A total of 13 students from East Cobb schools got perfect scores of 36 on the American College Testing (ACT) exam as the Cobb County School District released 2019 SAT results on Wednesday.
Walton’s overall average on the ACT was 27.4, the best in the 16-high school district, followed by Lassiter with 26, Pope with 25.3 and Wheeler with 24.2.
Ten Walton students from the Class of 2019 got perfect scores on the ACT, as did four Wheeler students and one student each from Kell, Lassiter and Pope.
The ACT composite results are from curriculum-based tests in English, math, reading, and science. According to the CCSD, Cobb’s district-wide composite score of 23 is 1.6 higher than the statewide average and 2.3 points above the national average of 20.7.
CCSD said in a release that three schools had composite average gains of a point or more from 2018, and two were in East Cobb: Kell (1.7) and Lassiter (1.2).
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Wheeler Magnet is celebrating 20 years! Come join us on November 2nd to Party Like it’s 1999! Attendees can relive the achievements of the last 20 years and see where students will take us in the future through student showcases and tours!
The Center for Advanced Students at Wheeler High School, Wheeler Magnet, was created in 1999 to provide students with a strong background in Science, Math, and Technology. The magnet program is dynamic. Each year it grows and changes to best serve our students. We received Georgia STEM Certification in September 2012 and Georgia STEAM Certification in 2017. These prestigious certifications are awarded by the Georgia Department of Education to schools in Georgia who lead the way in STEM and STEAM education. Wheeler has become a model for schools across the state who are interested in starting and developing STEM and STEAM programs.
According to Chris Walstead, the magnet coordinator, “I look forward to celebrating the Wheeler Magnet 20th anniversary and am honored to be a part of the Wheeler Magnet legacy of excellence. Over the past twenty years the magnet program has changed with the times to meet the needs of our extraordinary students in order to prepare them for success after they have left our halls. I am very excited to see what the next twenty years brings.”
The 20th anniversary celebration will take place on November 2nd, from 2:00 to 5:00.
Attendees will enjoy a student led program along with food, music, tours of the facilities, and time to mingle. The celebration will be held in the Performing Arts Center at Wheeler High School (375 Holt Rd NE, Marietta, GA 30068). Click on the link below to RSVP to the event.
Join us in this memorable experience to get to better know your local community and speak with teachers and faculty! The committee leads for this event include Chris Walstead, Stacy Regitsky, Brian Kent, Cheryl Crooks, Tiffany Stark, Faye Lebish, Linda Yu, Tina Soucie, Paul Gillihan, Lisa Casey, and Kelly Feddersen.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
After a couple months’ delay, three East Cobb parks will be among 13 in the county that will be getting electronic license plate readers.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to spend $182,000 for the devices, which are designed to help cut down on crime and improve public safety at the parks.
East Cobb Park, Fullers Park and Terrell Mill Park are on the list for getting the readers, which are being purchased from a private vendor and will monitored by the Cobb Police Department.
The measure was tabled in August at the behest of East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who said he had privacy concerns with the proposal.
The revised request includes a provision that only police will receive the data coming from the devices, and that they will employ their existing policies about restricting use of the data.
No other county employees will have access to that information.
South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid thanked Ott “for letting us digest” the need to address privacy concerns.
“This was a sensitive issue,” said Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, who thanked the police and parks and recreation staff for working out a solution.
Cobb will purchase a total of 26 devices from Flock Group, Inc., which has sold cameras to the county for use by other departments. The funding for the park devices is in the 2016 Cobb SPLOST.
The solar-powered readers at the parks will collect data that includes time of arrival and departure as well as license plate and vehicle characteristics.
Two devices will be installed at each of the 13 parks, which Cobb Parks and Recreation Director Jimmy Gisi said were chosen “based on experience and data obtained from the police department records of the number and type of citizen requested dispatch calls.”
The other parks include Noonday Park and Skip Wells Park in Northeast Cobb; Lost Mountain Park, Oregon Park and Fair Oaks Park in West and North Cobb; and Wallace Park, Hurt Road Park, Tramore Park and Wild Horse Creek Park in South Cobb.
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Make your plans now for graduation, as the Cobb County School District on Monday released its 2020 commencement schedule.
As has been the case in recent years, five of the six high schools in East Cobb will have commencement exercises at the KSU Convocation Center, on the Kennesaw State University campus.
Wheeler’s graduation will be on campus, at Wildcat Arena.
Tuesday, May 19
Pope at KSU, 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 20
Sprayberry at KSU, 3:30 p.m.
Wheeler at Wildcat Arena, 6:30 p.m.
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Information and photos submitted by the Cobb County School District:
Before Lassiter High School welcomed its first class of students and more than three decades before East Cobb Middle School’s new campus was built, George Burcher began his career as a school custodian.
It’s a career that has spanned 40 years.
Burcher joined the Cobb Schools team in 1979 as a custodian at Wheeler High school. He also worked at East Cobb Middle School and was later part of the custodial team that opened Lassiter High School.
Continuing to serve the East Cobb community, Burcher moved to Sprayberry High School where he has been a member of the school community for more than 30 years.
“I love the high school competition and experiencing each day because it is a different day. I have enjoyed working with many principals as well,” Burcher explained.
The kids and the “great staff members”—that’s what has kept the dedicated custodian at Sprayberry for so many years.
Burcher is one of Sprayberry’s custodians who transform the school overnight. After about 1,800 students and educators spend the day teaching and learning, it’s Burcher and his team’s responsibility to ensure the school is clean, fresh and ready to welcome them all back again the very next morning.
When the school bell rings at the end of the day, the veteran custodian starts his job. Until midnight, he spends his hours cleaning rooms, restrooms, and riding the scrubber up and down the hallways. His nightshift crew also helps with sporting events when needed.
The Sprayberry custodian was a member of the Cobb Schools family before he signed on as a staff member. In fact, Burcher graduated from Walton High School in 1978.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and the Board of Education recognized Burcher in August for his years of service to Cobb Schools.
Even with 40 years in, he’s not retiring just yet. Burcher is like many members of the Cobb team who serve for decades in a job they love, in a community they love.
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Charisse Davis was elected in November 2018 to represent Post 6 on the Cobb Board of Education. A Democrat, she narrowly defeated two-term incumbent Republican Scott Sweeney to represent the Walton and Wheeler clusters, as well as a portion of the Campbell cluster, where her two sons attend school.
A former educator in the Atlanta and Fulton County public schools and currently a youth services librarian in the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library System, Davis was sworn in in January.
On Tuesday, Oct. 1, she’s holding a town hall meeting in the cafeteria of Sope Creek Elementary School (3320 Paper Mill Road) from 7-8 p.m.
In her first few months on the board, Davis has suggested, along with Jaha Howard, another first-year Democratic board member, that the district should explore the possibility of making some changes to the Cobb schools senior property tax exemption.
Cobb is the only school district in metro Atlanta whose senior tax exemption comes without any conditions, such as an income threshold.
Davis and Howard also have called for the district to create a cabinet-level position for equity and diversity in the wake of calls by some parents and school staff in the county for Cobb schools to address what they claim are unaddressed and systemic racial biases.
Both of those topics have caused friction on the school board, whose 6-1 Republican majority before Davis’ and Howard’s election was reduced to 4-3.
East Cobb News met with Davis before the school year began to discuss her first few months on the board.
There’s been a learning process that naturally comes with being a newcomer, but most of Post 6 is East Cobb. Davis said her 15-year teaching experience working in very different schools in Atlanta—one a Title I elementary school and another a high-achieving school in Buckhead with an international baccalaureate program—has been helpful as she’s gotten started.
“Just sitting with people, in the beginning it’s all about listening,” she said. “It’s parent to parent, there’s nothing that you can’t discuss in a constructive way. There’s no challenge that anyone in East Cobb is talking about that I can’t understand.”
More than anything, Davis said, “I want them to know there’s someone who’s easy for them to get to.”
Charisse Davis, at right, takes the oath of office with her husband Sean and sons and fellow board members Jaha Howard and David Chastain in January. (ECN photo)
Among the early school year events she’s attended include a gathering of principals and school leadership with the East Cobb County Council of PTAs.
She said what she’s learned from parents everywhere, regardless of a school’s academic reputation or a family’s socioeconomic status, is that they want the same things for their children.
“They’ll say, ‘I don’t want to have my kid in a good school in a district that’s so-so,'” she said. “They want all our schools to be great. We’re all connected. We all benefit from having a strong district.
“What I find is a lot of parents bring up that they want everyone in the district to be doing well. To talk about these issues should never be about pitting some people against others.”
She said one of the most pleasant surprises to her is “seeing how much can be done at the school level” and that a big part of her role as a school board member is facilitating connections between parents and the larger school community, as well as school staff and teachers.
“You hear from families whose experiences are unlike your own,” Davis said. “My job is to help them and connect them, sometimes it’s with people, and sometimes it’s with information.”
Davis said she thinks last year’s election results in Cobb, which included Democrats making other inroads in the county (including Lucy McBath winning the 6th Congressional District) have sparked some broader conversations about local governance, as Cobb political and cultural demographics continue to change.
The Cobb school district enrollment of nearly 112,000 for the current 2019-20 year is 37 percent white, 30 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic, six percent Asian and four percent multi-racial.
“It’s encouraging to see so many more people being engaged,” Davis said. “It’s not just for a presidential election. People are waking up to the fact that these things have been happening, and that there are so many elections that are happening right down the street.”
Touching the senior third rail
At her first meeting in January, Davis was nominated to be the board’s vice chairwoman in what turned out to a series of party-line votes. That vote failed, as Republicans David Chastain (of Post 4 in northeast Cobb) and Brad Wheeler were chosen to be the board’s officers.
“On a seven-member board, we are three votes, Democrats, people of color, younger,” Davis said. “We have a nice little balance that is getting more representative of the county. It would show the great strength of our board to acknowledge that.”
She and Howard, a pediatric dentist who represents the Campbell and Osborne clusters, have spoken together about some issues that have ruffled feathers.
The senior tax exemption, enacted in Cobb by the Georgia legislature in 1973, comes to more than $100 million a year. Davis mapped out the disparities on her own website, illustrating senior tax exemption qualifiers in other metro Atlanta school districts.
At a school board retreat earlier this year, Davis asked that the district study the impact of possible changes to the exemption. She cited a recent change in the senior exemption for Forsyth County schools, where “they had households with kids registered in schools, but were taking the exemption.”
That exemption, in a heavily Republican county, amounted to around a half-million dollars a year. That may seem like small change in Cobb, Georgia’s second-largest school district (behind Gwinnett) and a $1.1 billion budget. The Republican majority on the Cobb board voted down her request for a study to see what such a change might mean in Cobb.
At an East Cobb business breakfast meeting in April, Chastain said adamantly that “we’re not taking away the senior exemption.”
“No one called for getting rid of it. People start with that, and then they’re not listening to anything else,” Davis said. “That’s been frustrating because people have gotten upset, but I don’t think we should get rid of it.”
Davis added that right now, “we don’t have any qualifiers [for exemptions]. Let’s think into the future, let’s plan for the future, because that $100-plus million dollars that we have now, it’s only going to grow.”
“We’re not going to agree all the time, and that’s okay,” Charise Davis said about Cobb school board deliberations. “That’s always been my point. Let’s have the discussion.” (ECN file photo)
Charges of bigotry
In late August, Davis appeared at a Cobb Donuts for Democrats event at which she explained school funding, board procedures and other issues with a Powerpoint presentation.
After showing a slide of a group shot of the board, someone asked if the four Republicans were older white males. Davis said that they were. The Marietta Daily Journal made note in its “Around Town” political column, including a fiery e-mail from Republican State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb, who accused Davis of being “the most bigoted board member ever to sit on the Cobb Board of Education.”
In a response on her Facebook page, Davis explained that she was simply pointing out factual information about the board’s makeup, not making a comment about it.
“I understand that our political environment is highly charged, and it may feel good to attack a school board member for a perceived slight,” she said. “But I know I’m here for kids and I welcome you to engage with me about your ideas on how to support the students of Cobb County.”
She also included a photo of her with her husband Sean, who is white.
The proposal came about for what Chastain said had become overly political comments, sometimes not even about school matters.
At the August board meeting, Howard mentioned President Trump and state and local elected officials whom he accused of not being ethical, as well as immigration raids, the Sterigenics lab closure and gun violence.
That the vote to ban comments was taken during the work session and not a business meeting was unusual, and it sparked cries from Howard—the likely target of the ban—and Davis that they were being silenced, including about some school issues.
“When a couple of us get here and bring up words like ‘equity,’ we’re censoring,” Davis said at the Sept. 19 meeting. “You want to censor members on the board agenda. That’s not okay.”
After several failed amendments by Howard and David Morgan of South Cobb, also a Democrat, the board voted 4-3 along party lines, with the four Republicans in the majority, to impose the comments ban.
‘Let’s have the discussion’
Davis has said from the time of her campaign last year that while test scores in Cobb continue to rise (especially in East Cobb), she wants to address the lingering question of “are we meeting the needs of all our students?”
She said she was encouraged that parents have come to her “after seeing something mentioned on social media and I welcome those conversations that because conversations happen on social media.
“But it would be a shame,” she added, if parents “don’t think they can come” and have offline, one-on-one discussions.
She also commended Superintendent Chris Ragsdale, “who has always been very open about having our questions answered,” and as she has learned more about how Cobb’s largest employer operates (with a work force of more than 18,000), her appreciation for what they do also has grown.
“We’ve got some great, talented people working for this district,” she said.
After a few months on the board, Davis said she’s encouraged that some dialogue she’s felt is long overdue beginning to take place.
“We’re not going to agree all the time, and that’s okay,” Davis said. “That’s always been my point. Let’s have the discussion.”
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Tritt and Sope Creek elementary schools in East Cobb were named 2019 National Blue Ribbon Schools Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education.
The honor is awarded to public and private schools around the country “based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.”
There were 312 public schools and 50 private schools to make the list in 2019.
Tritt and Sope Creek were the only two schools from the Cobb County School District to earn the distinction this year. Tritt previously was named a Blue Ribbon School in 2013 and Sope Creek in 1988.
Since 1982 the Blue Ribbon awards have been given out to more than 9,000 schools. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Education notes:
“The National Blue Ribbon School award affirms the hard work of students, educators, families, and communities in creating safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging content. The National Blue Ribbon School flag gracing an entry or flying overhead is a widely recognized symbol of exemplary teaching and learning.”
Tritt and Sope Creek have been among the highest-performing elementary schools in Cobb, according to most recent testing results. In last year’s College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores, Sope Creek’s overall score of 92.2 was third in the county, while Tritt students rated at 84.7, or seventh (previous ECN story here).
The CCRPI is a state accountability measure that gauges overall achievement results and how schools are preparing students for the next level of education. The 2019 CCRPI scores will be released next month.
Tritt also rated in the Top 10 in the Cobb school district on the most recent Georgia Milestones assessment where 97 percent of students scored levels 2-4.
They’re the latest East Cobb public schools to be added to the list of Blue Ribbon Schools. Dickerson and Dodgen middle schools were the last, in 2017.
The Cobb County School District said in a release that at Sope Creek:
” . . . teachers and staff use the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process to ensure that every student reaches their highest potential. Sope Creek students are some of the highest performing in Georgia partially because of the supporting partnership with parents and the community.”
“Tritt partners with local businesses for volunteer support, funding for special events, and STEAM partnerships. Each grade level works to build a partnership with a local business to solve a problem that connects to their grade level science standards. This becomes the year-long STEAM focus.”
Tritt and Sope Creek also were honored as “Exemplary High Performing Schools,” which goes to schools that “are among their state’s highest performing schools as measured by state assessments or nationally normed tests.”
Both schools have STEM programs, and Tritt is undertaking measures to expand its STEM certification to include the arts, called STEAM, which only one other Cobb elementary school has earned (as well as Wheeler High School).
Here’s a longer roster of all the Blue Ribbon School winners from East Cobb:
2016: Mt. Bethel Elementary School;
2013: Tritt Elementary School;
2011: Timber Ridge Elementary School;
2009: Hightower Trail Middle School;
2008: Mabry Middle School;
2007: Walton High School;
2003: Dickerson Middle School;
2001: Shallowford Falls Elementary School;
2000: Lassiter High School;
1996: Sprayberry High School;
1994: Eastvalley Elementary School;
1992: McCleskey Middle School;
1990: East Cobb Middle School;
1988: Murdock Elementary School; Sope Creek Elementary School;
1986: Mt. Bethel Elementary School;
1984: Walton High School.
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Wheeler High School had the biggest jump in the Cobb County School District in 2019 SAT scores. (ECN photo)
The Cobb County School District released 2019 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores on Tuesday, and four East Cobb high schools lead the way.
Walton (1,288), Pope (1,220) and Lassiter (1,212) had average classwide scores exceeding 1,200, while Wheeler (1,196) came close.
Wheeler’s jump of 49 points was the highest of the 16 high schools in the Cobb County School District.
“Wheeler continues to focus on providing the best overall learning experience for ALL students,” Wheeler Principal Paul Gillihan said in a statement issued by the school district.
“We strongly believe that SAT scores do not define our students nor our school but only provide evidence of the work that is being done daily to prepare our students for college and careers.”
Walton’s score is up 20 points from 2018. Full district scores and details can be found here.
The SAT is administered by the College Board, and tests students in two cluster subject areas: Math and ERW (Evidence-Based Reading and Writing). The score grading is from 400 to 1,600.
The Cobb district-wide average was 1,114, a seven-point gain from 2018 and 66 points above the state of Georgia average. Nearly 5,600 Cobb students took the SAT.
What follows below are the six East Cobb high school scores, as well as the Cobb, Georgia and national results.
# Test Takers
ERW Mean
Math Mean
2019 Overall Mean
2018 Overall Mean
Kell
256
541
531
1,072
1,059
Lassiter
447
606
605
1,212
1,204
Pope
360
615
605
1,220
1,203
Sprayberry
281
539
505
1,044
1,049
Walton
563
640
649
1,288
1,262
Wheeler
333
597
598
1,196
1,147
Cobb
5,596
565
549
1,114
1,107
Georgia
533
515
1,048
1,064
National
524
515
1,039
1,068
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A flyer the Eastvalley Elementary Advocacy Alliance has been circulating about the trailers.
For a few weeks parents of students at Eastvalley Elementary School have been organizing to protest what they call “deplorable” conditions at the 13 trailers located there.
On Thursday, they formally took their complaints to the Cobb Board of Education.
Five parents spoke during the public comment session, urging the board to provide newer trailers while Eastvalley awaits a new campus.
“We are maxed out to the point where we have lost our supplemental computer lab and we’re at risk for losing our foundation-funded supplemental science teacher because he no longer has a trailer,” said Cristine Morris, a mother of two Eastvalley students and the president of the school foundation.
She said the school has experienced eight percent year-over-year enrollment growth in recent years, prompting the science teacher to vacate a trailer to make room for a traditional classroom.
“What is the timeline for building a new school?” Morris asked. “And what, if any, are the county’s plans for year-over-year growth in the meantime?
Board members didn’t respond (they rarely do during public comment sessions).
Eastvalley, located on Roswell Road, has an enrollment of more than 700 students in buildings designed for less than half that. The 13 trailers there house roughly a third of the present enrollment, and Morris said that figure is more than twice the number of trailers at other schools in the Cobb district.
Eastvalley is slated for a new campus on the former site of East Cobb Middle School on Holt Road in the new Cobb Ed-SPLOST V, but no construction timetable has been established.
The SPLOST sales tax collection period began in January and continues through the end of 2023.
The trailers in use at Eastvalley now are old, some more than 30 years, as parents pointed out to the school board.
Miranda Philbin, the mother of a third-grader whose classroom is a trailer, said she understands that continuing use of trailers is inevitable while a new school is planned.
But the trailers have “mold, rotting stairs and crumbling structures,” among other conditions. “They are cramped in a tiny space like sardines,” she said of the students in the trailers.
“Thirty-five percent of our students do not have access to 21st century technology,” said Mike Fung-A-Wing, the father of two Eastvalley students. Safety issues include teachers and students not being able to hear messages in the trailers because there’s no intercom access.
Parent Jason Templeton asked that the district provide another trailer for the science class that has been displaced, “although I’m not sure where we’d put it, given our space constraints. I don’t understand why we can’t be provided with newer, larger trailers.
“‘No capital improvements’ was the statement we were provided years ago, and we’ve waited patiently. But we’ve done so to the detriment of our students and our teachers,” Templeton said.
Russell Sauve, the father of an Eastvalley fifth grader, said “we want what is bragged about on the Cobb school website, that Cobb schools is the best place to teach, lead and learn. Thirty-five percent of our students are not in a secure place to teach and learn.
“You are putting 286 children in unsecure, moldy, physically unsafe trailers every day,” he said. “We need you to bring these trailers up to a safe and secure standard while we wait for a new building to be built.”
Eastvalley is one of three elementary schools to be rebuilt in the current SPLOST. Cobb school officials said the first of those priorities is at Harmony Leland in Mableton, where construction is currently underway.
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Cobb school board members will no longer offer comments at the end of business meetings. At the end of a long and contentious discussion Thursday, they voted themselves into silence.
The 4-3 vote along partisan lines came after more than 90 minutes of often heated debate, including interruptions, seven amendments and accusations of censorship.
The ban does not affect the public comment period held at the beginning of meetings, and that allows remarks from parents, students and others from addressing the board.
The board members’ comment period is typically uncontroversial, with elected officials speaking about school visits, rooting for prep sports teams and noting academic and extracurricular achievements.
Board chairman David Chastain, who represents the Kell and Sprayberry attendance zones, said he has become concerned over political and personal opinions being expressed by board members.
Chastain, part of the four-member Republican board majority, said he’s noticed in recent months that some of the comments have become too partisan, and some aren’t even about school matters at all.
There hasn’t been a board policy regarding comments.
David Morgan, one of three Democrats on the board, said a better solution would be for the board to craft a comments policy.
Charisse Davis
He proposed several amendments to that effect, but they were all defeated, most by the same 4-3 partisan split.
Chastain countered that having a policy would put the chair in an awkward position of having to judge the appropriateness of colleagues’ remarks.
“The chair is supposed to be chairing a meeting, and then becomes an arbiter,” Chastain said. “This chair does not want to be the scorekeeper.”
Charisse Davis, one of two first-year Democrats on the board, said the board didn’t have a problem when members talked about football games and mourning police officers slain in the line of duty.
“When a couple of us get here and bring up words like ‘equity,’ we’re censoring,” said Davis, who represents the Walton, Wheeler and part of the Campbell clusters. “You want to censor members on the board agenda. That’s not okay.”
During their comment time, Davis and Democrat Jaha Howard, the other newcomer, have on occasion discussed calls that the Cobb County School District hire a diversity officer.
A group calling itself Stronger Together also has been demanding cultural training in Cobb schools to address what it calls lingering racial concerns it claims the district isn’t handling well.
Jaha Howard
Howard pressed Chastain for examples of comments that crossed the line, but he didn’t offer any. Howard, who represents the Osborne and Campbell districts, also wanted the other Republicans to explain why they supported a comments ban.
None of them did, and Chastain said there are “all sorts of ways to talk about personal opinions” outside of a board meeting, including the use of the Internet and social media.
“This discussion is nothing but partisan,” Davis said at one point. “Right now, we’re not being heard.”
At last month’s board meeting, Howard made references during the board comment period to the year 1619, when the first slaves arrived in the American colonies from Africa, recent deadly mass shootings and immigration:
“Depending on where you live in Cobb County, you have neighbors and family members that have been a part of ICE raids where someone that you know may have been separated from their families. These kids are coming to our schools, and it would be a horrible mistake to have a disconnect of these realities from our schools.”
Howard also mentioned gun violence “in our own backyard” and cancer concerns stemming from the Sterigenics lab in Smyrna, near where he lives, that is closed for the time being.
“Yes, this is a school board meeting, but we exist in a context, and I’m just highlighting the context that we live in,” he said.
At the end of his remarks, Howard discussed what he called “hypocrisy” over praising leaders “who are anything but respectful, responsible and role models. Who’s going to call them out?
“I’m tired of it, so get used to hearing me calling it out,” he said.
Howard didn’t name names, but said that “we have significant ethical issues at the top of the political food chain with our commander-in-chief and many elected officials here in this county and this state. It needs to be called out.”
At Thursday’s work session, Howard defended what he insists is a need to discuss larger concerns beyond the schools.
“Guess what? Cobb is complicated, and we shouldn’t be running from this. This is cowardice.”
Chastain pushed back, saying “no sir. Public comment isn’t the place for that. That’s not censorship.”
Howard tried to get the board to delay imposing a ban so as not to “make a rushed decision.” His final amendment, somewhat sarcastic in tone, would have allowed for board members who were “good” to offer comments.
Chastain interrupted him, saying it was a “frivolous motion, and you’ve talked this thing to death.”
The motion to ban comments was passed 4-3, with the four Republicans (the others are David Banks of East Cobb, Randy Scamihorn and Brad Wheeler of West Cobb) voting in favor, and the three Democrats voting against.
The only amendment that passed was a measure by Howard to allow Superintendent Chris Ragsdale to offer comments.
Since the ban was effective immediately, only Ragsdale spoke at the end of a brief Thursday night board business meeting.
Among his remarks included thanking the Wheeler culinary arts students for what he said was an excellent pot pie meal for him and the board before the meeting.
“I can attest to that because I had two helpings myself,” Ragsdale said.
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Tritt secretary Suzanne Alea, at left, and Sprayberry clerk Beth Gibeaut at the Classified Employees of the Year luncheon. (CCSD photos)
Two staff members at East Cobb schools have been named among the Classified Employees of the Year by the Cobb County School District.
Suzanne Alea, a secretary at Tritt Elementary School, and Sprayberry High School clerk Beth Gibeaut were among those honored at a CCSD luncheon Tuesday at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta.
Alea was the overall Cobb schools recipient for elementary schools, while Gibeaut was similarly chosen at the high school level.
The other school-level recipient is Janice Frost, a paraprofessional at McClure Middle School. Sandra Oliver, a secretary in the school leadership department, was named the Central Office recipient.
Cobb schools honors non-teaching employees who include clerks, secretaries, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, custodians, librarians, cafeteria workers, bookkeepers, police officers and others.
Here’s what CCSD is sharing about the two East Cobb winners:
“The Elementary Level winner from Tritt Elementary School has served Cobb students, staff and parents for 13 years. Suzanne Alea is the ‘face’ of her school and is described as a source of patience and kindness.”
“The High School CEOTY, Beth Gibeaut, has transformed and improved the attendance office at Sprayberry High School. She’s described as having a positive influence on the entire school, and even in the most stressful situations, she communicates with grace and poise.”
The other classified employees of the year at East Cobb schools are as follows:
Sope Creek ES: Nancy Crenshaw, kindergarten parapro;
Timber Ridge ES: April Harris, visually impaired parapro;
Walton HS: Anilda Cook, scheduling clerk;
Wheeler HS:Robert Marbach, custodian.
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The food pantry at Brumby ES opened last November. (Special photo)
Parent Nicole Monge Mason is sending out word that the food pantry at Brumby Elementary School is in “dire” need of meat and milk, among other items, and that special hours are being set up for Monday donations.
That’s because the next shopping day for Brumby families in need is next Tuesday, Sept. 17. What the panty needs most are individually wrapped ground beef, turkey and chicken packages and gallon milk containers. Those donations can be dropped off at the school (815 Terrell Mill Road) Monday between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The pantry is open to families Tuesday from 12-2 and 4-6. Brumby is one of more than 30 schools in the Cobb County School District that has a pantry for students and their families.
Nicole says what’s critical about this shopping day is that it’s going to have to last through the fall break week from school (Sept. 21-27). Reduced-price breakfast and lunches won’t be served, so families will be loading up on extra food supplies. She writes in her message:
“The stresses and fears that we relate to on a daily basis PALES in comparison to what most families face on a daily basis when it comes to food insecurities and households in need.
“We have a unique opportunity to be apart of helping families and especially children NOT stress about where their next meal is coming from….at least for a few weeks and especially NOT during the fall break coming up.
“As a community we can be apart of the solution but overlooking the essential need that is right here looking us in the eye is only contributing to the problem…
More information about what’s needed at the Brumby pantry can be found at this online sign-up form.
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The following students at East Cobb high schools were among the more than 16,000 nationwide named semifinalists for the 2020 class of National Merit Scholarships this week.
They will continue competing for an estimated $31 million in total scholarship money that will be awarded in the spring of 2020. Here are the students, with more details at the end about the National Merit program:
Lassiter: Eleanor Froula; Claire Halloran; Joseph Kramer; Gabrielle Levitt; Anna Mitchell; Catherine Pereira; Paul Tegethoff;
Pope: Ada Burris, Sanjeet Harry, Andrew Myers, Yelizaveta Pivnik;
Sprayberry: Reilly S. Misra;
Walton: Chanwoo Bae, Jordan Bass, Alec Berger, Andrew Cameron, Daniel Catanese, Anjali Chareddy, Taylor Chiles, Sinead de Cleir, Judith Denning, Julia Dierker, Russell Emerine, Reagan Jacobson, Guy Kemelmakher, Aleem Lakdawala, Andrew Li, Viviana Lu, Nidhi Manikkoth, Kara McKinley, Rushil More, Russell Newton, Erik Pitts, Neeraj Raja, Anant Rajan, Pranav Rajbhandari, Aaron Rieck, Arvind Saligrama, Tara Shabazaz, Eric Simon, Bill Sun, Shiloh Thomas-Wilkinson, Qilin Tong, Ria Uppalapati, Akshin Vemana, Tharun Venkatesan, Madeline Zhang, Zaim Zibran;
Wheeler: Ann-Marie Abunyewa, Kruthik Alapati, Ava Autera, Charlie Bishop, Patrick Chen, Alessa Cullinan, Rose Jewel, Brian Kent, Emma Mason, Pranav Nedumpurath, Jeremy Payne, Morris Wan, Eric Yao.
Candidates are assessed based on their academic records, as well as participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received. According to the National Merit fact sheet:
“A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school offi cial, write an essay, and earn SATor ACTscores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.”
About 15,000 students are expected to advance to the finalist level, and will be notified in February. From that group the scholarship winners will be chosen.
Corporations, organizations in local communities and collages offer individual types of scholarships under the National Merit program, and there are state-representational scholarships as well.
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A proposal to establish a 25 mph school speed zone along a stretch of Terrell Mill Road is among numerous traffic-related changes to be considered Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
It’s part of an occasional update to establish school speed zones, make changes to road signs to match flashing signals and approve road areas for speed detection devices.
Brumby Elementary School and East Cobb Middle School relocated last year side-by-side campuses on Terrell Mill Road between Powers Ferry Road and Paper Mill Road.
Tuesday’s proposal would call for a 25 mph speed limit on Terrell Mill from a point 80 feet north of Timberstone Hollow Court (at the bottom point of the red line on the map) to 480 feet north of Greenwood Trail.
The speed zone limits would be in effect only during school days and during the following times, per Cobb DOT:
AM: From 45 minutes prior to commencement time to 15 minutes after commencement time;
PM: From 30 minutes prior to dismissal time to 30 minutes after dismissal time.
In addition, Cobb DOT is requesting to remove the former Brumby ES speed zone along Powers Ferry Road, and to remove a reference to East Cobb Middle School in the Holt Road school speed zone area that still includes Wheeler High School.
Mountain View Elementary School also relocated to a new site last year along Sandy Plains Road. Another proposal would move that 25 mph school speed zone further down on Sandy Plains from its old site near Shallowford Road.
The new school speed zone on Sandy Plains would stretch from 570 feet east of Davis Drive to 50 feet west of Berkshire Flat.
Another school-related proposal would create a school speed zone of 25 mph on Beaver Shop Road, from 240 feet east of Boyce Drive to Ebenezer Road, near Addison Elementary School.
A few other school-related updates to road speed signs are routine, and are being done to match current signs and new flashing beacons at the following locations:
Lower Roswell Road, from 300 feet west of Holt Road to 200 feet east of Rhodes Drive (Eastvalley ES);
Lower Roswell Road, from 80 feet east of Pioneer Trail to 100 feet west of Palmer Oaks Lane (Sedalia Park ES);
Pine Road, from 80 feet north of Bill Murdock Road to 225 feet south of Bill Murdock Road (Walton HS);
Trickum Road, from 40 feet north of Swanson Court to 0.30 miles north of Sandy Plains Road (Simpson MS).
You can read the proposed radar ordinance changes at this link.
The commissioners also will consider a number of requests to approve the use of speed detection devices on roads around the county.
Among them in East Cobb is on Roswell Road near East Side Elementary School, from 50 feet west of Mt. Bethel Road to 50 feet west of Montague Road. That’s a stretch of .29 miles, and the school speed zone there is 25 mph.
Another proposal would allow speed detection devices to be used along most of Roswell Road in East Cobb, from Greenbriar Parkway near the Loop to the Fulton County line. That’s 6.79 miles, and the current speed limit is 45 mph.
Here’s the full list of roads where detection devices are permitted, with the proposed changes in red.
And here’s more background from Cobb DOT, which mentions that commissioners last updated the list of roads in 2015. Before they can act, the county must get approval from Georgia DOT.
The proposed changes are on the consent agenda.
The full meeting agenda can be found here and the meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
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Story and photos submitted by the Cobb County School District:
“We get to build special things for special people.” According to a Blackwell Elementary School student, that is what makes the school’s robotics and coding club so great.
This year, the fifth graders in the club launched a community service project that reaches across the Atlantic Ocean, across the African continent and all the way to the country of Oman.
Blackwell students in the Robotics, Coding, and Community Service (RCC) club are using a 3D printer to build a prosthetic arm for an Oman student in need. The Blackwell club was recently certified to make prosthetic hands and arms for people in need. The Cobb school is the only elementary school in Georgia with the certification.
The international student and her parents recently visited Blackwell and met members of the RCC club along with some of her peers in first grade.
During the club meeting, the international visitor tested out some of the robotic hands that the club members had previously assembled. The club members later created a prosthetic arm-sized and tailored just for her.
Although 3D printing the parts only took a few days, the process also included taking special images of the Oman student’s arm, modifications, and a practice prosthetic to ensure the functionality supports her needs.
The Blackwell students partnered with the Enabling the Future to design the arm’s socket, which requires more technical engineering. After the test model was finished, the Oman student was able to try it on and give feedback for the final version.
“The arm fit well overall, and it was functional, but it was a little too long and the socket needed to be a bit deeper. She also decided that she wants the forearm to be brown in color to match the rest of the arm rather than the sports theme that we included,” explained Dr. Tom Brown, Blackwell STEM Lab teacher (in photo at right), and RCC Club advisor.
The Blackwell students plan to make the changes and send their new friend the robotic arm in the next few weeks. The goal is for her to use the student-built arm until she is ready to try one that is made by professional prosthetic doctors like the ones at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Helping the student from Oman wasn’t the Blackwell student’s first time building a prosthetic. Last school year, they constructed one for a fellow Blackwell student and club member.
The Blackwell Elementary fifth-grader was born without a left hand and forearm. The club printed and assembled an arm called the RIT arm, which is an adaptive device with an elbow but not a wrist.
“While it turned out pretty well, it wasn’t fully functional and didn’t fit her quite right. This summer, we worked on another type of arm for her called the Adjustowrap arm. We are hoping to have one printed and assembled for her soon,” the Blackwell RCC club advisor explained.
The Robotics, Coding, and Community Service Club started in 2018 as an opportunity for students to explore their interest in robotics and coding, while the skills can be used to serve the needs of the people in the community, and now even around the world.
As part of the club, the students have learned binary code, drag-and-drop programming and higher-order coding languages like Python. They have also coded robots like Spheros, Ozobots, Cozmo, and Alpha.
“We started by using our 3D printer to print out and assemble a couple of prosthetic hands,” Dr. Brown added.
Before helping the Oman student, the RCC club printed out six hands and worked in small groups to assemble them for practice.
Even with all that the club has accomplished in a year, it is just the beginning.
“We still have lots to learn about all of this,” Dr. Brown said.
What keeps the students going is knowing that they have the ability and technology to help other people including students just like them.
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Just a reminder if you’re out and about at lunchtime on Wednesday: Cobb schools are releasing early for a local professional learning day for teachers and staff. Here’s the schedule:
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Parents, students, and families are invited to learn more about Dual Enrollment opportunities and eligibility at the Cobb County School District Dual Enrollment Summit on September 4 at the Cobb Civic Center. Cobb Counselors will present informative sessions at 6:00-6:30 p.m. and 7:30-8:00 p.m.
Colleges and universities will also be available to talk about the programs at their schools, including Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State University, Chattahoochee Technical College, Georgia State University, Young Harris College, Georgia Highlands College, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Georgia Military College.
“Dual Enrollment not only provides an opportunity for eligible students to be challenged with the rigor of a college-level course, but it also cuts the cost and time after high school graduation in pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree,” said Cheryl Crooks, Cobb Schools Supervisor of Personalized Learning. “In addition, many students choose to build a career skill set in technology, business, computer science, public service, and healthcare while in high school. This increases opportunities for employment with high wages as they are completing their educational goals.”
Dual enrollment courses are held on college campuses, online, and even high school campuses, but they are all taught by college professors. Beyond core classes, students can explore a variety of career tracks. They also have the potential to earn certificates ranging from Cisco Network Specialist, Marketing Management, and Diesel Equipment Technology to Healthcare Assistant, Nursing Assistant, and Carpentry.
Some students may even earn an Associate degree or diploma, all while in high school. Participating universities in Georgia include the Technical College System of Georgia, University System of Georgia, and some eligible private colleges on GAfutures.org.
“The vast array of career and college courses available with the Georgia Dual Enrollment program is expanding and is one of the most exciting opportunities available for Cobb high school students,” added Crooks, who is helping organize the information session for parents.
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Text and photos submitted by the Cobb County School District:
Where were you two decades ago? Current Rocky Mount Elementary School students, of course, had not been born yet. Most of their parents were still in school themselves.
And yet, many things were still the same in 1999. Students collected Pokémon cards, the U.S. Women’s Soccer team were World Cup champions, and a Toy Story movie played in theaters.
Rocky Mount Elementary School also included some of the same dedicated educators that teach students today. That may have surprised some of the students who peered over their principal’s shoulder with excitement as she pulled out class books from a 20-year-old time capsule.
Principal Peggy Fleming recently opened Rocky Mount’s time capsule during the school’s back-to-school bash. Each class at the school in 1999 carefully selected their contributions for the box. It was a treasure of memories from the school’s then 20th birthday celebration, which included photos and even a nameplate of a former Rock Mount staff member.
The principal unrolled a scroll of student goals. One student set a goal to have better handwriting while others aimed to be the best soccer player or gymnast, to run fast, and to get a better education.
There was even a first-grade book dedicated to Beanie babies, a tribute to the stuffed animal craze of the 1990s. There was also a beanie baby snuggled inside.
The lunch container from the Roadrunner Café looked largely unfamiliar to the students who watched in awe as Principal Fleming revealed pieces of Rocky Mount’s history. The box even included canvas bags from the school’s PTA and a student handbook.
Some of the elementary students claimed to recognize the antiquated VHS tape Principal Fleming pulled from the capsule, but they had no difficulty identifying the Pokémon that was hidden in the two-decade-old history box.
Now that Rocky Mount has celebrated its 40th year, it’s time for the current students to make their own time capsule. What will they include this year and who will be watching as the box is opened two decades from now? Only time will tell.
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After threats of violence or lockdowns at three East Cobb high schools in the last two weeks, Cobb County School District officials are trying to reassure the public that they’re being as proactive as possible in responding to those threats.
All three of those incidents—at Sprayberry, Walton and Wheeler—ended peacefully, and suspects at all three schools, including two students, were taken into custody.
School officials communicated with parents with varying levels of detail.
The first two incidents—both last week, at Sprayberry and Walton—included a code yellow alert and a student arrest, respectively.
On Friday morning, a code red alert was issued at Wheeler, where a student was found with a weapon and was arrested.
“We’re being as proactive as any school district I know,” said John Floresta, chief strategy and accountability officer for Cobb schools. He spoke to East Cobb News Thursday, before Friday’s incident at Wheeler.
According to a school district statement Friday morning, “students made [the] Wheeler administration aware of a rumor of a current student who had made a threat to Wheeler’s campus.”
The school was placed on a Code Red lockdown—the highest stage of alert—while school district police and administrators investigated. A student found with a weapon—which was not specified—was taken into custody.
“Wheeler administration, staff, CCSD police, and District student-safety supports performed well,” the school district statement further stated.
In each of the previous incidents, Floresta said, “we’re batting 100 percent in the way each incident was handled,” from quick actions by school officials to apprehend those posing a threat, to relaying information to the school community.
At Sprayberry, a trespasser was stopped by school officials last Friday and was found to have a gun. He was arrested, and a code yellow alert was issued. That means the outside doors to school buildings were locked while classes and activities continued inside.
A 45-year-old man who lives nearby, Daniel Ryan Caudell, was charged with possession of a weapon and alcohol on a public school ground.
At Walton, alcohol also was a mitigating factor in another incident last week. Ty Holder, a 17-year-old student, was charged with battery for kicking an assistant principal and threatening to shoot up the school when he was found with a water bottle containing alcohol.
He was later released on his own recognizance.
At Wheeler, Rolando Figueroa Moore, 18, was arrested at the school around 9 a.m. Friday by Cobb schools police and then booked into the Cobb jail, according to the Cobb Sheriff’s Office. Jail records indicate Moore has charged weapons possession on school grounds and bus hijacking, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of carrying a weapon without a valid license.
An East Cobb parent who helped form a Cobb schools safety group last year acknowledged that the district is taking more concerted steps to ensure safety and communicate better, but still thinks its approach is largely reactive.
Rene’ Brinks Dodd, who helped start the Cobb County Schools Safety Coalition before the last school year, said she thought the message from Sprayberry principal Sara Griffin was prompt and detailed.
It said in part that the incident “did not disrupt the school day, at no time were students threatened or in danger.”
At Walton, an initial message to parents referenced “a student-related incident . . . that some of our students may have witnessed” but said only that the “situation has been resolved and the student involved is in the care of medical professionals.”
Principal Catherine Mallanda sent out a longer, more detailed message later the same day, saying that some information couldn’t be revealed for medical and student privacy reasons.
But she did describe the safety features of the Walton classroom building that opened two years ago, and explained a school safety day that took place last week “in which we reviewed all safety procedures with students and had a Code Red Drill. Additionally, our school safety plan has been vetted with the Cobb County School District Police Department.”
Mallanda also told parents about the 65-member Cobb schools police force, which has a combined 1,690 years of service. “We have some of the very best police officers at Walton High School keeping your child safe every day,” she said.
The second Walton message also referenced safety measures the district has begun within the last year, including the Safe Schools Alert, an anonymous tip-reporting service, and AlertPoint, an emergency response notification system that triggers a warning message throughout a school within seconds and identifies where an incident has taken place.
Officer Phil Bradford of the Cobb County School District police, at a safety town hall last fall at Lassiter HS. (ECN file)
Those are featured in a Cobb schools safety resource effort called Cobb Shield, which also contains information about the district police force, emergency management procedures and code red drills (required each semester at each of the district’s 16 high schools).
The Walton incident wasn’t made public for a week, and then only because of news reports, while the Sprayberry and Wheeler cases were made public the day they occurred.
Last month, Dodd addressed the Cobb Board of Education with some of her longstanding concerns, saying the Cobb school district “is taking a reactive approach to student safety and support and there are several ticking bomb-type situations that could result in someone getting hurt, hurting others or another tragic situation.”
Others are taking a “more proactive approach, and this could be done in Cobb County as well.”
Dodd, whose daughter attended Mountain View Elementary School, has advocated for more mental health counseling, and pointed to a special committee appointed by the school superintendent in Cherokee County for “social emotional learning” as an example of an initiative she would like to see tried in Cobb.
“We want change for everyone in the district, not just those students who are going to get the district high test scores and ratings,” she told the school board.
In referencing direct safety initiatives, including Cobb Shield, Floresta said that “I can point you to 1, 15, 20 things that we’re doing. I’d be curious to hear of something that we can do that we’re not doing.”
He said that “we’ve been pretty aggressive in steering the community to what we’re doing.”
Mallanda closed her longer message to the Walton community by saying that:
“Helping students succeed is our first priority, but we can only accomplish this mission if our schools are safe, our students are confident, and our teachers are able to focus on teaching. I am confident we are doing everything possible to keep your student safe.”
After the Wheeler incident, Dodd said she was “pleased to see more transparency in [the Cobb school district] statement than what has been done historically,” she said. “Also, would be curious if the new AlertPoint and SafeSchools Alert system is the reason it seems there are more incidents.
“Meaning, now that the teachers and students have the proper tools, a lot more things are being caught in a more efficient time frame and before something [is] escalated.”
However, the Code Red drill that took place at Walton last Thursday unnerved student Emily Ross, who wrote in an essay for the AJC that “this is warping me. I never feel safe.
“The teachers are expected to be self-sacrificing and stop someone with a weapon that can kill nine people in less than 30 seconds. The administration is expected to appease parents with procedures that might—or might not—work.
“I’m 16. I don’t have a solution.”
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A student at Wheeler High School was arrested Friday morning and the school was briefly placed on a lockdown after the student was found with a weapon, according to the Cobb County School District.
A spokesperson for the CCSD classes and other activities have resumed after a Code Red alert was issued. The student wasn’t identified, nor was the weapon specified.
UPDATED, 5:45 p.m.: According to the Cobb Sheriff’s Office, Rolando Figueroa Moore, 18, of a Terrell Mill Road address, was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center around noon Friday on felony charges of weapons possession on school ground and bus hijacking and a misdemeanor count of carrying a weapon without a valid license.
He is being held on a bond of $27,720, according to jail records, which said Moore was arrested by Cobb County School District police on the Wheeler campus at 9:05 a.m.
Here’s the statement from the district:
“This morning, students made Wheeler administration aware of a rumor of a current student who had made a threat to Wheeler’s campus. Wheeler’s campus was put on code red while Wheeler administration and Cobb County School District police investigated. During the investigation, a suspect was arrested and found to be in possession of a weapon. Wheeler administration, staff, CCSD police, and District student-safety supports performed well. All students are safe, and the school is operating on a normal schedule while CCSD police continue their investigation.”
The incident at Wheeler is the third at an East Cobb high school involving lockdowns or threats of violence in the last two weeks.
Last week a Walton High School student found to have had alcohol in a water bottle was arrested after kicking an assistant principal and threatening to come back and shoot up the school.
Also last week, a man trespassing on the Sprayberry High School campus was found to have had a gun and was arrested by school district police. A code yellow alert was issued, meaning that the outside doors to the school are locked but classes and other activities continue inside.
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