Tammy Andress, a longtime PTA leader in the Lassiter High School cluster, said she has thought about running for public office for a long time.
The current co-chair of the Lassiter PTSA also has held leadership positions at her daughters’ previous schools—including Davis Elementary School and Mabry Middle School.
Andress is one of two Democrats vying for the Post 5 seat on the Cobb Board of Education in the June 9 primary. Three Republicans are running, including incumbent David Banks.
She said she’s running now to address what she sees as one of the biggest challenges facing the Cobb County School District—meeting the individual needs of each student.
“There are many disparities in how those resources are distributed,” said Andress, a marketing specialist for the Zaxby’s Sandy Plains location who has two daughters who attend Lassiter.
Her oldest daughter, a Lassiter graduate, currently attends American University in Washington, D.C.
Andress also serves on the executive board of the East Cobb County Council for PTAs.
(Here’s Andress’ campaign website.)
Another major challenge, one that’s arisen since she announced her campaign, is how to address the loss of learning in the Cobb school district, which has been closed since mid-March due to COVID-19.
Since then, district officials have issued academic guidance regarding “distance learning” that calls for pass/fail grades being reported in grades K-8, and allows students to accept grades as of March 13 as final.
Andress doesn’t think much of those measures.
“The learning stopped,” she said. “Now you’re going to have some foundational learning that’s going to have to be done again next year.
“A lot of kids just stopped. There’s no incentive to learn from pass/fail.”
Those concerns dovetail into what Andress sees even in an area with plenty of wealth.
“We are very fortunate to be in Post 5,” Andress said of the district that includes the Lassiter and Pope clusters and has been represented for three terms by Banks.
“People come here for the schools, but some right next to us are struggling.”
The equity she’s referring to is resources for students with unique learning needs, especially in special education and those from different cultural and language backgrounds.
“We as a country need to do better for those students who are not in general education,” she said.
That’s part of her larger platform of increasing transparency in the district and empowering stakeholders, especially parents of children with those learning challenges.
One of her priorities would be to push for a Chief Resource Officer to provide more equitable distribution of funds across the district, which has an enrollment of 112,000 students.
It’s similar to what two current Democrats on the board—including Charisse Davis of the Walton and Wheeler clusters—have proposed, in calling for an equity officer.
Andress’ other priorities include providing dedicated teacher planning time and creating a College and Career Academy in East Cobb. She also would like to see more “social-emotional” counselors for students, especially below the high school level.
Although she’s a Democrat—she calls herself a moderate—Andress said she’s been disappointed with some of the partisan wrangling on the board in the last couple years. She said it’s caused “tension that has created a barrier to improving education. The bickering is getting in the way of the work that needs to be done.”
Andress said she would take a non-partisan approach, and thinks the board’s Republican majority did a disservice by eliminating board member comments during public meetings last year.
Another issue that has flared up on the board is over the Cobb schools’ senior tax exemption. Davis had called for a study to examine possible ways to close loopholes, but that request was rejected by the four Republicans on the school board.
Andress said she was shocked that was voted down.
“These are issues that should be explored and that information should be put out to the public,” she said. “What’s wrong with more information?”
Andess said she doesn’t favor completely eliminating the exemption—that would require action from the legislature. But she says it’s not right that seniors 65 and older can move into the county now, even in very expensive homes, lured by the exemption.
“There should be something that you should have to pay,” she said.
The bigger concern, she said, is that she thinks Cobb schools don’t get equitable state funding under the current Quality Basic Education formula.
Andress said it’s hard to tell how exactly how much of a financial hit the Cobb school district will take because of the Coronavirus, both in terms of the operating budget that gets half of its funding from the state and SPLOST projects funded by a county sales tax.
She has advocated for more teachers and smaller class sizes and the need for the Cobb school district to better accommodate what she calls “the invisible child.”
But “we’re going to have a new normal now,” she said.
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