East Cobb Schools Archives

Cobb school district receives computer devices for virtual learning

August 27, 2020 7:58 PMAugust 27, 2020 4:24 PM by Wendy Parker

The Cobb County School District has received the first 750 of a supply of 2,600 Chromebook computers from a Norcross company to help meet virtual learning demands at the start of an online-only school year.

On Thursday the Stratix Corporation, which provides managed mobility services, announced it had delivered the first portion of the devices to the Cobb school district, which is trying to fulfill nearly 40,000 requests from students and their families.

Felicia Wagner, executive director of the Cobb Schools Foundation, a non-profit that provides financial and other assistance to district, issued this statement through Stratix:

“We want all students to have the tools and resources they need to achieve their goals and be successful. With Cobb students returning to school virtually this fall, we had an immediate need to get additional devices to the schools. We felt Stratix was the right fit. They were local to us, had access to the volume of devices we needed and went to great lengths to get us the devices while working within our budget.”

The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, but the district also announced Thursday it had received another 750 Chromebooks donated by a collection of churches in Cobb County, with another 1,900 on the way.

North Metro Church raised $150,000 for computers for students in Cobb and Marietta schools, with half going to each district, per a Cobb school district release.

The Cobb school district received $8.1 million from the Cobb Board of Commissioners last month in federal CARES Act funding to build out its online learning portal.

When Commissioner Lisa Cupid asked why computer purchases weren’t part of the request, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said he was confident the district could provide them. He said some Chromebooks earmarked for students in need had gone unused.

Before the school year began, he said the district received 32,000 requests for devices, and another 6,000 requests have been made since online classes began Aug. 17.

Georgia teachers’ head: Back to school not a return to normal

August 27, 2020 1:07 PM by Wendy Parker

Lisa Morgan, Georgia Association of Educators

As the Cobb County School District continues with online-only instruction, the head of a professional teachers organization in Georgia said that the classroom experience that awaits students when they return will not be the way it was before COVID-19.

In a commentary distributed to news organizations, Lisa Morgan of the Georgia Association of Educators asked parents “to please listen to us—the educators who you are asking to enter the school buildings in the midst of a pandemic.”

The GAE represents 30,000 teachers in Georgia, including those in its umbrella organization, the Cobb County Association of Educators.

Unlike teachers’ organizations in other states, they are not unions.

The CCAE supported a July decision by Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale to start the school year online-only, instead of giving parents an option of virtual or in-person learning.

Ragsdale has said that the cases per 100,000 people in Cobb—now averaging around 300 for the last 14 days—represents high community spread that’s not safe for students, teachers and staff.

Cobb school parents have expressed frustration with virtual learning and the lack of a timetable for returning to a classroom environment. Ragsdale said he will be guided by data, and not dates, in making that decision.

Under the district’s previously announced reopening plans, K-5 and special education students will return first, followed by middle school and high school students.

While the virus transmission rates and case numbers for children remains low, Morgan wrote that placing them in large group settings at schools poses a threat: “If the risk is 1 percent that any individual child will become sick, that means that in a group of 100 the chance that one of our students will become sick is 100 percent. Just as it is objectionable to you knowingly to put your children in a situation that will bring them harm, for any of our students to be harmed is unacceptable to us.”

She said that once students do return, “the adaptations necessary to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 will result in a classroom experience absent of the interactions that your child is missing now.”

Those include one-on-one encounters between students and teachers over homework and class assignments and students working together on projects in class.

Lunchtime will also be different: “The current plans for meals vary from system to system, but all include either smaller groups and social distancing in the cafeteria or meals being consumed in the classroom. The social-distanced cafeteria will, by necessity, be a mostly quiet space.”

Other tasks, such as cleaning and hand-washing, also will be time-consuming and disruptive, but they’re precautionary measures Morgan said must be undertaken.

“As much as we all wish returning to in-person instruction would allow us to engage with our students as we have always done, doing so is simply not possible,” she said. “The mode of instruction is not the issue we must solve. The realities of the virus and the continued high rates of transmission in our communities dictate that we must err on the side of caution and safety. While we all can agree that virtual instruction is not optimal, unusual times call for unusual measures that include sacrifice on everyone’s part.

“Working together to ensure that everyone is first and foremost safe and healthy will allow us to then work together to ensure everyone recovers academically, socially, and emotionally.”

You can read her full commentary by clicking here.

Cobb schools named by Forbes among ‘best-in-state’ employers

August 26, 2020 7:40 AM by Wendy Parker

Submitted information:

On August 24, 2020, Forbes announced that the Cobb County School District was being recognized as one of America’s “Best-in-State Employers.” Cobb Schools has been on the list both years since Forbes began the award in conjunction with Statista in 2019.

“We know teachers are the most important part of any student’s experience and this is another confirmation that we are putting our Team first, ” said Superintendent Chris Ragsdale. “Our motto of ‘One Team, One Goal, Student Success,’ is only possible when our employees actually believe it and get the support they need to achieve it. We are grateful for the back-to-back recognition because it shows that we are keeping the main thing, the main thing.”

Cobb Schools moved up one position from 2019—from #23 to #22 in the state. It is one of only two school districts to make the Top 25 in Georgia and landed ahead of notable Georgia companies such as The Home Depot, UPS, and Coca-Cola.

Forbes and Statista select Best-In-State Employers based on an independent survey of more than 80,000 working for companies of at least 500 employees. The surveys are administered using a series of online panels and provide a representative sample of the U.S. workforce.

Global Zoom outage affects start of 2nd week of Cobb schools

August 24, 2020 10:06 AM by Wendy Parker

It”s already been a manic Monday for Cobb school students, teachers and parents and many others globally.

Zoom, the video teleconferencing platform that’s become heavily relied-upon during the COVID-19 pandemic, has crashed around the world.

We got a text from a Cobb schools parent shortly after 8 a.m. saying the Cobb Teaching and Learning System, the district’s instructional portal, was down.

The district said around 9:30 a.m. that CTLS is operational, but that since 8:10 a.m., “Zoom has been experiencing a worldwide outage. The problem is being worked on, District staff is in direct contact with Zoom executives, and currently, there is no timetable for its return. We will update our community via social media and email as soon as the situation is resolved.”

Zoom is how student attendance is marked and virtual class participation is conducted. The parent who texted us said Microsoft Teams is being utilized as a backup. The district said that alternative had some issues and was down at times last week.

CTLS had some technical issues at times during the first week of all-online classes in Cobb last week.

The district also said to parents Monday morning that “your student’s workload is still accessible. Your teachers will be contacting you with more information shortly.”

Cobb schools has set up a technical support system for parents and teachers:

Parents can e-mail Parent.Support@cobbk12.org or call 770-426-3330 for assistance, while students can e-mail Student.Support@cobbk12.org.

Wheeler HS graduate creates petition to keep school name

August 22, 2020 1:11 PMAugust 22, 2020 9:53 AM by Wendy Parker

Wheeler grad video — *Once a nearly all-white school, Wheeler has one of the most diverse student bodies in the Cobb County School District, as exemplified by its Class of 2020.*

After an online petition was started this summer to change the name of Wheeler High School, a graduate of the East Cobb school has started one of her own to keep the name as it is.

Connie Behensky, who attended Wheeler with her four siblings, recently started what she calls “Don’t let them take the name away of our beloved high school,” and it has generated more than 200 signatures.

“We have great memories of our friends and teachers and just the best years of my personal life. You have let them remove our statues you are not going to take this away from us,” she wrote in her introduction.”

Behensky’s effort comes two months after a group calling itself “Wildcats for Change” started a petition demanding that the Cobb County School District rename Wheeler.

The school on Holt Road is named after Joseph Wheeler, a former Confederate general who was readmitted to the U.S. Army after the Civil War and served in Congress. He is one of the few Confederate officers buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Wildcats for Change petition has more than 4,500 signatures, including that of Cobb Board of Education member Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters.

The group also has started a private Facebook group.

Those seeking to keep the Wheeler name discussed their memories on the new petition, including Mark M., who said he was part of the school’s first graduating class in 1967:

“Changing the name of the school will do nothing to change history. Leave it alone.”

Cathy M., a 1977 graduate:

“I am from the South. My parents are from the South. This is our heritage, Southern Heritage. Those who are demanding that anything southern (names, statues, locations, etc.) be changed and destroyed are bigots. Instead of standing strong against those that want to destroy the South, the politicians, stores, companies, professional sports organizations, manufactures and many more cave and bow down to these lunatics.”

Todd H.:

“The school was never about a singular person, of whom I never knew existed. It was about the memory of all the people who I went to school with. Don’t sully the memory.”

Leslie G., who graduated in 1969:

“Don’t punish us for what our ancestors did. People we never knew and whose views we don’t share. It was just Wheeler, my alma mater. I never even knew who he was until this ridiculous idea came up a few months ago. Please don’t invalidate the youth of so many of us.”

During a Cobb school board meeting Thursday, Davis said she had received correspondence from a descendant of Joseph Wheeler “who wanted me to know he had turned his life around.”

Her comments came during a discussion about creating a committee to examine school naming and renaming policies.

Board member David Morgan made the proposal after he noticed that there are no schools in the 112-school Cobb district that are named after minorities.

Morgan didn’t refer to Wheeler, or to a similar petition begun to change the name of Walton High School, but said he wanted to craft a policy to reflect the diversity of the Cobb school district.

According to the district’s own data, Cobb’s overall student body of nearly 112,000 students is 37 percent white, 30 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic and six percent Asian.

Wheeler was for many years a nearly all-white school, but is now one of the most diverse in the Cobb school district. Georgia Department of Education figures from March showed that Wheeler had 811 black students out of a total enrollment of 2,159.

Among the notable alumni of Wheeler is Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton, who is African-American and graduated in 1984.

The school board voted 4-3 to create a 10-member naming/renaming committee, and Davis said she wanted to serve. The panel will have three school board members, and each person on the seven-member school board will appoint a citizen from their posts.

Board member David Chastain, a Wheeler graduate who represents the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, voted against, saying he liked Morgan’s suggestion of a possible policy change but said “I don’t think we need to form a committee. . . . We do need to make this part of our consciousness as we move forward.”

Cobb school board member blasted for ‘China virus’ reference

August 23, 2020 12:38 PMAugust 21, 2020 11:33 AM by Wendy Parker

Cobb school board member China virus

Cobb Board of Education member David Banks is coming under fire for making a reference to COVID-19 as the “China virus” in his weekly e-mail newsletter.

Banks, a three-term Republican from East Cobb, sent out a newsletter on Tuesday listing recent retirees from the Cobb County School District, and led with this sentence:

“Since the China virus is still of concern, the CCSD Retiree ceremony was canceled this year. “

Not long after that, Julia Hurtado, a Democrat who is running against Banks in the Nov. 3 election, posted a message on a private Cobb schools Facebook page saying that “I am heartbroken for any of the Asian kids this man represents,” and encouraged anyone bothered by what he had written to go to her website.

Other social media messages have expressed similar sentiments, and East Cobb News heard from a constituent of Banks, parent Jonathan Chen, whose children attend school in Post 5, which includes the Lassiter and Pope clusters.

He said he’s lived in Post 5 since 2010 and hadn’t heard of Banks, and thought the reference was xenophobic.

“I feel it is critical that he be held accountable for his words, especially since he has been tasked with the education of our children,” Chen said.

Chen, a pulmonary doctor with the Wellstar Health System, said it’s not wise to name a virus or pathogen after the location where it was discovered because “has the effect of casting blame on the area as the source of disease which can lead to discrimination, isolation, and even violence.”

Chen said if such an outbreak were to have originated in Marietta, “fear now arises that all Marietta residents are infected so consequently, they are viewed with suspicion, fear, and even hatred by residents of surrounding communities.”

He added that “calling the SARS-coV2 virus the China virus blames China and Chinese people for the virus,” and that he refers to it as the Coronavirus.

East Cobb News has left a message with Banks seeking comment.

UPDATED:

At 9:15 a.m. Sunday, Banks e-mailed this reply to East Cobb News:

“I read your article.

“I received less than 100 negative emails concerning the ‘China virus’ and all but one came from Democrat voters. This is not a ‘blast.’ Several thousands would be a blast. These people are racists and you carried their water. Don’t be used to divide.”

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES:

During a Cobb school board work session Thursday, two of Banks’ colleagues referenced the incident without mentioning him by name.

The board was discussing an anti-racism resolution that ultimately failed in a 3-3 vote, with Banks voting present. He said that resolution was unnecessary and read language from district’s non-discrimination policy.

Board member Jaha Howard made a motion to amend the resolution to include an apology by any board member who had said anything racist or offensive. That amendment failed.

Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters, said before the vote that board colleagues have made slurs, and that “if we can’t condemn that as a board I don’t understand why we’re moving forward with this resolution.”

She and Howard were among the three black Democrats who voted against the resolution, saying it didn’t go far enough in condemning racism in the school district. Three votes in favor of the original resolution were the other white Republicans on the board.

It was the third time that the board attempted to come to a consensus on an anti-racism measure, following other local governments, including Cobb County, and metro Atlanta school districts.

Cobb school board buys land near Walton HS; adopts budget

August 24, 2020 11:57 AMAugust 20, 2020 6:29 PM by Wendy Parker

Walton sports complex land

The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday voted to purchase nearly four acres of land close to Walton High School for $2.65 million, adjacent to newly acquired land for a new softball and tennis complex.

After an executive session, the board voted 6-1 in two separate motions by Post 6 member Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters.

The properties include 3.5 acres at 1483 Pine Road for $2 million, and 1.2 acres at 3753 Providence Road for $650,000 (indicated by the blue stars on the map above).

At last month’s meeting, district officials announced the board’s intent to acquire the new parcels.

Those parcels are located next to 15.2 acres on Pine Road that the district purchased in November for $3 million (red star), after threatening the property owner, Thelma McClure, with eminent domain.

There’s a sign fronting that property on Bill Murdock Road, and across from the Walton campus, that it’s to be the future home of Walton varsity tennis and softball teams.

Their old facility is where the new Walton classroom is located, and the teams have been playing home competitions since 2014 at Terrell Mill Park.

Walton softball parents had been considering legal options under Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education.

The board didn’t discuss the additional land purchases at Thursday’s meeting. The only member to vote against was Jaha Howard of the Campbell and Osborne clusters.

Funding for the property acquisition comes from Cobb Education SPLOST V revenues. So will construction costs, but those have not been determined and there isn’t a timetable for that project.

The school board also voted 7-0 for a fiscal year 2021 budget of $1.3 billion. It includes using $31 million in reserves to close a $62 million deficit following state budget cuts in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

The budget maintains an existing property tax rate of 18.9 mills, includes step salary increases and there are no pay cuts or furlough days for employees.

The budget was amended to add $15 million in spending for COVID-related expenses.

For full budget details, click here.

Cobb superintendent not giving a date on classroom return

August 20, 2020 1:12 PM by Wendy Parker

Cobb school superintendent honored

Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday he does not have a specific timetable for the return to classroom learning for students in the Cobb County School District.

During a virtual Cobb Board of Education work session, he reiterated previous statements he’s made that public health metrics—and not political considerations—will determine when face-to-face instruction can begin taking place.

He was responding to questions from school board members, and said that while some of those COVID-19 indicators are declining, Cobb County still has too high of a community spread for schools to reopen safely to students and staff.

“I know people are asking for a date, and I am not going to give one,” Ragsdale said during the work session, which was being live-streamed via Zoom.

He said Cobb County’s COVID-19 case statistics and issues relating to contact tracing and efficient testing will be the key factors in a decision to let students return.

Cobb is the second-largest school district in Georgia with 112,000 students, and started in all-virtual format last week.

But he said Cobb is still in the “high community spread” category for the virus, averaging more than 300 confirmed cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.

While that figure has come down in recent weeks, public health officials have said that the threshold for high spread is 100 cases per 100,000. Ragsdale said his target for reopening would be in the 200 cases per 100,000 range.

Rasgdale cited figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that lists Georgia 5th nationwide among states with the most COVID-19 cases, now with more than 243,000.

That’s a distant fifth behind California, Florida, Texas and New York. Cobb’s cases per 100,000 figure is not among the highest in Georgia, but its total cases have surpassed 15,000 and the county has the second-highest death toll with 352, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Georgia’s cases spiked in July, and 60 percent of Cobb’s cases were reported in that month.

Of Cobb’s confirmed cases, a total of 1,614 have occurred among people ages 20 and under. Those numbers also have gone up dramatically since the summer began. At the start of July, that age group had 282 reported cases. By the start of August, that figure had grown to 1,078 cases.

*The number of daily COVID-19 cases in Cobb has declined since early July, but the county still is in the “high community spread” category. Source: Georgia DPH. For more data **click here**.*

Ragsdale said the district is juggling several sets of guidance at the state and local levels, and on Wednesday got new guidance from Georgia DPH that had some good measures and others he said “go down the path of not being able to open schools.”

Chief among them as far as Cobb schools are concerned, he said, is social distancing in the classrooms, something he said isn’t going to be possible.

He didn’t mention the subject of masks, something the district was going to encourage but not require, before Cobb schools switched to an online-only start to the school year.

When asked by board member Randy Scamihorn when the numbers would be good enough, Ragsdale said, “That’s the most difficult part of this situation. Nobody knows.”

He said he doesn’t want Cobb to get in a situation of some other metro Atlanta school districts, which opened in person and then shut down in part or altogether due to a rash of COVID-19 cases.

Ragsdale said that while the district’s protocols “are greatly improved, it’s still not where it needs to be.”

He said there will be “huge question over Labor Day” and the district’s regularly scheduled fall break to see where virus case numbers and trends are heading.

“If we can avoid a spike and keep that trend going down, we’ll be in Phase 1 sooner rather than later,” Ragsdale said.

Once a decision to return is made, K-5 and special education students will be the first to be able to come back, followed two weeks later by middle school students. Another two-week break would take place before high school students would return.

Younger and special ed students would return first, Ragsdale said, to accommodate those parents who need to get back to work.

For the first time in six months, since the COVID-19 outbreak began, the school board heard public comments before the work session.

That public comment session was not shown on the district’s livestream feed, but board chairman Brad Wheeler indicated it was being recorded and would be shown later.

More than a dozen people signed up to speak on the issue of classroom return, and there have been two rallies in recent weeks from parents demanding face-to-face instruction.

“Our situation is not what everyone wants,” Ragsdale said, pledging that Cobb schools would reopen for classroom instruction “as soon as it’s as safe as possible.”

Cobb school board member to discuss naming/renaming policy

August 19, 2020 5:34 PM by Wendy Parker

A member of the Cobb Board of Education is asking for a discussion on the Cobb County School District’s policy of naming and renaming schools and its other facilities.

David Morgan, Cobb Board of Education — *David Morgan*

David Morgan, who represents the Pebblebrook and South Cobb clusters, is scheduled to present that matter at the school board’s work session Thursday morning.

The virtual meeting begins at 10 a.m. and you can watch here or on Channel 24 on Comcast Cable.

The agenda for the work session and other meetings on Thursday can be seen here.

Morgan’s agenda item is called “Facility Naming Policy and Renaming of Some Schools” but doesn’t go into any detail. East Cobb News has left messages for Morgan seeking comment.

His agenda item comes a couple months after online petitions were started demanding name changes for Walton and Wheeler high schools in East Cobb.

The Walton and Wheeler renaming petition creators have said the namesakes of the schools were white supremacists. George Walton, one of Georgia’s signatories to the Declaration of Independence, was a Revolutionary War veteran, governor and senator.

Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate general during the Civil War, was later readmitted to the U.S. Army, served in Congress and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

East Cobb News contacted Charisse Davis, who represents Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters. She said because of the lack of details in the agenda item, she’s “not sure what Mr. Morgan will bring up.”

She forwarded a link to the school district’s naming policy and said that “members of the community have expressed concerns about the names of schools in Post 6, but also elsewhere in the county.”

She signed the Wheeler petition but has not said if she supports a Walton name change. The Walton petition, started by a student named Joseph Fisher, has more than 3,000 signatures.

Those behind the Wheeler petition (which has nearly 4,500 signatures) noted that the school opened in 1965, just as the Cobb County School District was preparing for integration.

Also during the work session, the school board will discuss an anti-racism resolution for the third time, after previous attempts to reach a consensus have fallen through.

The school board will hold a public forum on the proposed fiscal year 2021 budget at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, and final adoption is scheduled during a voting meeting to follow the work session and an executive session.

Cobb school board scheduled to adopt fiscal year 2021 budget

August 19, 2020 1:59 PMAugust 19, 2020 11:19 AM by Wendy Parker

Cobb schools FY 2021 budget

A final public forum on the proposed $1.13 billion fiscal year 2021 budget and final adoption are on the docket for the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday.

The meetings will be held virtually, as they have been since the COVID-19 crisis began in March.

A virtual budget public forum will begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday and you can watch by clicking here. There are instructions on that link for anyone who wishes to call in to comment and participate in the budget forum via Zoom.

The school board will hold a voting meeting after its 10 a.m. work session and an executive session. The agenda for the voting meeting includes an item for final budget adoption.

You can view the agendas for both public meetings on Thursday by clicking here. The board in July adopted a tentative budget, which is a formality before final adoption.

Although the Cobb County School District’s fiscal year began on July 1, a budget hasn’t been adopted due to delays in the legislature adopting the state budget. The Georgia General Assembly session was delayed because of COVID-19, and its final budget was passed in June.

Nearly half of Cobb County School District funding comes from the state, which is cutting that amount this year by $62 million.

To help close that gap, the district is proposing $31 million in reserve funds to help offset the state budget cuts. Cobb school funding under Georgia’s Quality Basic Education Act is expected to be $518 million.

The district’s proposed budget includes a step salary increase for all eligible staff members. (You can read through budget overview information here).

(More financials, including line-item details, can be found here in what’s called the budget popular report.)

Cobb school district launches virtual instruction portal

August 13, 2020 3:17 PM by Wendy Parker

With the Cobb County School District starting online-only on Monday, the district has been rolling out new components of its Cobb Teaching and Learning portal this summer.

On Thursday, the CTLS Learn vertical was launched, and that’s where virtual classroom instruction will take place. Students can see class assignments there, and additional learning resources will be provided, including textbooks, along with class communications and moderated class chats.

CTLS Learn enables students to access on-demand digital sessions, assessment and feedback information and messaging with teachers.

Here are more details about CTLS Learn, including login instructions and how it integrates with CTLS overall, and the CTLS Parent portal.

The CTLS Parent portal also includes mobile access; in addition to the iPhone app released late July, an app for Android users also is available.

Wheeler Academic Booster Club continues calculator donation drive

August 12, 2020 6:45 PMAugust 12, 2020 2:35 PM by Wendy Parker

The Wheeler Academic Booster Club has been asking for donations to procure 400 calculators for students with the start of a new school year next week.

Thus far the club reports they’ve nearly reached the halfway point of their goal, and that if “you are still inclined to help,” here’s what they’re looking for:

TI-36x Pro Calculators (New AND Used) can still be dropped off at Wheeler High School

Or Use Amazon Wish List Link:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/PSH64Y9TPIGU?ref_=wl_share
and order online

Calculators can be sent to:
Academic Booster Club
C/O WHEELER HIGH SCHOOL, 375 HOLT RD • MARIETTA, GA 30068

Cobb parents demanding classroom learning to hold 2nd rally

August 10, 2020 3:29 PMAugust 10, 2020 8:17 AM by Wendy Parker

With a new school year starting online in Cobb County next Monday, a group of parents pushing for classroom learning will hold another public rally on Saturday. Let Parents Choose

The group that calls itself Let Parents Choose will gather at the Marietta Square at 10 a.m. Saturday.

They’ve started an online petition drive and created a Facebook group and organized a a similar rally last month the drew several dozen people to the Cobb Civic Center.

They were upset when Cobb County School District superintendent Chris Ragsdale dropped an in-school option in July, citing a high community spread for COVID-19.

Let Parents Choose says that the relatively low COVID-19 case rate for school-aged children needs to be considered, but more importantly, the delivery of education to students, especially those at risk of dropping out, who have special needs.

All students, they say, are feeling the brunt of social isolation and many families were struggling with virtual learning that began in March, when the schools were closed.

Since the group’s first rally, Ragsdale has outlined plans for a return to classrooms but no dates for when that might be. He hasn’t responded to the Let Parents Choose concerns.

Last week, several school districts in Georgia began their school year, with COVID-19 cases prompting the quarantine of a class in Cherokee County. On Monday, North Paulding High School switched to online-only after nine positive COVID-19 cases were reported.

As Cobb teachers and staff reported for preplanning last week, around 100 cases of the virus among staff and students were acknowledged by Cobb and Douglas Public Health, dating back to July 1.

Cobb public health confirms 100 COVID cases in Cobb schools

August 7, 2020 2:30 PMAugust 6, 2020 7:10 PM by Wendy Parker

The Cobb County School District said late Thursday afternoon that “approximately 100” students and staff have what it terms “suspected” cases of COVID-19.

The district isn’t saying anything more, including a breakdown of those suspected cases between students and employees or identifying which schools may be affected.

Valerie Crow, a spokeswoman for Cobb and Douglas Public Health, said those suspected 100 cases have been confirmed as positive COVID-19 cases.

A Cobb school district spokeswoman sent a statement to East Cobb News saying that “to protect the medical rights of those involved, further detail will not be provided by the District. Questions involving confirmed cases should be directed to DPH.”

She did not respond to a question from East Cobb News about how many staffers are not at work as a result of having a suspected case of the virus.

Citing federal health privacy laws, Crow she said she could not disclose the exact breakdown numbers of students and staff who have tested positive, nor would she reveal the schools involved.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, a suspected COVID-19 case can be someone who has tested for the virus but has not yet received results. That definition also includes those who may have been exposed to someone with the virus and who may be in the process of being tested.

The Cobb school district statement said that “anytime a Cobb student or staff member reports a suspected case, DPH confirms (through testing), contact traces anyone else who may have been impacted, and provides guidance to each affected person. If a case is confirmed, their guidance recommends the person affected quarantine for 10 days and we strictly enforce their guidance.”

Cobb school teachers and staff reported to their schools last week for preplanning, ahead of an online-only start to the school year that begins Aug. 17. The case reporting dates back to July 1. Athletes in some sports have been participating in on-campus workouts. In June, there was a confirmed COVID-19 case within the Pope football team.

In announcing his decision to start virtually, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said last month that the level of “community spread” of the virus in Cobb County remains too high to safely begin in the schools.

One of the metrics that’s being followed is confirmed cases per 100,000, with anything more than 100 cases per 100,000 considered high community spread. As of Thursday, Cobb’s figure is around 1,609 cases per 100,000 population; however, that figure has dropped to 373 cases per 100,000 in the last two weeks.

Cobb County has a population of around 760,000. As of Thursday afternoon, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported that there have been 12,718 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Cobb County, with 2,950 in the last two weeks alone.

A total of 313 deaths have been reported in Cobb since the outbreak began in March.

Crow said that when an individual is tested for the virus, they are asked for employment and school information, although it’s not required.

She said that “many of these cases were reported to CDPH BY the school system because the case informs the school before public health even has the lab report by the provider.”

Crow added that “we speak to the school nurses nearly daily, they know of these cases very quickly after we do, and many times they are the ones reporting cases to us.”

On Tuesday, Ragsdale outlined plans for a return to classroom instruction but didn’t give any dates, saying that would be determined by analyzing public health data, including relating to community spread.

Once classroom learning begins, the plans call for K-5th grade students to return first, followed by middle school and then high school students in a phased approach.

Gwinnett, the largest school district in Georgia, starts online-only Aug. 12. Earlier this week, it was reported that 260 staffers have tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone who’s been infected and are not at work.

Other school districts opened in metro Atlanta this week, including Cherokee County, where confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in four schools.

Cherokee and Paulding opened for classes Monday with both in-school and remote learning options. Marietta City Schools also started Monday, but online-only.

Cobb, Gwinnett, Atlanta and Fulton are among the districts in metro Atlanta starting online-only.

Lassiter HS vandalism suspects sought by Cobb schools police

August 7, 2020 12:39 PMAugust 6, 2020 6:55 PM by Wendy Parker

Lassiter HS vandalism suspects

The campus at Lassiter High School was vandalized late Wednesday, and Cobb County School District police are seeking the public’s help in finding two while males suspected in the incident.

Grainy surveillance photos of the suspects have been released, and they are wearing long-sleeve sweatshirts (one with UnderArmour insignia) with hoodies and long sweat pants.

One of the young males is wearing a white face mask and yellow running shoes, and the other has a dark face mask with white running shoes.

The suspects parked a vehicle in the band parking lot around 10:30 p.m. and left the school around 11:30 p.m., according to Cobb schools police, who said their surveillance cameras couldn’t make out the make or model of the vehicle.

Officer Jerry Quan, Lassiter’s resource officer, said the letter “A” with a circle around it was scrawled with spray-paint on a wall, which is a symbol for anarchists.

Quan said he doesn’t think they’re anarchists but likely are students and that this isn’t a major incident.

But you’re asked that if you saw anything or know anything, to contact him at jerry.quan@cobbk12.org or 678-494-7863, extension 007.

Mabry teacher named Cobb middle school teacher of the year

August 6, 2020 4:06 PM by Wendy Parker

Cobb middle school teacher of the year, Michelle Gottenberg, Mabry Middle School

The Cobb County School District on Thursday named its school-level teachers of the year, and they include Michelle Gottenberg of Mabry Middle School.

She’s the district’s Middle School teacher of the year, and was surprised by the honor last week as teachers returned for a new school year:

“I can’t believe it! This is surreal! It will take me some time to process this. What an incredible honor!”

Gottenberg has taught 7th grade English and language arts at Mabry for seven years, and has been in the district for 11 years. Here’s principal Jonathan Tanner

“She has an ability to genuinely connect with students. Her dedication and drive to support the academic progress of her students and her innovative, creative lessons truly engage and inspire her students to achieve at higher levels. She is an amazing asset for our school!”

The district named Darline Douangvilay of City View Elementary School the elementary school teacher of the year and Beth Foster of Osborne High School as the high school teacher of the year.

One of those three will be named the district’s overall teacher of the year later in the fall.

In 2018, the Cobb teacher of the year was Fred Veeder, a 7th grade math teacher at Dodgen Middle School.

Last year, Lassiter English teacher Hilary Minich was named the Cobb high school teacher of the year.

Michelle Gottenberg, Mabry Middle School, Cobb teacher of the year

Cobb schools announce classroom reopening plans but no dates

August 5, 2020 2:02 PMAugust 4, 2020 6:35 PM by Wendy Parker

Cobb school superintendent honored

Late Tuesday afternoon the Cobb County School District released what it calls a “phased model” outlining the steps for reopening schools for classroom instruction.

What it doesn’t include are any dates.

According to information contained in the outline, those dates:

“Will be determined by analyzing public health data specific to Cobb County provided by the Department of Public Health and the Cobb/Douglas Board of Health including the level of community spread, effective contact tracing, and efficient COVID-19 test timelines. When we are able to safely offer a face-to-face classroom option and a remote classroom option, we will use the following phased model.”

Cobb schools classroom reopening plans

Here’s a link to what the district’s phases look like, and here’s a thumbnail synopsis below:

Phase One: All kindergarten through fifth-grade students for full-day instruction. ASP will resume for students in face-to-face classrooms. All kindergarten through twelfth-grade low incidence special education classes will have a face-to-face option starting in phase one.
Phase Two: All sixth through eighth-grade students for full-day instruction. Phase two will begin two weeks after the start date of phase one.
Phase Three: All ninth through twelfth-grade students for full-day instruction. Phase three will begin two weeks after the start date of phase two.

Before each phase, parents can choose to send their children back to schools or stay with online-only.

The district hasn’t said how social distancing guidelines might factor into those plans. Before a switch to online-only learning was made, district leaders said mask-wearing would be expected and recommended but not required.

Other metro Atlanta school districts have begun announcing how and when they’ll reopen their schools, including Fulton County and Gwinnett County, which on Tuesday also outlined steps and included targeted dates.

Gwinnett, the largest school district in Georgia, starts online-only Aug. 12, a few days earlier than Cobb, and then adds several grade levels a week, as well as special-education tiers, on Aug. 26, Sept. 2, and Sept. 9.

What Gwinnett schools haven’t acknowledged, but that was reported on Monday, is that 260 staffers have tested positive for COVID-19 or who have been exposed to someone who’s been infected and are not at work.

Gwinnett teachers and staff, like those in Cobb, reported for preplanning activities last week.

Gwinnett has the second-highest number of virus cases in Georgia, with 18,201 as of Tuesday. Cobb is fourth with 12,135.

Last month, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale cited community spread and rising case numbers of COVID-19 for starting the school year online-only.

One of the metrics Ragsdale is looking at is the number of COVID cases per 100,000 population, with anything more than 100 considered “significant community spread.”

Cobb’s population is more than 760,000.

After a sharp increase in July in Cobb, that figure is 1,535 cases per 100,000, but it’s dropped to 361 per 100,000 over the last two weeks.

Gwinnett’s figures are 1,835 per 100,000 and 418 per 100,000 over the last two weeks. The population is 970,000.

Cobb schools releases CTLS Parent app on iPhone and iPad

July 31, 2020 5:20 PMJuly 31, 2020 11:41 AM by Wendy Parker

With online-only classes beginning on Aug. 17, the Cobb County School Disrict is rolling out more digital features to help students and parents.

The district has released a smartphone app called CTLS Parent—after the district’s Cobb Teaching and Learning online portal—enabling parents to use their mobile devices to get the same information and communications as they would on a desktop computer.

Parents will be able to access information using their ParentVue login details.

Those materials include learning content, grading, attendance, report cards and other academic features and more are coming.

For now, it’s available for those with an iPhone or an iPad. The district says it’s applied to make CTLS Parent available to Android users vis Google Play, but is waiting for Google’s approval.

Earlier this week, Cobb schools released some sample class schedules at all levels.

Here’s more from the district on the CTLS Parent app, and a video run-through of the features:

The one-stop-shop features of the CTLS platform also provides multiple ways to stay connected with schools and teachers. Parents will have the option to message their student’s teachers and track messages from their school. Parents will no longer have to hunt through their emails to find a message from their child’s school. All the messages will be saved in a centralized location on the app.

The same goes for Districtwide messages and alerts. Parents will also be able to set up push notifications, select language preferences, and indicate the frequency in which they would like to receive messages.

Parents will also be able to access a directory of teachers and important contact information for the school in one location. They’ll even have the option to add the contact numbers from the directory to their phone contacts, so they easily know who is calling them.

Elsewhere in the app, the parents will be able to access over 700,000 vetted and aligned educational resources. The Resource Library will help families stay engaged in their child’s learning at home.

Other app features include student schedule, grade book, report card, mass notifications, calendars, conferences automated attendance, lunch balance notifications, polls, school signups, and more.

The student schedule section will not only provide a list of student classes, but also a list of standards for each class and grade level. This will help parents stay informed of expected academic progress.

Cobb schools to provide weekly prepaid student meal pickups

July 29, 2020 6:00 PM by Wendy Parker

After several months of working with MUST Ministries to distribute food to students in need, the Cobb County School District said Wednesday it will continue to provide student breakfasts and lunches as a new school year begins.

Starting the first day of school on Aug. 17, parents will be able to pick up a week’s worth of prepaid meal kits. The kits will have items that can be reheated, and will come with instructions and a menu.

Those breakfasts and lunches will be available to any student in the district, and food distribution will take place each Monday from 4-6 p.m. for those families who have signed up online.

In order to do that, visit the district’s MyPaymentsPlus Page, which will be open every Tuesday starting on Aug. 11 to process orders. The deadline to purchase meals for the following week is Thursdays at 12 p.m.

The district is saying local schools will not be involved in this process at all, and that all orders must be made online.

Here’s the pricing for the meal kits, which include five breakfasts and five lunches per student, based on the program each student qualifies for:

Free = No charge for weekly meal kit
Reduced-Priced = $3.67 per week
Paid = $23.99 per week

If you’re a family that hasn’t applied for free and reduced-price benefits you need to click here to get more information.

To sign up for MyPaymentsPlus click here to create an account, which is free and is available on a desktop or mobile app.

Parents can choose during the ordering process the location they want to pick up the food, and they can designate one school if they have children attending different schools. Students do not have to be present for the distribution.

At the pickup locations you’ll have to provide confirmation information and their child’s student ID number. The food will be placed by Cobb schools food staffers in the trunk or backseat of a vehicle.

Cobb schools said family dinner pick-up options may be coming soon.

For information e-mail meals@cobbk12.org or call 770-426-3380.

Cobb schools release sample schedules for remote learning

July 30, 2020 1:15 PMJuly 29, 2020 11:17 AM by Wendy Parker

Cobb schools sample schedule

As Cobb County School District teachers and staff reported for preplanning this week, the district also has sent out sample class schedules at all levels for the online-only start.

The district released the samples at its Cobb Learning Everywhere portal, which also includes sample schedules for Spanish-language instruction and for special education students.

Classes begin on Aug. 17, and unlike the end of the last school year, full school days with grading will be taking place.

Classes will take place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and Wednesday is an instructional support day. That allows students to catch up on classwork, teachers to do planning and for smaller student-teacher group interactions to take place.

Cobb schools sample schedule

At the middle school and high school levels, the samples are headed by what are called “instructional expectations” that detail learning sessions by subject matter, group instruction and factor in independent work sessions and breaks.

At the elementary school level, there’s a mid-morning “brain break” but not a lunch break. Formal classes on the four instructional days will end at noon, with student independent work sessions going from 12 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

In middle schools, the school day on the four instructional days will last from 9:30 a.m. to 4:05 p.m., with multiple breaks. The mornings are set aside for student independent work.

High school students will have either a block or traditional schedules, with breaks, including 40 minutes for lunch. Formal classes would go from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., with student independent work wrapping up the day until 3:30 p.m.

Cobb schools sample schedule

More details on special education remote learning schedules can be found here. Those students also will be in classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday with Wednesday as a support day.

Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale initially was going to offer in-person and remote options, but announced July 16 the start of the school year would be online-only due to concerns about growing COVID-19 cases in Cobb County.

He said data and public health guidance indicated Cobb was in a “high community spread” for the virus. As of Tuesday there were more than 10,000 confirmed cases in the county and nearly 300 deaths, both among the highest in Georgia.

On Monday teachers and staff reported for three weeks of preplanning ahead the Aug. 17 start of classes. That’s a two-week day from the initially scheduled start of the school year.

A group of Cobb parents demanding face-to-face learning is rounding up signatures. More than 7,000 people have signed on online petition, upset that the choice for in-person classes was taken away.

“Many families require both parents working outside of the home,” the petition states.” Virtual learning is not conducive to this kind of family structure as neither parent would be available to provide instruction.”

The petitioners also cited domestic violence and the needs of already-disadvantaged students with food issues. They also said “we pay hefty taxes for the privilege of being in one of the best school districts in the state of Georgia” and say that parents “cannot provide the quality of instruction and education that the classroom setting does. It is truly detrimental to the children’s education experience and will set them back academically, emotionally, and mentally for the coming years.”

A Facebook group called Let Parents Choose, which has more than 1,700 members, is holding a rally at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Cobb Civic Center to push for in-person classes.

Ragsdale said he didn’t want to have to go online-only, and wants the district to go back to classroom learning at some point, but he didn’t indicated when that might be.

“The sooner we can get out of the high spread the sooner we can return to face-to-face,” he said at the July 16 Cobb school board meeting.

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