks.
The only items listed under board business at the work session are for annual board member compliance reports and appointments to the district’s facilities and technology committee, which conducts SPLOST oversight.
Thursday’s meetings will be the first with board member David Chastain of East Cobb presiding as chairman.
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Most Cobb County School District graduations will return to KSU after a two-year absence.
After two years of socially-distanced graduations at a single venue, the Cobb County School District is returning 2022 commencement exercises to familiar locations.
Most of the district’s 16 traditional high schools will have their graduations at the Kennesaw State University Convocation Center, the primary venue before the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s where all six East Cobb high school Class of 2022 seniors will be getting their diplomas.
McEachern High School, which was the site for all Cobb graduations the last two years, will be having its commencement at Cantrell Stadium on campus, and Allatoona High School will hold graduation at its Allatoona Stadium.
Wheeler High School had been having its graduations at Wildcat Arena on campus but this year will be at KSU.
Monday, May 23: Kell High School, 7:30 p.m., KSU
Wednesday, May 25: Lassiter High School, 3:30 p.m., KSU
Wednesday, May 25: Wheeler High School, 7:30 p.m., KSU
Thursday, May 26: Walton High School, 10 a.m., KSU
Thursday, May 26: Sprayberry High School, 7 p.m., KSU
Friday, May 27: Pope High School, 2:30 p.m., KSU
More graduation will be forthcoming in the following weeks; click here for the full graduation schedule.
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State Rep. Erick Allen’s draft map of Cobb school board posts. For a larger view, click here.
Democratic members of the Cobb legislative delegation will be holding a virtual town hall meeting Tuesday to go over proposed redistricting maps for the Cobb Board of Education.
The event, which is organized by State Rep. Erick Allen, the delegation chairman, begins at 6:30 p.m. and can be accessed by clicking here.
The other lawmakers involved are State Rep. Teri Anulewicz and State Rep. David Wilkerson.
Democrats hold a one-member majority in the Cobb delegation, which will redraw lines for the school board as well as the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
(PLEASE NOTE: This process has nothing to do with school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff and are done mainly to balance out school capacity or when new schools open.)
Redistricting for elected offices is done every 10 years by legislators after the Census is updated. In November, Georgia lawmakers redrew Congressional and legislative lines.
County legislators are responsible for redrawing the lines of districts for county commissioners and city council members and school board posts.
The map would reduce the number of school board members representing the East Cobb area from three to two.
Cobb school board Republicans are recommending a map that shifts Post 6 out of East Cobb. For a larger view click here.
The current Post 6, represented by Democrat Charisse Davis, currently includes most of the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
But the Cobb GOP school board map would shift that post into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area completely, drawing current Post 2 board member Jaha Howard into the same area.
Allen’s map retains most of Post 6 as it looks now.
Like Davis, Howard is a first-term Democrat who’s openly challenged the Republicans on a number of issues, including race, equity and diversity, school discipline and COVID response.
They also prompted a special review of the Cobb school district by its accrediting agency last year.
It was the latest in a series of contentious public meetings along sharp partisan lines that have roiled the school board over the last three years.
Chastain, who represents the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, has announced his intention to seek re-election this year.
Davis also is up for re-election but hasn’t announced her plans. Amy Henry, a Republican who has four children in the Walton High School cluster, has declared her intent to run for that seat, and has said that “Post 6 should remain largely as-is.”
Howard has declared his intent to run for Georgia school superintendent.
Qualifying starts in March, with a May primary.
The Cobb school board will meet at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thursday and and include time for public comment.
Agendas for the meetings will be posted at this link on Tuesday.
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After a week and a half of classes in the spring semester, the Cobb County School District has not updated its COVID-19 case data.
Each Friday during the 2020-21 school year and in the fall semester of 2021, the district revised those figures each Friday, with breakdowns according to each school.
But for the last two Fridays, those numbers have not been provided on the district’s COVID Case Notification page.
Instead, the page shows it was last updated on Dec. 17, 2021, the last day of the fall semester, with a figure of 6,709 cumulative cases reported among students and staff since July 1, 2021.
In December, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district was changing some of its COVID protocols, including eliminating much of its contact-tracing and revising procedures for staff quarantine if they’re identified as close contacts.
At a Cobb school board meeting, Ragsdale didn’t reference how the district may be counting and publicly reporting COVID cases.
On Friday, East Cobb News asked the district about the status of keeping those figures current.
A spokeswoman responded by saying only that “recent changes to our public health protocols, and their impact on accurate COVID-19 case counts, are under review. Once determined, we will provide an update on our COVID-19 webpage about what process we will use going forward.”
That’s the same answer she has given to other news outlets.
Nearly two years into the pandemic, and the highly infectious Omicron variant is yielding record transmission levels in Cobb, Georgia and elsewhere.
As of Friday, the 14-day average of cases per 100,000 people in Cobb County was around 2,500, far higher than the “high” transmission rate of 100/100K.
Those figures are not broken down by public school district or private schools.
The single-day high recently reported in Cobb was 252 on Dec. 30; on Jan. 12, the number was 171, part of a downward trend that’s generally dipping below 200.
The spring semester resumes on Tuesday. The COVID protocol changes may be discussed Thursday at Cobb school board meetings, which are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and include time for public comment.
Agendas for the meetings will be posted at this link on Tuesday.
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For the third year in a row, the vice chairman of the Cobb school board is David Banks, whom one of his colleagues said is “an embarrassment to this county.”
The first Cobb Board of Education meeting of 2022 went just like quite a few of their public gatherings last year, and included votes and arguments along predictable partisan lines.
The chairman and vice chairman for the new calendar year both come from posts in East Cobb.
David Chastain, of Post 4 (Kell and Sprayberry clusters) will be the chairman, and David Banks, of Post 5 (Pope and Lassiter clusters) will serve as vice chairman.
They’re part of the four-member Republican majority, and were elected in 4-3 party line votes.
Each year the board holds a special meeting in January to elect new officers, with the proviso that the chair cannot serve two consecutive years.
That policy doesn’t apply to the vice chair, and it was the nomination of Banks to that position for the third consecutive year that sparked charged rhetoric during the brief meeting.
Banks, who is serving his fourth term, came under fire in 2021 for sending an e-mail on his official school board account discouraging recipients from getting the COVID-19 vaccines. and publicly said he doesn’t wear masks because he thinks they don’t work.
Democratic member Jaha Howard, who nominated fellow Democrat Tre’ Hutchins for both leadership posts, said Banks’ statement on masks is “contrary to our policy.”
He also said Banks has some “concerning behavioral issues that have been discussed behind the scenes and for some reason he’s continuing to be nominated.
“He’s also done several things that have been an embarrassment to this county. I’m very concerned that he would be nominated at all, let alone having potentially four votes.”
Howard, who represents Post 2 in Smyrna, attended some of the same public schools in southwest Atlanta as Banks, whom he referred to as his “classmate, whom I do love as child of God. But I do have very significant concerns about his leadership.”
Outgoing board chairman Randy Scamihorn said Howard’s comments were inappropriate, and ordered his microphone to be cut.
“Do you feel powerful doing that?” retorted Howard.
Howard laid out a laundry list of issues he’s referenced during his time on the board for supporting Hutchins, saying that Tre’ “encourages leaders to look beneath the shiny surface of our academic and discipline data in order to get even better as a district . . . believes that our schools should not be named after confederate generals . . . believes it’s bad to sympathize with the January 6th insurrection” among other things.
Howard also said Hutchins “would not take weeks to return phone calls from other board members . . . demonstrates a love for the entire county . . . believes in listening to experts when making decisions, especially during a pandemic.”
Banks, who did not respond to Howard’s remarks, was elected 4-3.
In an October 2020 candidate profile with East Cobb News, he said that he thinks the biggest long-term issue facing the Cobb school district is “white flight” and accused Howard and Charisse Davis, a Democrat who represents Post 6 (Walton and Wheeler clusters) of “trying to make race an issue where it has never been before.”
Davis said she couldn’t support Chastain, who is in his third term, because “I do not feel he is the leader we need now.”
He was chairman in 2019, the first year on the school board for Davis and Howard, and proposed a policy change to ban board member comments during public meetings. The newcomers alleged the measure was aimed at censoring them, but Chastain said it was needed to prevent board members from having to judge the appropriateness of colleagues’ remarks.
“This chair does not want to be the scorekeeper,” he said at the time.
After Chastain was elected on Thursday, Scamihorn didn’t turn over the gavel, as school board attorney Suzanne Wilcox had suggested.
Instead, Scamihorn presided as Cobb superintendent Chris Ragsdale provided an update to COVID-19 protocols and did not permit board discussion.
The school board on Thursday also approved the 2022 meeting schedule by a 5-2 vote, with Davis and Howard opposed.
Chastain, who is up for re-election this year along with Davis and Howard, will preside starting with the first public school board meetings on Jan. 20.
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The day after the spring semester began in the Cobb County School District, superintendent Chris Ragsdale said revised measures for COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and employee quarantine will be implemented.
Speaking at the end of a Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday afternoon, Ragsdale said he had received “hot off the presses” a letter Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp sent to all public school districts in the state.
That letter included provisions to conduct more COVID-19 testing at schools, allow for optional contact tracing of cases at schools and to extend quarantine provisions for employees that currently have been for students.
The latter permits students identified as close contacts and who were exposed in a school setting to return to school right away if they are asymptomatic and wear masks for seven days.
The new guidance, which comes in the form of a new order from the Georgia Department of Public Health, also would permit teachers, administrators and support staff, regardless of vaccination status or point of exposure, to return to school immediately if they are asymptomatic and wear masks for seven days.
“It will greatly assist us in maintaining all our classrooms being open,” said Ragsdale, who informed parents Sunday that Cobb schools would begin the spring semester in face-to-face settings.
Several other metro Atlanta school districts are beginning classes this week online.
The revised Cobb school district protocols can be found by clicking here. The changes go into effect immediately.
Cobb and Marietta schools both resumed on Wednesday in-person and also do not have mask mandates.
Regarding the new contract tracing changes, Cobb has chosen not to contact-trace all suspected COVID-19 cases: “We continue to encourage families to make health decisions which are best for their families and to not send students to school sick.”
Ragsdale said during the Thursday meeting, which was called to elect 2022 school officers and meeting schedules, that contract-tracing duties has been “the biggest lift on staff resources . . . to have that accomplished and in a timely manner.”
He said there’s been considerable communication from parents about contact-tracing that occurs after a student’s quarantine period is over.
“This is a great option for some school districts,” Ragsdale said, referring to the new optional provision. “We will be choosing not to contact-trace all cases. There can be a situation where we do need to contact-trace, in some of those cases.”
More testing along the lines of “test to stay” provisions are included in the new protocols, and Ragsdale said he’s hopeful further resources will be coming from the state for schools to conduct those tests.
Ragsdale’s remarks came at the end of the meeting, but before he spoke, outgoing board chairman Randy Scamihorn said there would be no discussion of the new protocols among board members.
After Ragsdale was finished, the half-hour meeting was adjourned.
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As the spring semester began with in-person instruction Wednesday in the Cobb County School District, a small fraction of students were taking their classes online.
Of the district’s estimated 107,000 enrollment, around 2,400 are signed up for virtual classes across all grade levels (elementary, middle and high), according to a district spokeswoman.
That’s around 2 percent of the district’s student body.
“When given the choice last fall, about 98 percent of Cobb families chose in-person learning for the second semester of the 2021-2022 school year,” the spokeswoman said.
COVID-19 cases are rising more sharply than ever during the pandemic, which was declared 22 months ago, and school officials are bracing for high numbers reported as classes resume.
Cobb and Marietta also don’t have mask mandates. Gwinnett, which does, also is starting back in-person, while Atlanta, Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton and other school districts are starting at least this week remotely.
Cobb said said an additional 830 students signed up to go online via a lottery system announced by the district in October, after a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases at the start of the school year.
The district hasn’t said how many lottery slots were made available.
Students learning online are enrolled in the Elementary Virtual Program (K-Grade 5) or the Cobb Online Learning Academy (Grades 6-12).
The elementary students are enrolled in their current schools but are getting their instruction from what the district calls a “certified” EVP teacher for the full spring semester, which ends in May.
Students in middle school and high school who were awarded online lottery slots were pulled from their home schools and will be enrolled in COLA.
Aside from a Sunday night message to parents, the Cobb school district hasn’t elaborated on its reasons for returning to face-to-face classes.
When asked if there has been any update about that since Sunday, the spokeswoman told East Cobb News that the district “remains committed to providing our students with an internationally competitive education, ensuring a safe instructional environment, and prioritizing our community’s overwhelming preference for in-person learning. We ask for our community’s continued support in helping to keep our schools safe by not sending students to school sick and following the most updated CCSD protocols for COVID-19.”
She also was asked about staffing levels (teachers, administrators and support staff) to handle an in-person student return and how shortages will be handled with COVID-19 transmission rates so high.
“Our schools are open. Our buses are running. Our teachers are teaching, and our students are learning in the second largest school district in Georgia,” she said. “As in the prior semester, we remain committed to balancing the importance of in-person learning and the frequent changes associated with COVID-19.”
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Unlike regular school board public meetings, there will be no public comment period at the organizational meeting.
But it could be contentious, given the school board’s partisan divide over the last three years.
Each year the board votes on a chairman, which must be a different person from the previous year, and a vice chairman.
They are the presiding officers during the meetings and the chairman represents the board in an official capacity.
The chairman also has the power to place board business items on the meeting agendas unilaterally, as does Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority, and while members of the Democratic minority have nominated one another for leadership positions, they have never gotten a GOP vote.
The 2021 chairman was Republican Randy Scamihorn of Post 1 in North Cobb, who under board policy cannot succeed himself.
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While some school districts in metro Atlanta are resuming classes in a virtual setting due to rising COVID-19 cases, Cobb will begin its spring semester on Wednesday with in-person instruction.
In a letter that went out to parents Sunday evening, the district said it “remains committed to providing our students with an internationally competitive education, ensuring a safe instructional environment, and prioritizing our community’s overwhelming preference for in-person learning.”
The Cobb school district urged parents to keep their children home if they are sick or have symptoms, which in the message included a fever of 100.4 degrees without medications, or if a student has a positive or pending COVID-19 test.
“If a student has a cough, shortness of breath or recent changes to taste/smell, we recommend you contact your health professional for guidance,” the Cobb message said.
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid issued a declaration of emergency through Jan. 22 that includes a mask mandate in county buildings, but it has no bearing on the schools.
The Cobb school district message comes after Marietta City Schools also announced it would be holding in-person classes when its spring semester begins this week.
Atlanta, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and Rockdale schools announced that they will have online-only classes this week.
Cobb schools were in-person for the fall semester, except for fifth grade students at East Side Elementary School in East Cobb for a 10-day period in August after an outbreak near the start of the school year.
That was as the Delta variant of COVID-19 was spreading.
The Omicron variant, which is more transmissable but has primarily yielded milder symptoms, has prompted some of the highest case figures in Cobb and metro Atlanta since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
As of Friday, the 14-day case rate in Cobb was 1,505 per 100,000 people. A rate of 100 per 100,000 is considered high community transmission, and local health officials are bracing for more as schools resume this week.
Cobb reported 2,368 cases on Dec. 30, a single-day record in the date of report category, and closed out 2021 with multiple days of reporting 1,000 cases or more.
Those figures dwarf the numbers that started 2021, after three educators in the Cobb school district died from COVID-19.
Cobb and Marietta schools also are among the handful in metro Atlanta that do not have mask mandates.
The Cobb school district is being sued by the parents of four medically fragile students, who are claiming that under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act their children are not able to get a proper in-person education.
They’re demanding that Cobb follow CDC school guidance, including mask mandates, but a judge in October denied their request for a temporary injunction.
In its message to parents Sunday, the Cobb school district referred them to its latest COVID-19 protocols.
In early December, the district revised its quarantine policy to allow asymptomatic students identified as close contacts of someone with the virus to return to school immediately if the parent chooses.
That was as the Omicron variant was first identified. As the fall semester ended, only two schools in the 112-school Cobb district reported double-figure cases in the final week, including 13 at Walton High School.
The Cobb school district message Sunday concluded by saying that “ensuring sick children are not sent to school helps control virus spread and keeps our schools open.”
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Another year of deep divisions on the Cobb Board of Education included a rare special review by the Cobb County School District’s accrediting agency in 2021.
In November, Cognia found that board conflicts, board members’ communications with the public and the elected body’s code of ethics, among other matters, warranted a year-long “improvement plan” to be evaluated at the end of 2022.
For now, the district maintains full accreditation, but must make strides under Cognia’s recommendations as part of a “Progress Monitoring Review.”
That the review was conducted at all remains a source of division on the fractured school board, which has been roiling along partisan lines for three years.
Cognia was approached in March by Charisse Davis, Jaha Howard and Tre’ Hutchins—the Democratic minority members on the school board—complaining that they were being silenced by the four Republican members who make up the majority.
The accreditor also received around 50 complaints from community members, ranging from district finances, equity and diversity issues and demands to change the name of Wheeler High School in East Cobb.
Cognia conducted interviews in August, with Cobb school district officials complaining that they were never given specific allegations, including the complaints from community members.
In June, the Republicans passed a resolution banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Cobb schools. The Democrats all abstained, after Republican board chairman Randy Scamihorn tried to prevent a discussion on the matter, including providing a definition of CRT.
The ban also extends to the use of the 1619 Project, which The New York Times published in 2019 as a historical critique of slavery in America.
Hutchins, the newest board member who represents Post 3 in South Cobb, said that CRT has never been taught in Cobb schools and “is not a real thing” in the district.
During that meeting, Hutchins and Scamihorn engaged in a lengthy and heated argument, as they raised their voices to interrupt one another for several minutes.
The Cobb vote was one of many in 2021 banning the teaching of CRT in school districts with Republican board majorities.
The vote came after anti-Semitic graffiti was found at Pope and Lassiter high schools. But the resolution was put on the school board agenda at the last minute, with no public notice, and included an anti-racism provision that the board haggled over to no avail in 2020.
The Democratic members said they were surprised by the anti-racism provision being added.
Davis, whose Post 6 includes the Wheeler and Walton clusters, was absent and did not vote.
Another source of conflict was over a reapportionment map to recommend to the Cobb legislative delegation, which will redraw the seven Cobb school board posts in January.
The four board Republicans approved spending $200,000 to hire Taylor English, a Cumberland area law firm, to draw the maps.
The map recommended by Scamihorn and approved by his GOP colleagues would draw Davis and Howard into a revamped Post 6, which would lose its East Cobb schools.
Most of East Cobb would be included in Post 5, represented by Republican vice chairman David Banks. and the rest would be in Post 4, where current GOP member David Chastain has said he will be running for another term next year.
Davis has not indicated if she’s seeking re-election; Howard has declared an intent to run for state school superintendent, but qualifying isn’t until March 2022.
In November, the same school board GOP majority amended Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s contract without much public discussion.
The details were revealed through open records requests and included additional leverage for Ragsdale, who has been superintendent since 2015, to negotiate the terms of his departure.
The amended contract would give him extended notice if he is to be terminated for cause. He would receive full pay for the remainder of his contract if he leaves in another circumstance.
That would be if a special review panel determines that he has been “harassed” or “embarrassed” by school board members.
The three Democrats voted against the revisions. Ragsdale’s contract, which pays him a base salary of $350,000, ends in February 2024.
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Graffiti scrawled in a boys lavatory at Pope High School in September 2021.
Swastikas and “Heil Hitler” messages were scrawled on the bathroom walls of two high schools in East Cobb in September, prompting an outcry from the local Jewish community, and leading to the passage of a resolution condemning the actions by the Cobb Board of Education.
The messages at Pope and Lassiter high schools were similar, but the responses to them by school officials triggered different reactions in the community.
Rabbi Larry Sernovitz of Temple Kol Emeth in East Cobb spoke to Pope students but he and other Jewish leaders said the Cobb school district’s response was inadequate. In a letter to the Pope community, principal Thomas Flugum didn’t specify the anti-Semitic nature of the graffiti.
At Lassiter, principal Chris Richie was specific in a letter that went out to the school community, and further denounced the “deplorable symbols and language.”
Later, the Cobb school district issued a response that didn’t make a reference to anti-Semitism but only to “hate speech” and urged “families to talk to their students about the impacts of inappropriate and dangerous trends circulating on social media.”
The incidents took place apparently as part of a stunt on the Tik Tok social media app in which students vandalize school property and boast about it.
But Jewish leaders said the incidents showed that an educational program teaching about anti-Semitism was needed. The Anti-Defamation League of Atlanta, among others, called for the Cobb school district to reintroduce its “No Place for Hate” materials.
That did not happen, but school board chairman Randy Scamihorn attended a Yom Kippur service at Kol Emeth, and in October he introduced a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and racism.
The resolution passed by a party-line vote after some members and citizens complained that the matter was added to the agenda late, and saying that the district still needed to do more to address acts of hate in the school system.
A student at Pope was brought up on disciplinary charges that the district did not explain; the district did not indicate any similar punishment for the incident at Lassiter.
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A revised employment contract for the Cobb County School District superintendent would allow him to leave his position with full pay if a special panel determines he’s been “harassed” or “embarrassed” by school board members.
The Cobb Board of Education voted along party lines in November to revise the contract of Chris Ragsdale, who’s been superintendent since 2015.
His contract, which pays him an annual base salary of $350,000, was renewed in February to run through Feb. 10, 2024.
Under other financial terms of his contract, Ragsdale gets 25 days of paid vacation per year and an automobile allowance of $1,200 a month. The board makes contributions to his retirement, Social Security, Medicare and a tax-sheltered annuity plan, and provides health insurance for him and his family.
The revisions, which were adopted last month by the board’s four-member Republican majority without discussion or details, added provisions related to board relations and termination clauses.
You can read through the amended contract, which East Cobb News obtained through an open records request, by clicking here.
Those changes include that Ragsdale would receive 90 days advance notice from the board if he is to be terminated without cause.
There are several references in the revised contract of how disputes between him and board members would be resolved by a specially appointed resolution panel.
For the last three years, the Cobb school board has been embroiled in a number of conflicts, including racial and diversity issues and the Cobb County School District’s COVID-19 response.
The split has been largely along partisan lines; the four Republicans have also passed policies to prohibit comments by board members at public meetings and have used parliamentary maneuvers to limit how the three Democrats openly question Ragsdale at those meetings.
The contract revisions were also made as the Cobb school district received the report of a special review by its accrediting agency that outlined a plan for improvement focusing largely on fractured board relations and governance issues.
That review was sparked in part by the three board Democrats and members of the public who complained about what they said was a lack of responsiveness from the district and board majority about a variety of issues, including some who want to rename Wheeler High School.
In the revised contract, Ragsdale could call for the resolution panel to determine if he “has been subjected to a sufficient level of inappropriate or unprofessional conduct by a Member or Members of the Board” and “interfering with his performance of his professional duties or those of District employees directly reporting to him.”
That panel also could determine if board members cast him “in a false light, embarrass him or otherwise undermine his ability to be effective in the performance of his duties.”
If a panel determines that “sufficient harassment exists,” that body could make recommendations to prevent the behavior from continuing.
However, Ragsdale “may determine whether they are sufficient,” and if they are not, the board would “treat this is a termination without cause” and pay him “the balance of all compensation” through the end of his contract.
The revised contract also outlines how the resolution panel would be chosen, composed of a hearing officer and three others with “academic expertise.”
The school board would bear the burden of proof “and must offer clear and convincing evidence” that the SUPERINTENDENT’s suspension or termination is merited for the reasons permitted by this Contract,” the contract states.
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The buildings have been torn down; what remains now is to haul off the rubble, twisted metal and other debris to make room for the relocated campus of Eastvalley Elementary School.
Concrete, brick and other debris where the cafeteria once stood.
East Cobb Junior High School opened in 1963, two years before Wheeler High School across the street, then was renamed East Cobb Middle School in the 1970s.
The aging facilities continued to serve students until 2018, when ECMS moved to Terrell Mill Road, next to a relocated Brumby Elementary School.
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For a larger view of the map to be submitted to the state reapportionment office, click here.
After having three representatives on the Cobb Board of Education in recent decades, the East Cobb area may be down to two for the next decade, starting with the 2022 elections.
A proposed map that’s being recommended by the board’s four-Republican majority would take Post 6 completely out of East Cobb.
That seat is held by Democrat Charisse Davis, who lives in the Cumberland-Vinings area, which would form the new heart of Post 6.
The current Post 6 includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
The school board voted 4-3 Thursday along partisan lines to submit a map proposed by GOP chairman Randy Scamihorn (see inset of East Cobb area above) to the state reapportionment office.
Cobb school board member Charisse Davis
In that map, Walton and Wheeler clusters would be included in Post 5, currently represented by Republican David Banks, whose new post also would maintain Pope High School.
Republican David Chastain represents Post 4, which would have the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters. He’s up for re-election next year.
The Cobb legislative delegation will be drawing lines for Cobb school board, Cobb commission and municipal elected bodies in January; the school board’s proposal is only advisory.
The map was drawn by attorneys at Taylor English, a Cumberland-area firm that was paid $200,000 by the Cobb County School District.
Scamihorn said the map he proposed met all the criteria, including adjusting to shifts in population.
Davis, who said the map is not “fair and competitive,” made a motion to keep the current post boundaries. But that vote failed along partisan lines.
She and fellow Democrat Tre’ Hutchins had proposed their own maps, which they later withdrew.
“I will be losing two of the three high schools that I currently represent,” Davis said. “It is not a fair map.”
A declared candidate for the Post 6 seat also wants to keep the post maps the way they are.
Amy Henry, Cobb Board of Education candidate, Post 6
Amy Henry, a Republican who has four children in the Walton High School cluster, said she understands the need to shift lines to accommodate population changes, but Post 6 should remain largely as-is,” according to a statement issued by her campaign.
“She is prepared to run and win in a competitive post,” the statement said. “Early support for her campaign since the announcement has been strong and she looks forward to seeing how the Cobb legislative delegation weighs in on the final maps.”
Davis and fellow first-term Democrat Jaha Howard, who are both up for re-election in 2022, would be drawn together in Post 6; he’s declared his intent to run for Georgia School Superintendent.
Scamihorn noted that Davis and Howard—who have battled the Republican majority repeatedly on a variety of topics—live so close together.
Scamihorn said he’s losing 40 percent of his Post 1 seat in northwest Cobb, and reminded his colleagues that he didn’t draw the map.
“The dice rolled where it rolled,” he said.
But Democrats weren’t buying any of that.
Jackie Bettadapur, an East Cobb resident whose two sons graduated from Walton, said during a public comment session at Thursday’s work session that “by stonewalling and shutting down the three minority members” the Republican majority has “cancelled the voices of nearly half of Cobb’s constituents.”
Bettadapur is the chairwoman of the Cobb Democratic Party, but did not identify herself as such during her comments, which accused the GOP of pushing “a political agenda and not the best interests of our county.”
Should the board’s recommended map be adopted, current Post 6 voters living in the Walton and Wheeler clusters would not have a school board election on their ballot for six years.
Banks, a Republican and current board vice chairman, was re-elected last year to serve a fourth term.
Bettadapur warned the board not to assign “Wheeler and Walton high school representation to a board member that trafficks in quack science, conspiracy theories and the old Southern Lost Cause politics of segregation and racism.”
Critics of the Republican-approved map also complained about the process for making them public and the short time for citizens to offer comment.
The proposed maps were added to the agenda late Wednesday and were voted on at the work session Thursday afternoon.
The state reapportionment office will review the recommended map and could request technical changes that may require more action by the school board before Cobb legislators draw the final lines.
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A group of students and others advocating to change the name of Wheeler High School in East Cobb will take part in a panel discussion on the Confederate Symbols movement sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The forum, entitled “Public Art and the Politics of Remembering Georgia’s Confederate Past,” will take place next Thursday, Dec. 16, starting at 7 p.m.
The event, whose sponsors include the City of Atlanta and local artist Lisa Tuttle, is free and open to the public and you can RSVP by clicking here.
Starting Monday, members of the public can submit questions in advance at the registration link. The SPLC said a complete agenda will be announced before the forum.
The Wheeler Name Change Group organized in 2020, following the death of Georgie Floyd that sparked nationwide protests about racial and social justice.
Wheeler, which opened in 1965, is named after Confederate Civil War general Joseph Wheeler, who later was readmitted to the U.S. Army and served in Congress. He’s one of a handful of Confederate veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery and has a statue in his honor at Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
An online petition was started to push for the Wheeler name change, and received several thousand signatures, including Democratic Cobb Board of Education member Charisse Davis, whose Post 6 includes the Wheeler cluster.
The name change group said that their research has shown that the Cobb school board purposely named the high school located on Holt Road after Wheeler, who wasn’t from the area, in defiance of integration.
Wheeler is the only school in the Cobb County School District named after a Confederate figure. Name-change advocates said it’s not a fitting name for one of the most diverse schools in the district.
They have held online town hall meetings and spoken during public comment periods at Cobb school board meetings, but the board has not formally considered the name change proposal.
Group members have complained that a board policy limiting how agenda items may be added has prevented that from happening, and that their e-mails to board members have gone largely unanswered.
In late 2020 the board’s Republican majority voted to dissolve a newly formed committee to consider school name changes, prompting cries from board Democrats that it was an act of “systemic racism.”
On Thursday the Cobb school board voted along party lines to recommend new elected boundaries that would take the Walton and Wheeler clusters out of Post 6 and place them into Post 5, represented by Republican David Banks.
The SPLC forum topics next Thursday include “Correcting history is not the same as erasing it,” data on Confederate symbols remaining in public spaces in Georgia and legislation aimed at helping the state “break up” with the Confederacy.
Other panelists include the following:
Lisa Tuttle, artist, Postcolonial Karma exhibition at Gallery 72
Kevin Sipp, City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs
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The map proposed by board chairman Randy Scamihorn. For a more detailed view, click here.
UPDATED:
The school board voted 4-3 along party lines Thursday to submit the map proposed by Scamihorn to the state legislative reapportionment office.
The four Republicans voted in favor and the three Democratic members voted against.
A motion by Davis to keep the current lines failed 3-4, along the same party divide.
Original Report:
A reapportionment map to be proposed by the outgoing Cobb Board of Education chairman on Thursday is designed to maintain the board’s slender Republican majority.
Two others proposed by Democratic members attempt to prevent the GOP from building on that advantage.
The maps are included in the school board’s agenda for its December work session starting at 2 p.m. Thursday (previous ECN post here).
The GOP holds a 4-3 edge on a Cobb school board that has been deeply divided along partisan lines for the last two years, after Republicans held a comfortable 6-1 margin before that.
The proposal by Republican chairman Randy Scamihorn of Post 1 of northwest Cobb (see map at top) was added late Wednesday, and was crafted by Taylor English Duma LLP, a law firm based in the Cumberland area and which was hired to draw a new map for the Cobb legislative delegation to consider in January.
Democrats hold a one-member majority in the Cobb delegation, which also will decide new district lines for the Cobb Board of Commissioners, the six Cobb municipal council districts and Marietta school board boundaries.
The proposed Cobb school board maps are purely advisory.
In Scamihorn’s map, the East Cobb area of Post 6 that includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters would be shifted entirely to Post 5, represented by Post 5 Republican member David Banks, the board’s current vice chairman, who was re-elected in 2020.
That new post would also include the campus of Pope High School and some of the Lassiter High School attendance zone that Banks has represented since 2009.
He won a third term in November by fewer than 3,000 votes.
The new Post 6 that Democrat Charisse Davis has represented since 2019 would move to the Smyrna-Cumberland-Vinings area under the chairman’s proposal.
She lives near Teasley Elementary School, and that post would also include the residence of current board member Jaha Howard, another first-term Democrat who was elected to serve in Post 2, which includes the Campbell and Osborne clusters.
Davis has not made public whether she’s seeking re-election. Amy Henry, a parent of four children in the Walton cluster, has announced her candidacy as a Republican.
But Davis also has proposed a map that would keep some of East Cobb in Post 6 (see below).
That includes most of the Wheeler cluster and some of the Walton cluster; Davis and Howard also would both be drawn into Post 6 and a new board member would come from Post 2.
Howard has declared his intention to run for Georgia school superintendent.
Under Scamihorn’s proposal, the clockwise shift in the new lines would push Post 3 into the McEachern High School cluster. That’s currently in Post 7, where GOP incumbent Brad Wheeler barely won re-election last year.
The realigned Post 7 would include the Hillgrove, Harrison and Kennesaw Mountain high school clusters.
Scamihorn, who was was re-elected last year, would just barely fit into the new Post 1, made up of the Allatoona and North Cobb high school clusters.
Scamihorn’s proposed Post 4 would continue to include the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, and well as part of the Lassiter cluster.
Republican David Chastain, who has held that seat since 2014, has said he will be seeking a third term.
The only other candidate who has announced for Post 4 is Democrat Austin Heller, a Kennesaw State University student.
Davis’ map would keep most of the Kell and Sprayberry clusters in Post 4, and Post 5 would include the Lassiter, Pope and Walton campuses.
Her map would place Chastain and Scamihorn in Post 1, prompting a new board member to come from Post 4.
Post 3 board member Tre’ Hutchins, a Democrat in his first year in office, also has a map proposal that will be discussed Thursday afternoon (see below).
His Post 6 would retain some of the Wheeler and Walton clusters, but it would call for a new board member.
That’s because he’s proposing a Post 2 with Davis and Howard drawn together.
The South Cobb-area post Hutchins represents would include the Pebblebook, South Cobb and McEachern high school clusters.
For a detailed view of the Hutchins map, click here.
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Current Cobb Board of Education posts have been in effect since 2012; for a larger view click here.
The Cobb Board of Education is expected to be presented with proposed reapportionment maps at its December work session on Thursday afternoon.
The board is meeting in public at a 2 p.m. work session and a 7 p.m. business session Thursday at the Cobb County School District Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta).
There will be public comment periods at the start of both meetings, but speakers must sign up in advance by clicking here.
Each public comment session is limited to 30 minutes, and individual speakers have a maximum of two minutes.
The agendas for both meetings can be found here; the work session technically begins at 1 p.m., but members will convene, go into an executive session and return for a public work session at 2 p.m.
Another executive session will take place between the public meetings.
The three board business items listed on the work session agenda are all related to reapportionment but don’t have much detailed information.
In August, the board voted along partisan lines to hire Taylor English Duma LLP, a law firm based in the Cumberland area, to redraw the seven school board districts, or posts, following the release of the 2020 census.
(PLEASE NOTE: These boundaries have no bearing on specific school attendance zones, which are drawn administratively by the Cobb County School District staff.)
Reapportionment for elected political subdivisions is required every 10 years. The Cobb legislative delegation will be redrawing the Cobb and Marietta school boards and Cobb Board of Commissioners districts in January, as well as city council wards in the county’s six cities.
Cobb school board chairman Randy Scamihorn, part of the four-member Republican majority, brought the measure to present the legislative delegation with a map proposal. His board business item for Thursday says only that it will be for “Redistricting/Reapportionment Presentation (for potential action).”
Before that, board member Tre’ Hutchins will present a reapportionment item. He is a first-term Democrat from Post 3 in South Cobb.
Charisse Davis, a Democrat from Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, also will present a board business item labeled “Redistricting/Reapportionment Update.”
Her seat is one of three school board posts that will be up for the 2022 elections.
She’s completing her first term, and currently her post includes part of the Smyrna-Vinings area, where she lives.
Davis has not indicated if she will be seeking re-election. In October, Amy Henry, a parent in the Walton High School cluster, declared her intent to run for Post 6 as a Republican.
Also up for re-election in 2022 is Post 4 Republican David Chastain (Kell and Sprayberry clusters) who has indicated he will be seeking another term.
The board also will be presented with a request to take out $100 million in short-term loans to finance construction projects.
The money would be repaid at the end of 2022 with collections from the school district’s Special Local Option Sales Tax, and the board wouldn’t adopt a formal resolution until January.
Among the major projects slated to begin construction next year is the rebuild of Eastvalley Elementary School on the former campus of East Cobb Middle School on Holt Road.
At the work session, the board will receive a presentation about the Cobb Teaching and Learning System online portal.
At the Thursday evening meeting, two state champion sports teams from East Cobb high schools—Walton volleyball and Lassiter softball—will be recognized by the board.
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