The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday formalized the appointments of two principals at East Cobb elementary schools as part of broader personnel changes for the 2023-24 school year.
They include the appointment of Dr. Katie Derman to succeed the retiring Renee Garris as principal at Mountain View Elementary School.
Derman has been the principal at Picketts Mill Elementary School in Acworth, and previously was an assistant principal there.
She also served as a special education teacher in the Cherokee County School District.
Sedalia Park Elementary School also will be getting a new principal in August. Principal Tiffany Jackson has been reassigned to Sanders Elementary School in Austell, and her successor will be William Dryden.
He has been the principal at Frey Elementary School in Acworth, and one of his previous teaching assignments was at Brumby Elementary School.
Both Derman and Dryden will begin their new duties on July 1, when the fiscal year 2024 starts in the Cobb County School District.
William Dryden
Sedalia Park assistant principal Rachel Kaliah has been promoted to principal at Austell Elementary School and also will begin that appointment on July 1.
The Cobb school district also promoted Sherri Hill, its chief leadership officer, to the position of chief of staff to the superintendent.
She succeeds Kevin Daniel, who is retiring. Hill’s replacement will be Dr. Jasmine Kullar, who has been an assistant superintendent for middle schools in West Cobb.
The school board also approved Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s recommendations to extend the contracts of other members of his cabinet for another year.
They include Chief Strategy and Accountability officer John Floresta, Chief Technology and Operations officer Marc Smith, Chief Financial Officer Brad Johnson, Chief Academic Officer Catherine Mallanda and Chief Human Resources officer Keeli Bowen.
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During his monthly remarks to the Cobb Board of Education Thursday, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale lashed out at a county elected official for school-related comments she made at a recent public event.
His target wasn’t any of the seven board members seated around him, but the head of Cobb County government.
Ragsdale was in attendance earlier this month at the Cobb Prayer Breakfast when Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid spoke, giving a mini-county update from her perspective that included a passing reference to schools.
“We have top businesses here and excellent schools for most of us,” Cupid said near the end of the May 4 prayer breakfast, but did not elaborate on the latter.
Cupid, who served two terms as the District 4 commissioner in South Cobb before her election as chairwoman in 2021, has homeschooled her two children.
Ragsdale called the comments “derogatory” and added that some on his staff asked him if he would respond.
“I do not believe that such negativity, especially at a prayer breakfast, deserves a response,” he said, reading from a prepared statement, and referenced Cobb high school valedictorian grade-point average differences from 2022.
“That being said, I will pose this question: Do you know what the difference is between the valedictorian at, stay, Pebblebrook and the valedictorian at Allatoona? About 0.3. . . .
“Or say the valedictorian at South Cobb and the valedictorian at Walton? That would be about 0.23. With one going to Georgia Tech and one going to Duke.
“These are just small examples that show that all of our schools provide an excellent education to all of our students,” Ragsdale said.
“Perhaps instead of hijacking a prayer breakfast to issue a politically-charged statement, one should just remember to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
UPDATED, MONDAY, MAY 22:
We got this response late Sunday evening from Cupid:
“I am grateful Superintendent Ragsdale shares commitment to the success of our county which includes ameliorating existing disparities where data and observation may indicate opportunity for improvement. I have been and will continue to be a champion and partner where our interests overlap.”
According to Cobb real estate records, shortly after her election as chairwoman in early 2021, Cupid and her husband purchased a home with a Mableton address but that is in the Vinings Estates area of the city of Smyrna, the Campbell High School cluster and Cobb commission District 2.
They previously had been living in a home in Mableton, not far from Six Flags and in the Pebblebrook cluster, according to real estate records.
In recent months, Cupid has brought several former antagonists of Ragsdale and the Cobb County School District into county government.
She hired former Mableton Elementary School counselor Jennifer Susko for a short-term diversity role earlier this year, and appointed former school board member Jaha Howard to the Cobb Transit Advisory Board.
Susko resigned her job with the Cobb school district in 2021 after being highly critical of the Cobb school district’s handling of various racial issues, including the school board’s vote to ban the teaching of critical race tbeory and the district’s refusal to take up “anti-racist” and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
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The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday adopted a $1.448 billion fiscal year 2024 budget Thursday with a property tax rate reduction and a generous pay raise for teachers and other employees.
But it wasn’t unanimous.
Board member and vice chairman David Banks, a Republican from Post 5 in East Cobb, voted present after expressing concerns about rising tax assessments.
The Cobb County School District’s millage rate is going down for the first time in 15 years, from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills.
But that wasn’t enough for Banks, whose six colleagues all voted to adopt the budget.
Cobb property tax assessments for 2023 have gone out in the last week, with Cobb Tax Assessor Stephen White acknowledging that the “vast majority” of homeowners will have higher assessments than last year.
As he questioned Cobb school district Chief Financial Officer Brad Johnson, Banks referenced rising assessments by as much as 46 percent.
Although the largest portion of a typical Cobb homeowner’s tax bill is for schools—except for those receiving the senior tax exemption—assessments are conducted by the Cobb Tax Assessor’s office and are based on fair market value and other factors.
“I have some concerns about this budget,” Banks said, addressing Johnson. “Would you acknowledge that this is the largest tax increase the school district has ever had?”
Johnson hesitated for a moment before responding by reminding Banks of the millage rate cut, which is resulting in a savings of $7.6 million this year in property tax revenues, “and over five and 10 years much more than that.”
Banks said in spite of that, “it’s still the largest tax increase in the school’s history,” withing citing a source, “correct?”
Johnson replied that “I characterize it as a millage decrease. If you have a home that’s worth more [in the form of a higher assessment], you will pay more. If you have a home that’s worth less, you’ll pay less.”
Banks continued that “the taxpayer is going to see a huge increase in their taxes this year, correct?”
Johnson reiterated that “it depends on how much their home is worth, and it depends on how the tax assessor values it.”
Banks said he wanted to see the tax rate cut by 0.5 mills.
“I’m a fiscal conservative Republican, and I’m going to vote accordingly,” he said.
One of his fellow fiscal conservative Republican colleagues was aghast.
“Wow,” said Randy Scamihorn of Post 1 in north and west Cobb, right after Banks finished his remarks. “I didn’t know that giving back money was going to create complaints. We need to be prudent and make sure we can cover the basics, make sure that we are competitive in salaries with our teachers and support staff. We’re doing good things.”
In the FY 2024 budget, which takes effect July 1, full-time employees will receive salary increases between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent, and the Cobb school district would hire an additional 11 officers for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
Banks, who is in the last year of his fourth term, has not announced if he will be seeking re-election in Post 5, which includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope high school clusters.
Two candidates who have declared their candidacy for the Post 5 seat, Democrat Laura Judge and Republican John Cristadoro, both addressed the school board Thursday before the budget vote in approval of the proposed spending plan.
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The Cobb Board of Education will hold a final public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2024 operating budget Thursday before voting on adoption later in the evening.
A public budget forum will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the board room of the CCSD central office (514 Glover St., Marietta), followed by a vote at the board’s voting meeting at 7 p.m.
Last month Cobb County School District Chris Ragsdale proposed a $1.4 billion budget (detailed numbers here) that includes a slight millage rate decrease, from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills, due to rising property tax assessments.
Full-time employees would receive salary increases between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent, and the Cobb school district would hire an additional 11 officers for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
If approved, the millage rate reduction would be the first change in the general fund property tax rate for the Cobb school district in nearly 15 years.
The 2024 fiscal year begins July 1.
The school board will meet at 2 p.m. in a work session that includes an update on the Cobb school district’s demographics.
An executive session follows the work session. Agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here.
At the evening session, the recognitions will include the boys soccer team at Lassiter High School, which won the Georgia High School Association Class 6A state championship.
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Improving third-grade reading proficiency in Georgia has been a major factor in revising English and Language Arts standards.
The Georgia Department of Education has approved new standards for the teaching of English and language arts that remove what’s left of Common Core standards.
For the next two years, K-12 teachers in ELA will be trained to teach to the new standards, which will formally go into effect by 2025 and will be incorporated into Milestones testing.
According to a Georgia DOE release, the standards “are intentionally designed to provide a strong literacy foundation beginning in the early grades, including the addition of a specific Foundations domain throughout the K-5 standards.”
They’re built around a concept called the “science of reading” and emphasize phonics in the earlier grades.
In 2022, only one-third of Georgia third-graders were regarded as proficient or better in Milestones testing.
In the Cobb County School District, more than 73 percent of third-graders were reading at or above grade level in the Milestones results.
Some elementary schools in East Cobb had among the highest percentages of third-graders surpassing proficiency levels of reading, at 90 percent or higher. But others struggled, including Sedalia Park (65.9 percent), Powers Ferry (62 percent) and Brumby (52 percent).
The standards come four years after an initiative was announced by Woods and Gov. Brian Kemp to phase out Common Core standards that have been in place since 2015.
The release said the new standards were developed with a broad base of input from educators, parents, business leaders, and others, and “feature built-in learning progressions across grade spans and within grade-level concepts, allowing teachers to remediate or accelerate learning as needed.”
The Georgia DOE issues a survey (results here) and began accepting public feedback on the ELA standards in November and issued another public response period in March.
“Knowing that early literacy is essential to all future learning, the standards place a strong emphasis on the fundamentals in the early grades,” Woods said in the release.
For more information on Georgia DOE curriculum standards, click here.
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Jack Xu, a senior at Walton High School, is one of four students from Georgia and among 161 nationwide to be named a U.S. Presidential Scholar.
The Georgia Department of Education Wednesday announced the news of the 59th such class, which is chosen by the U.S. Department of Education.
Students are selected for “their accomplishments in academics, the arts, and career and technical education fields.”
Xu is an honor student at Walton and this year was named a STAR Student by the Professional Association of Georgia Educators.
He was a varsity swimmer and also participated in a number of academic and other extracurricular organizations at Walton, including the East Cobb chapter of AYLUS, or The Alliance of Youth Leaders in the U.S., of which he is a former president.
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The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is continuing to announce recipients of its 2023 scholarship program this spring, this time for $2,500 scholarships from its own funds.
Three of the students from East Cobb attend Wheeler High School, two are from Walton High School and one each are seniors at Lassiter High School and Kell High School:
Erin E. Cooney, Lassiter. Probable career field: Landscape Architecture
Gavin J. Du, Walton. Probable career field: Consulting
Rithu A. Hegde, Wheeler. Probable career field: Computer Science
Shaunak R. Karnik, Pope. Probable career field: Computer Science
Kabir A. Maindarkar, Wheeler. Probable career field: Chemical Engineering
Lakshmi Valliyappan, Wheeler. Probable career field: Medicine
Chaitanya Sri Yetukuri, Walton. Probable career field: Business Administration
According to the NMSC, they are among the 2,500 students chosen nationwide for this particular scholarship, from a field of 15,000 finalists.
They are “judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.”
The criteria includes their academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay; and a recommendation written by a high school official.
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Front row left to right: East Side Elementary Youth Essay Contest winners Cameron Courant (5th grade), Stella Eagen (4th grade), Polly Funk (4th grade) and Gianna Sitaf (3rd grade). Back row left to right: Ryan Behrens (Community Development, Delta Community), Jessica Williams (Assistant Branch Manager/Johnson Ferry Road, Delta Community) and Maria Clark (Principal).
Four students from East Side Elementary School in East Cobb were named recipients of the 2023 Delta Community Credit Union Youth Essay Contest in April.
The contest, held in April in recognition of National Credit Union Youth Month, was open to third, fourth, and fifth graders, and 21 students from metro Atlanta schools were chosen. Delta Community received more than 130 entries and selected seven winners from each grade level.
The East Side students are third-grader Gianna Sitaf, fourth-graders Stella Eagen and Polly Funk and fifth-grader Cameron Courant.
Each of the recipients was awarded a $100 youth savings account. Here’s more from Delta Community about the essay content:
“Winning essays included responses from students that said they would save money for altruistic causes like donating to the National Brain Tumor Society, building a wildfire refuge for animals, or providing necessities for those in need. Another student said they would save money to build a school, and another would save to pay for college.”
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A reader saw our post last week about Lassiter High School senior Luke O’Malley being accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy and alerted us to another East Cobb student who’s going to the same institution.
He’s Kenneth Namango of Sprayberry High School, where he played varsity soccer, served as team captain and was named the Georgia High School Association’s Region 7-6A player of the year.
He was recently named a Senior Elite at Sprayberry (video here), and was involved in many academic and extracurricular activities, including the Computer Science Club, Shop With a Yellow Jacket, PTSA Craft Show and the Black Student Union.
Namango also was selected as Prom King and with having the Best Smile and being part of the Best Couple in the senior class.
His soccer awards also include being named to the Region 7-6A Academic All-Region team. Kenny sent us the above photo and the information below about how he came to be offered a chance to continue his educational and athletic careers at the U.S. Naval Academy:
I had been recruited by the Naval Academy’s Men’s Soccer staff at an ECNL Orlando showcase just before my high school season. They became interested in my leadership and soccer skills that I was able to show as I am the Captain of NASA TopHat’s Boys 2005/2004 ECNL team. The staff and I were able to get in contact and they expressed their interest in me and invited me on a visit. I went to the campus in Annapolis and absolutely loved it. I got to wake up early, go to classes and watch soccer practice almost as if I was a student athlete there. They also gave me a tour around campus and a little walk through Annapolis.
The Naval Academy likes people who can balance being a leader, being involved in their community, and having good academics. At Sprayberry I became captain of the Varsity team since my freshman year, did over 100+ hours of community service within the last two years, worked at Mcdonald’s on Barrett Parkway and Wing City on Windy Hill, and was able to maintain a 4.3 GPA taking all honors and AP classes.
With the combination of my recruitment by the Naval Academy’s Men’s soccer staff and my resume, I received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. Along with being on the soccer team I seek to study computer science and am interested in choosing to be a Cyber Warfare Engineer as my career following my studies at the academy.
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Let us know what your organization is doing, or share news about what people are doing in the community—accomplishments, recognitions, milestones, etc.
Pass along your details to: [email protected], and please observe the following guidelines to ensure we get everything properly and can post it promptly.
Send the body of your announcement, calendar item or news release IN TEXT FORM ONLY in the text field of your e-mail template. Reformatting text from PDF, JPG and doc files takes us longer to prepare your message for publication.
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From L-R: Dhanya Naik, Wheeler High School PTSA; Steven Brown, Walton PTSA; Mrs. Margie Hatfield; Kinsley Brennen, Pope High School PTSA; Shraya Patel, Lassiter High School PTSA; Amanda Tubbs, Kell High School PTSA. Not pictured: Sebastian Jean Francois, Sprayberry High School PTSA. (East Cobb Council PTA)
The East Cobb Council PTA named its 2023 recipients of the Margie Hatfield Scholarship on Thursday at its general meeting at Walton High School.
Hatfield is a former ECC PTA president, and nearly 200 such scholarships have been awarded in the organization’s signature awards program bearing her name.
A $1,000 scholarship is awarded to one student at each of the six high schools in the East Cobb area that “honors the dedication and years of service given by Mrs. Hatfield to the youth of our council. In recognition of her volunteer involvement, the ECCC PTA Margie Hatfield Scholarship Fund awards deserving seniors who have made significant contributions to the community.”
The scholarship requires not only academic success, but asks that students “take on leadership roles within the community and service-based programs during their high school years.”
The 2023 recipients were selected from 25 applicants:
Amanda Tubbs, Kell High School, who is bound for the University of Georgia with plans to major in interior design;
Shraya Patel, Lassiter High School, who plans to attend Georgia Tech, studying management information systems;
Kinsley Brennen, Pope High School, who’s been accepted to Mississippi State University to study elementary education;
Sebastian Jean Francois, Sprayberry High School, who will be pursuing a degree in computer science at Cornell University;
Steven Brown, Walton High School, who will enroll at the University of Alabama with an intended major in business;
Dhanya Naik, Wheeler High School, who will be going to Georgia Tech to study biomedical engineering.
The East Cobb Council PTA is a non-profit made up of 35 PTA organizations to enrich the education of students. The ECC PTA also conducts a Reflections Art Contest, organizes community activities and raises funds for academic programs at its member schools.
Its business partners include MissQuito, Cyclebar East Cobb, My Ideal College, School of Rock East Cobb, Peace Love & Pizza; Mathnasium, Cactus Car Wash and East Cobb Tutoring Center.
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Tianyue Xu of Walton High School and Angie Zhu of Wheeler High School are among the initial group of National Merit Scholarship recipients for the Class of 2023.
Those scholarships went to more than 800 seniors across the nation and are funded by corporations, many of them employing the parents of the students.
The specific scholarship amounts were not revealed, but they typically range between $1,000 and $10,000.
Xu, whose listed probable career field is law, is the recipient of a State Farm Companies Foundation scholarship.
Zhu, who has listed finance as a probable career field, received a National Merit Norfolk Southern Scholarship.
Several more scholarship winners will be announced through the rest of the spring. Here is the criteria, as per the National Merit Scholarship program:
To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing. Each Semifinalist was asked to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirmed their qualifying test performance. From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 met Finalist requirements.
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Bottom row L to R : Rashida Lee-Walker, Assistant Principal; Donna Evans, East Cobb UMC; Sarah Alwardt, 5th Grade Teacher Back row standing L to R: Kathy Culbertson, Media Specialist; Sandy Perry, Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K; Jim Perry, Past President KCMGK; Aimee Mendel, Past President KCMGK; Rosie Teague, VP KCMGK; Linda Bonstein, East Cobb UMC; Elayna Wilson, Principal Powers Ferry ES and John Kone, President KCMGK
Submitted information and photo:
On April 14th, 2023 through a cooperative effort of the staff from Powers Ferry Elementary School, volunteer members of the East Cobb United Methodist Church and members of the Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K (KCMGK), winning 5th grade students received special certificates and books as they were rewarded for meeting the “March Reading Challenge.” Following the presentation ceremony, the students were treated to snacks and an “Amazing Readers” engraved cake for dessert!
Quite an accomplishment indeed and one student boasted he read over 30 books!! … GOOD JOB STUDENTS!
“I don’t know who was more thrilled” one of the volunteers exclaimed, “the 5th graders who won the certificates or the adults (Kiwanis club members and East Cobb First UMC volunteers) who provided all the goodies for the winners.” In any event, everyone is extremely proud of the accomplishments of the students.
The amazing thing about the reading challenge is that, at the beginning of the school year, 42 percent of the students were reading below the basic level. At mid-year, this number was reduced to 29 percent for a dramatic improvement!
Each child completing the challenge got a book to keep and a certificate showing that this is sponsored jointly by East Cobb United Methodist Church, as a Partner in Education, and the Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K as a part of its Student Leadership Program.
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He lives in East Cobb and his entry at the show was a carcharocles megalodon, or “big tooth” shark.
Reader Heather Webb-Singh tells us the extinct shark’s tooth is seven inches long, indicating that it was a megalodon mammal between 45 and 50 feet long.
Carson, the son of Bob and Cindy Konopelski, donated his big tooth to his school of choice, the STEM lab at Rocky Mount Elementary School, and presented it to principal Dr. Cheri Vaniman.
Send Us Your News!
Let East Cobb News know what your organization is doing, or share news about what people are doing in the community—accomplishments, recognitions, milestones, etc.
Pass along your details to: [email protected], and please observe the following guidelines to ensure we get everything properly and can post it promptly.
Send the body of your announcement, calendar item or news release IN TEXT FORM ONLY in the text field of your e-mail template. Reformatting text from PDF, JPG and doc files takes us longer to prepare your message for publication.
We accept PDFs as an accompaniment to your item. Images are fine too, but we prefer those to be JPG files (more than jpeg and png). PLEASE DO NOT send photos inside a PDF or text or any other kind of file. Of course, send us links that are relevant to your message so we can direct people to your website.
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Walton High School is visible in the background from a construction site for a new field for the school’s baseball teams.
Tennis courts at the new Walton athletics facility at Pine Road and Providence Road have been completed and are in use.
Connecting the latest addition to the Walton campus to the main facilities on Bill Murdock Road is the final piece of a long process of overhauling most of the school’s facilities.
It’s also proven to be challenging.
The baseball field was reconfigured in the design stage after nearby residents were concerned about noise and lighting issues.
Cobb DOT won’t be realigning the Pine-Bill Murdock intersection.
Safety and traffic considerations also have factored in. Cobb DOT was planning to realign and straighten out the intersection of Bill Murdock and Pine Road, but that project has fallen through.
The school district also tried to get Cobb DOT to increase pedestrian crosswalks, but Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said that was a “no go.”
Last week, the Cobb Board of Education approved spending $1 million for a dedicated raised pedestrian bridge, a project included in the Cobb Education SPLOST V.
The construction contract was awarded to Lewallen Construction Co. on Bells Ferry Road, and details of the project are still being worked out. The expected timeline is to begin construction this summer and finish in December.
When Cobb DOT announced the Pine-Bill Murdock plans last spring there wasn’t a set price tag.
“Originally, the design was going to have students, teachers, parents, everybody who parks at the school walk all the way up Bill Murdock, cross it, then walk all the way up Pine Road,” Ragsdale said during a board work session last Thursday.
“We know high school kids. They’re not going to make that journey on the sidewalk. We had to provide a safer path that we knew kids would take.”
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt told East Cobb News that Cobb DOT and the school district “agreed last year on a more cost-effective option over a realignment.”
The path will include a sidewalk along Bill Murdock, with the bridge traversing a creek located in a flood plain area near the intersection.
School board member David Banks, whose post includes the Walton attendance zone, said the Pine-Bill Murdock intersection is dangerous.
“That curve is a very high-level safety concern,” he said. “You’ve got to find some way of slowing people down where they can see around the curve because those students, they’re not always going to look.
“The people who live around Walton, they know the danger. We need to find ways to to minimize this,” he said, suggesting the school district consider a crosswalk in the future.
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Luke O’Malley, a senior at Lassiter High School, has accepted an appointment to enroll in the the U.S. Naval Academy.
He also had received an appointment to to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, but has opted for the USNA and will be joining the Class of 2027 for I-Day in Annapolis, Md., at the end of June.
His parents, Brian and Shelley O’Malley, are Naval Academy graduates and retired Navy veterans. She was a Navy aviator and Delta Air Lines pilot. His older sister, Lauren O’Malley, was a swimmer at Lassiter and also attended the Naval Academy.
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The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved the hiring of a separate law firm for a federal lawsuit that challenges the reapportionment of Cobb Board of Education seats last year.
Cobb Board of Education maps that went into effect on Jan. 1 took Post 6 out of East Cobb. For a larger view click here.
After an executive session, the board voted to hire Galleria-based Freeman Mathis and Gary LLP, which filed a motion in late March seeking judgment, and earlier this month subpoenaed plaintiffs seeking documentation and records.
A June 22 hearing has been scheduled in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Eleanor Ross in Atlanta over the district’s motion for judgment.
The district and board have been represented on most legal matters since 2022 by the Atlanta firm of Parker Poe Adams.
The board didn’t discuss the matter during Thursday’s meeting, including the cost for the legal services by Freeman Mathis and Gary. East Cobb News has left a message with the Cobb school district seeking more information.
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration was sued last summer by several Cobb parents, who are being represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia and other advocacy groups.
They claim that the Georgia legislature adopted Cobb school board maps that violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act and used race as a guiding factor in redrawing the seven posts.
Those actions included Post 2 and 3 in South Cobb and Post 6, which had covered most of the Walton and Wheeler high school attendance zones, and which was moved out of East Cobb, and mostly into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area.
Until last November’s elections, those three posts were represented by black school board members; the board’s current African-American members represent Post 3 and Post 6.
The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint last August (you can read it here) that alleges that the four-member Republican school board majority undertook a secretive process to have a map drawn that was then introduced by State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, a West Cobb Republican.
The managing director of Freeman Mathis Decisions, the government relations arm of the law firm representing the Cobb school district, is her husband and predecessor, former State Rep. Earl Ehrhart.
He previously held a similar position at Taylor English Decisions, a lobbying component of Taylor English Duma LLP, a law firm that drew the Cobb school board maps recommended by the board Republicans.
The Ehrhart-sponsored maps were adopted by the legislature last year.
The Democratic-majority Cobb legislative delegation backed another map that would have made few changes to those lines, but it was never voted on in the legislature.
That latter event—ignoring local courtesies—is also at the heart of a separate redistricting lawsuit filed against the Cobb Board of Commissioners, whose Democratic majority voted last October to invoke home rule over reapportionament that drew District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her seat.
“Ultimately, the Board and General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan that whitewashed the northern, eastern, and western districts by packing Black and Latinx voters into the Challenged Districts, as a last-ditch effort to limit the power of their emerging political coalition,” the Cobb school plaintiffs’ amended lawsuit states.
The Cobb school district responded in March, accusing the plaintiffs of making “scurrilous accusations” about board members in what was a “purely political dispute” based on partisan differences.
They included school board actions over the district’s COVID-19 response as well as racial and equity issues—mentioning the banning of teaching critical race theory and the board majority’s refusal to consider renaming Wheeler High School, named after a Confederate Civil War general.
The plaintiffs represent organizations “that in reality promote partisan Democratic causes, and individuals they recruited who are also partisan Democrats, are upset that the effect of the redistricting process did not align with their preferred partisan outcome: a Democratic takeover of the Board of Education,” the Cobb school district motion states.
The school district motion said that the Cobb school board, which isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit, can’t be held liable for a redistricting map approved by the state legislature.
The complaint against the new maps, the school district motion said, involves “run of the mill political disputes over which Republicans and Democrats clash every day.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys were given until April 28 to produce documents and prepare for the June hearing for the Cobb school district’s motion.
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Mountain View Elementary School teacher of the year Kristin Shildneck, principal Renee Garris and classified employee of the year Barbara Glynn at a 2018 luncheon.
Renee Garris, who has been the principal at Mountain View Elementary School at East Cobb since 2010 and has been an educator for more than three decades, will retire at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
The Cobb County School District announced her retirement, effective June 30, at a Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday night following an executive session.
Garris also was an administrator for six years and a classroom teacher for 14 years in the Cobb County School District.
She helped prepare the school community for the relocation of the campus from its longtime venue on Sandy Plains Road near Shallowford Road in 2017 to a new site on Sandy Plains, at the intersection of Davis Road.
Garris is a graduate of Cobb County schools and has been on the board of directors for the Northeast Cobb Business Association, which has a formal partnership with public schools in the area.
Also on Thursday, new principals were announced to fill vacancies for the 2023-24 year.
Ashley Beasley, who has been the director of the Cobb school district’s Elementary Virtual Program, was appointed principal at Davis Elementary School.
She has 18 years of education experience, including nine years as an assistant principal. She attended Cobb schools, graduating from McEachern High School, and earned bachelor’s, master’s, educational leadership and educational doctorate degrees from Kennesaw State University.
Beasley is succeeding Kristin Erbskorn, who is retiring.
The new principal at Shallowford Falls Elementary School is Lindsey McGovern, who has been the assistant principal there since 2019.
She has 20 years of experience in the Cobb school district and has taught and was an assistant principal at Brumby Elementary School.
McGovern, who succeeds retiring principal Donna Long, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and obtained graduate degrees from Kennesaw State.
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The Cobb County School District presented on Thursday a pr0posed fiscal year 2024 budget of $1.448 billion that includes a pay raise for employees and a property tax cut for citizens.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said at a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday afternoon he is proposing a reduction in the property tax rate from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills, which amounts to a cut of $7.6 million in recurring revenue each year.
If approved by the school board, the millage rate reduction would be the first change in the general fund property tax rate for the Cobb school district in nearly 15 years.
Ragsdale’s pay raise would be a minimum of 7.5 percent for full-time employees, with a range of up to 12.1 percent.
He also is proposing to hire 11 more officers for the Cobb school district’s police department, which currently has 70 officers.
The board voting Thursday night for tentative adoption of the budget.
That allows the district to advertise the proposal for another hearing on May 18, during which formal adoption is scheduled. The fiscal year 2024 budget goes into effect July 1.
Details of the budget proposal, which weren’t released in advance of the board presentation, have been posted at this link.
The school millage rate produces the largest portion of a Cobb homeowners’ property tax bill, and those age 62 and over (except in the city of Marietta) can apply for a senior exemption from paying school taxes.
Chief financial officer Brad Johnson, in his presentation to the school board at the work session, said there is an estimated 13 percent growth in the Cobb tax digest.
He said the budget also would be funded with $87 million in budget reserves, an amount he said is “more than usual . . . but we think is sustainable.” The district has an unassigned fund balance of $198 million, which Johnson said amounts to 40 days of operating expense.
Ragsdale said in response to a question from board member Tre’ Hutchins about the fund balance that because of the estimated expansion of the digest, “we are comfortable” cutting the millage rate and using that much of reserve funding.
He said the additional police officers were requested in response to the deadly shootings of six people at a Christian school in Nashville earlier this month.
“Armed officers onsite help” to prevent deadly shooters, he said, adding that “it’s an absolute preventative measure.”
He has come under some criticism for his plan last year to hire armed but not certified armed guards on school campuses. Some citizens protested the vote last summer when the school board approved the plan.
Ragsdale said Thursday the new officers to be hired will be uniformed officers certified by the Georgia Peace Officers Training Council.
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Ever since he was a teenager, John Cristadoro has tried his hand at any number of activities and jobs.
He’s been a veterinarian technician, clerked in a law firm, took acting classes (appearing briefly on the soap opera “General Hospital”), worked as a personal trainer and began his current career in media sales, initially booking advertising sponsorships on Los Angeles Dodgers’ radio games when he lived in California.
He moved to Atlanta more than a decade ago for a radio sales position, then started his own media agency, Alliance Activation, with present clients including Heineken and Baccardi.
Another client, prominent Cobb business leader John Loud, urged Cristadoro to think about doing something entirely different: running for political office.
John Loud
Specifically, he was being asked to consider a campaign for the Cobb Board of Education.
The 45-year-old Cristadoro moved to East Cobb a dozen years ago, where he and his wife are raising their two children, a son at Dodgen Middle School and a daughter at Walton High School.
Between entrepreneurial life (he’s also involved with two other small businesses) and being a coach for Walton youth sports teams, Cristadoro admits he has a rather full plate.
The son of an Army veteran who graduated from Gilmer County High School in north Georgia, Cristadoro earned a political science degree from the University of New Orleans.
He also served in the U.S. Air Force before settling into a business career.
In a recent interview with East Cobb News, the 45-year-old Louisiana native was also bothered by what he was seeing on the Cobb school board in recent years.
Partisan bickering on racial and equity issues and the Cobb County School District’s response to COVID-19 prompted a special accreditation review that was later withdrawn last spring.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the board, and three of the GOP members, including Post 5 incumbent David Banks, are up for re-election in 2024.
Banks, who’s been a controversial figure, told East Cobb News last week that he’s undecided about seeking a fifth term. Laura Judge, a Democratic activist, has filed a declaration of intent form for the Post 5 seat, and said she will announce he decision in several weeks.
Cristadoro said that in recent months, “people came to me and said, ‘John, you need to run.’ ”
One of them was Loud, owner of Loud Security Systems, and a former chairman of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
“He said this school board [elections] are very big,” Cristadoro said, referending Loud, whom he said is a big fan of Superintendent Chris Ragsdale. “They’ve been on the firing line the last couple years.”
After listening to a number of community and school leaders, including meeting with Republican school board members David Chastain and Randy Scamihorn, Cristadoro announced his candidacy earlier this month in the GOP for the seat in Post 5, which includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope high school clusters.
“I committed mentally and spoke with people and asked for a lot of support,” Cristadoro said. “I’m not a halfway kind of guy. You’ve got to be passionate to do this.
“What made me move to Cobb County? It wasn’t my company [which is based in the city of Atlanta]. It was the schools. I want to work to protect that.”
He said he’s attempted to talk to Banks, but hasn’t made contact.
“I’m not running against him,” Cristadoro said. “I’m running for the school board.”
Cristadoro said that after giving a campaign “a lot of thought,” what’s prompting him now is a desire to “make sure our classrooms remain excellent.”
Here’s his campaign website. He also has formed a steering committee led by Loud, former Cobb school board member Scott Sweeney, the current chairman of the state education board and various East Cobb civic and community leaders.
The new Post 5 territory (in purple) includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope clusters.
‘Not fire and brimstone’
That a political novice has garnered such support for a seat with a longtime incumbent still in office is a reflection of the heightened interest in the control of the school board.
Democrats hold majorities on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the Cobb legislative delegation.
Cristadoro describes himself as a solid Republican, but “not a fire and brimstone Republican.”
He was upset by the special review by Cognia, the Cobb school district’s accrediting agency, and said it was “totally unnecessary . . . Accreditation should not be a political football.”
He said complaints that led to the review—especially racial and equity claims—haven’t panned out.
“If you look at the quality of outcomes of the schools,” Cristadoro said, “it’s not true.”
Cristadoro also said he supports Ragsdale, saying the superintendent has “done a great job” handling the COVID-19 response.
He said his priorities would be to ensure the physical and mental safety of students, including more resources for those experiencing mental health issues.
Cristadoro has coached youth football and wrestling in the Walton feeder programs.
He also said he would “promote the laser focus of our schools’ leadership and teachers’ instruction of all our children.”
When asked about the teaching of critical race theory—which the Cobb school board voted to ban and which is not included in the Georgia education department’s curriculum standards—Cristadoro said the general state-approved measures “have been very successful. The results have been phenomenal. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Cristadoro also supports the continuing Cobb Education SPLOST sales tax referendum for school construction and maintenance.
He also pledged uphold the Cobb senior tax exemption for homeowners aged 62 and over. Although that can be changed only by the Georgia legislature, “I will not support passing a resolution that would alter that exemption.”
Another priority would be to stress entrepreneurial education for students, especially since not every student is college-bound.
“In East Cobb there’s a big push to go to college, and that’s great,” he said. But he added that “here are negative connotations about not going to college” that he doesn’t think are fair.
But he said regardless of their career paths, students need to be “be introduced into fundamental business concepts which will allow them to compete in the world’s economy.”
‘A father who cares’
Given the high stakes involved in the Post 5 race, Cristadoro acknowledged the need for an early start—the 2024 primaries are next May—to gather political and financial support.
His campaign manager, Audrey Neu, is the Cobb Republican Party’s school liaison, and he said a formal campaign committee is being finalized.
He cited a ballpark fundraising figure of around $85,000—Catherine Pozniak, Chastain’s Democratic opponent in Post 4 in 2022, raised around $60,000.
“I know a lot of people and I don’t believe it’s going to be hard to raise money,” Cristadoro said. “I feel very confident I’m going to get a good response.”
He said he keeps hearing in the community that “it’s time for a change” and acknowledged that if he faced Banks in the Republican primary, “it would be tough but I think we would prevail.”
When asked if some might perceive him to be a “Chamber” candidate or one of the local political establishment, Cristadoro responded by saying “I’m my own person. Do I listen to smart people? Absolutely. But no one’s going to tell me what to do.
“I’m interested in listening to people who don’t look, talk or sound like me.”
Cristadoro said he’s going to run “as if I’m running for president.”
He said he wants to stress the “why” behind his candidacy, saying simply that “I’m a father who cares.”
He said a youth football player he coached sent him a hand-written note thanking him for “always having my back.
“I have their backs,” Cristadoro said, stretching the reference to all students in the Cobb district. “That’s the reason we have to do this.
“This is extremely important. Our kids’ futures depend on it.”
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The Cobb County School District’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget will be presented on Thursday to the Cobb Board of Education, which also will be asked to approve several facilities contracts.
A public budget forum will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the board room of the CCSD central office (514 Glover St., Marietta), followed by a formal budget presentation at the board’s voting meeting at 7 p.m.
The board will be asked to tentatively adopt the budget, the first step toward formal adoption in May or June.
Budget information is expected to be made available at this link; the current fiscal year 2023 budget of $1.4 billion includes what Superintendent Chris Ragsdale called “historic” raises (between 8.5 and 13.10 percent for non-temporary employees).
He has not publicly offered any budget priorities for the FY 2024 budget, which takes effect July 1.
Last year the board approved the budget unanimously using additional revenues from the Cobb tax digest, which increased by 10 percent in 2022, and by using nearly $30 million in reserve funding.
Last week the Cobb Tax Assessor predicted the county tax digest would go up by 13 percent. The digest is formalized in July.
The largest portion of a Cobb homeowners’ property tax bill (outside the city of Marietta) is for the Cobb school district, which has held at a millage rate of 18.90 mills for more than 15 years.
The school board will meet at 2 p.m. in a work session at which contracts for architectural and engineering design for a number of new construction projects will be presented.
An executive session follows the work session. Agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here.
The new construction projects include a $50 million special events facility approved last month. That will be the new location for graduation ceremonies, as well as a number of academic and extracurricular activities.
The board also will ask to approve design contracts for renovations at Blackwell Elementary School ($5.4 million) and Shallowford Falls Elementary School ($4.1 million) and for the district to hire a construction manager for the replacement classroom building project at Sprayberry High School.
A construction contract for a pedestrian bridge linking the Walton High School campus to the school’s new athletic complex also is on the agenda.
The cost for the bridge is $1 million. The tennis courts have been completed at the new facility, while a baseball field will be under construction soon. The complex, with a cost of $6.7 million, is expected to be completed in December.
At the Thursday evening board meeting, the recognitions include state champion wrestlers from Lassiter, Pope and Sprayberry high schools and state champion basketball team from Kell and Wheeler.
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