After leaving home to attend college, teach and become an educational administrator, Catherine Pozniak has returned to her Northeast Cobb roots to put that background to local use.
When she moved back to her family home in 2020 following the death of her father, she said she hadn’t thought about running for elected office.
But the effect of the COVID-19 response on schools and eventful developments in the Cobb County School District where she graduated prompted her run for the Post 4 seat on the Cobb Board of Education.
Pozniak, 43, is an educational consultant and Democrat who’s challenging two-term Republican incumbent David Chastain for the post that represents her alma mater, Sprayberry High School, as well as the Kell and some of the Lassiter clusters.
“This is an important moment in time in education,” Pozniak said in a recent East Cobb News interview. “This is an opportunity now to build something better than what is there now.”
You can visit Pozniak’s campaign website by clicking here; East Cobb News has interviewed Chastain and will be posting his profile shortly.
In addition to addressing what she says are lagging test scores and curriculum issues—especially for grade-school reading—Pozniak also said she is running on behalf of parents, students and other stakeholders who feel they’re not being heard by the current board majority.
“My opponent is saying that things are good enough,” Pozniak said. “But for so many families and students, they are not good enough.”
Although she is a first-time candidate in the political world, her candidacy quickly caught notice. Neither she nor Chastain had a primary opponent, but over the summer, she outraised him with more $20,000 in contributions.
He held a fundraiser at the Atlanta Country Club and both are reporting having raised around $45,000 each.
With Republicans holding a 4-3 majority, party control of the school board is on the line, and the highly-watched contest has led to mutual and even third-party mudslinging.
Pozniak has accused Chastain of campaign finance violations he has heatedly denied; GOP lawmakers earlier this week alleged Pozniak of improperly taking a school tax exemption she has refuted.
Republican legislators also have said that if Pozniak is elected and Democrats gain control of the school board, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale will be replaced and Cobb schools will indoctrinate students in social and cultural issues instead of basic academics.
Despite the charged rhetoric, Pozniak said she’s been encouraged with what’s she seen, heard and learned on the campaign trail.
“I’m optimistic about the involvement from the community on both sides,” she said. “People get how important the school system is. It’s pretty remarkable how a school board race is getting this kind of attention.”
Pozniak, a 1997 Sprayberry graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sydney in Australia, a master’s from Cambridge University in Britain and an educational leadership doctorate degree from Harvard.
She taught on a Native American reservation in South Dakota and was an assistant secretary in the Louisiana Department of Education. She currently consults on educational fiscal policy for Watershed Advisors.
Her priorities include improving the Cobb school district’s literacy curriculum, which she says “is lowly rated and not founded in the science of reading.”
She said she wasn’t pushing for a particular curriculum to replace it, but hears from teachers “who say they’re frustrated” and that “kids aren’t reading proficiently.”
As a school board member, she said it would be one of her primary responsibilities to help set academic expectations for the Cobb district, the second-largest in Georgia.
Pozniak also has been critical of Cobb’s algebra curriculum and noted the Cobb school district’s 50.5 percent score in that portion of the Georgia Milestones end-of-course test.
“That’s even lousy for high school students in Post 4,” she said, arguing that Cobb needs a comprehensive math curriculum.
On the subject of the senior tax exemption for schools, Pozniak said she doesn’t favor revisiting that—Chastain has been adamant that it should not be touched—and said it’s a matter for the legislature to take up.
On fiscal issues, Pozniak said the Cobb school district is not as transparent as it should be. She said that not all contracts are made publicly available before board meetings or even voted on.
“Except for SPLOST [construction and maintenance projects whose contracts are required to be disclosed by law], you really don’t see that in Cobb. It’s really an opaque system.”
Pozniak pointed to the recent decision by the school district to switch its crisis alert system vendor, from AlertPoint to Centigex.
“That’s a $2.9 million contract,” she said. “To not have it come up for approval, it’s stunning. There’s no oversight.”
Chastain, the current chairman, Pozniak said, “has been part of how we got to this point. There’s an erosion of transparency and accountability and he hasn’t taken any measures to change that.”
Pozniak has tried to steer clear of cultural wedge issues that have flared up recently on school boards across the country.
She called the clamor over Critical Race Theory—the teaching of which the Cobb school board banned last year—as “political theatre” and said that’s not a concern she’s hearing from parents.
“It’s not about issues that are hot-button issues,” she said. “It’s about what is going on in the schools and the students’ experiences there.”
As for diversity, equity and inclusion issues that also have been raised in schools, including Cobb, Pozniak said she understands “why the partisan narrative gets the play that it does.
“But not until recently was this an issue. It’s just where we are.”
She said the opportunity she sees this year “is to get educators on board” to help address learning issues in the wake of COVID-19 disruptions.
“I have a crossover of bipartisan support,” she said, “parents of kids with dyslexia, special-education students. These are very frustrated parents who are looking for something better.”
Pozniak has been accused of taking campaign contributions from outsiders. Her biggest donation, $3,000, is from Democrats for Educational Equity.
There’s not much publicly available information, but it’s a Washington, D.C. political action committee that “is dedicated to helping to elect a new generation of leaders, who will bring their shared experiences for the goal of educational equity,” according to information Pozniak provided at the request of East Cobb News.
She said that “I am one of many educators that Democrats for Educational Equity supports, but being an educator is not a requirement.”
Pozniak said most of her other campaign donors are from those oriented around education issues or people she knows.
“If they’re not a friend, they’re a friend of a friend.” she said.
“They know what I’m trying to accomplish,” Pozniak said, adding that a number of local contributors, including educators, are doing so anonymously.
Related:
- Accusations intensify in bitter Cobb school board race
- Candidate profile: JoAnn Birrell, Cobb Commission District 3
- Candidate profile: Christine Triebsch, Cobb Commission District 3
- Cobb early voting estimated wait-time map
- East Cobb Early Voting Guide: 2022 General Election
- Contested Post 4 seat on Cobb school board heats up
- Cobb 2022 general election sample ballot available
- East Cobb News Politics & Elections page
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