Two of East Cobb’s three representatives on the Cobb Board of Education will take the oath of office Monday in the first of two special-called meetings next week.
David Chastain
David Chastain and Charisse Davis will be sworn in, along with Jaha Howard, in a meeting that starts Monday at 7 p.m. in the board room at the Cobb County School District Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta).
Chastain, a Republican who represents Post 4 (the Kell and Sprayberry clusters), was re-elected to a second term in November.
Davis is a Democrat who ousted two-term Republican Scott to represent Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters. Howard, a Democrat, also is newly elected in Post 2, which includes the Campbell and Osborne clusters.
There is no other business on the Monday meeting agenda.
Charisse Davis
On Tuesday morning, the newly comprised board will elect officers for the calendar year 2019. Each year they choose a chair and a vice chair, and that meeting will take place in the same place, starting at 9 a.m.
Chastain was the vice chairman in 2018 and previously has served as a chairman.
With the changes to the school board, the partisan split also has changed. Republicans held a 6-1 majority, but this year they hold a 4-3 edge.
After electing officers, the board will go into executive session for a student discipline matter.
The first regular board meeting of 2019 will take place Jan. 17.
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Parents and family members of Walton students walking out came to lend support outside the locked school gates. (ECN)
Here’s something that took a lot of people by surprise in East Cobb in 2018: Student walkouts in favor of gun-control, a month after the high school shootings in Parkland, Fla.
Students from Walton, Pope, Lassiter and Wheeler were vocal about their plans to leave their classes at a designated time on March 14 as part of a national campaign to protest gun violence.
The Cobb County School District announced that it did not endorse the walkout, and said students who violated school disruption policies would be subject to disciplinary action.
The day after the Florida shootings, principal Chris Ragsdale announced the district would step up code-red drills to improve preparedness.
In an interview with East Cobb News, Walton principal Judy McNeill said she was disappointed with the students who were walking out, and that other students were organizing an alternative to honor the Florida victims before the start of the school day.
At Pope High School, police blocked the only entrance. Cobb schools claimed only 250 Walton students walked out.
As the walkout period approached, a Walton parent read the names of the 17 victims in Parkland.
The following day, some of the East Cobb walkout leaders blistered Cobb school board members during a public comment period for attempting “to silence us” about their concerns over student safety.
Most of the board members said nothing. The students who walked out generally received a day of in-school suspension.
Other top East Cobb schools stories for 2018 include the opening of new school facilities at East Cobb Middle School and Brumby Elementary School, a Dodgen math teacher being named the Cobb teacher of the year, Sprayberry High School marking its 65th anniversary and school officials conducting a school safety town hall meeting at Lassiter High School.
Principal Amanda Richie (in black dress) said the Brumby ES family will make the new campus “not just a school house but a school home.”
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The awards are given to schools that meet a number of measures for student academic progress, called Statewide Accountability System Awards, and include the categories of “Greatest Gains” and “Highest Performing.”
Greatest Gains schools must earn a three-year average in the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) Content Mastery Score that ranks in at least the 93rd percentile.
High Performing schools exhibit high academic performance by earning a three-year average CCRPI Content Mastery Score in at least the 93rd percentile.
In other words, these schools are in the top three percent in the state in academic growth in those respective categories.
Lassiter High School earned a Platinum Award for Greatest Gains, while those schools getting the Gold Award are Walton High School, Wheeler High School, Dodgen Middle School and Garrison Mill Elementary School.
Sprayberry High School and Addison Elementary School earned a Silver Award, and the Bronze Award went to Dickerson Middle School, Hightower Trail Middle School and Murdock Elementary School.
Highest Performing schools from East Cobb include Lassiter and Walton (Platinum), Mt. Bethel Elementary School (Gold) and Simpson Middle School (Bronze).
Recognized schools will receive and award certificate and a banner to hang in their schools.
The awards are developed by the GOSA and approved by the Georgia Department of Education. For more information, including further explanation about how the awards are calculated, click here.
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Thanks to the Cobb County School District for the photos and info about its “Tank” grant competition that took place recently, and featured several teachers and students from East Cobb schools.
They took part in the “Cobb Tank” competition, which encourages teachers to come up with classroom learning ideas that are evaluated by a selected panel of judges.
The format is based on the “Shark Tank” TV program, and at the end of the event teachers from two East Cobb schools were named grant recipients.
Lassiter teacher Teresa West
Two Lassiter teachers advocated for for $8,255 to support a sensory and calming room at the school. At Keheley Elementary School, teacher Michelle Yoo pitched for $3,000 for a video production classroom. Keheley teachers also were granted funds for a sensory garden.
Their winning requests were part of $74,000 given out across the school district.
“Through the Cobb Tank grant competition, we were able to provide much-needed funding to support the dreams of dedicated educators who are passionate about going above and beyond for their students,” said Sally Creel, the STEM and Innovation supervisor for Cobb schools.
Javan Campbell, McCleskey Middle School student, and Tank judge
Among the judges were Fred Veeder of Dodgen Middle School, the 2018 Cobb teacher of the year, and Javan Campbell, a sixth-grade student at McCleskey Middle School.
Other grant recipients come from Baker, Kemp, Teasley and Varner elementary schools, Lost Mountain Middle School and Pebblebrook High School.
Among their projects are an outdoor life lab to teach about animals, encourage creative ways to inspire writing, and the introduction of a “T.E.A.M. Player” classroom.
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When Mt. Bethel Christian Academy got approval from Cobb commissioners to open a high school campus on Post Oak Tritt Road in 2013, one of the restrictions pertained to the development of an athletic stadium on the back of the 33-acre property.
The special land use permit granted to the school prohibited any field from having lights and permanent seating. Four years after the school opened, Mt. Bethel wants to remove that stipulation in a site plan amendment that’s on the Cobb Board of Commissioners zoning hearing agenda Tuesday.
UPDATED: We understand this case is being delayed until February and are seeking confirmation.
The Mt. Bethel application seeks permission to amend the site plan “to develop a multipurpose field with lighting and permanent seating for a competitive high school.”
The proposal also calls for a reconfiguration of other buildings on the campus to “create a more efficient layout,” with most of the buildings clustered in the interior of the property. The proposed revision also calls for 32 additional parking spaces on campus.
Mt. Bethel isn’t asking to increase an anticipated maximum enrollment of around 450 students (currently 150 students attend grades 9-12). The school currently has a footprint of 230,700 square feet of classroom, activities, recreational and other space.
The proposed site plan revision is shown at the top, and the full agenda item can be found by clicking here. The file also contains details of the 2013 special land use permit process and correspondence.
Nearby residents have been urging their neighbors to write to commissioners in opposition to the stadium. Here’s a letter a resident of the Holly Spring subdivision sent to us:
Mt. Bethel purchased the land, located near the northwest corner of Post Oak Tritt and Holly Springs Road from the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, which operated a preschool and camps on the site of the former Shirley Blumenthal Park.
In a letter to Cobb Zoning staff from Mt. Bethel’s attorneys dated Nov. 12, the school explained its plans to develop a field that would be used for soccer, lacrosse, track and other high sports competitions. The revised site plan request also includes room for a 9,400-square foot fieldhouse.
Currently Mt. Bethel has high school boys and girls soccer, high school coed track and field and boys and girls lacrosse at the middle school level.
Some Mt. Bethel teams complete at the academy’s 44-acre lower school campus on Lower Roswell Road.
In the letter to Cobb zoning staff, Mt. Bethel attorneys Jim Ney and Ryan Pulley said that their client “does not foresee any harm to come to the neighboring properties and will take great efforts to ensure that the multipurpose field will be a reasonable and a non-injurious addition.”
Mt. Bethel says in the letter it will present details of a light study it is conducting at Tuesday’s meeting, and will maintain all current setbacks and an 85-foot buffer from surrounding properties.
We’ve left word with Mt. Bethel attorneys for more details and will update when we hear back.
Mt. Bethel got approval last year to amend the high school site plan to permit a temporarily modular classroom.
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Design work for a new Sprayberry High School gym and renovations to the school’s career training building was approved by the Cobb Board of Education Thursday.
The board voted 7-0 to spend $925,162 for an architectural and engineering design contract with CDH Partners of Marietta.
Plans call for a new main gymnasium and renovations to the Sprayberry’s CTAE (Career, Technology and Agricultural Education) facility.
That project, as well as design work, is included in the upcoming Cobb Education SPLOST V collection period that begins Jan. 1. The design contract will be paid for out of the general fund, which will be reimbursed with SPLOST V revenues.
At a work session Thursday afternoon, John Adams, the Cobb County School District deputy superintendent, was asked by school board member David Banks where the new gym would be located on campus.
Adams said that “we have to hire an architect to tell us what we can do and where.”
Most other East Cobb high schools have gotten new gyms in recent years, or are getting them. Wheeler opened Wildcat Arena three years ago, Pope opened a new gym earlier this year and construction on new gyms at Walton and Lassiter are underway.
The new gyms are built with a capacity of 3,000 and the Sprayberry facility is expected to cost around $20 million.
Another board member, former Sprayberry administrator Randy Scamihorn, asked if the school’s baseball field may have to be relocated to accommodate the renovations.
Adams gave him a similar answer, saying that “we have to get an architect on board.”
He said that the CTAE facility would have a similar capacity within an improved building.
The board also voted 7-0 to approve $90 million in short-term construction bonds to begin work on SPLOST V projects in advance.
The district wants to speed up the completion time for projects and find cost savings with interest rates on the rise.
Brad Johnson, the district’s chief financial officer, told board members at the work session that interest rates have been going up 4-5 percent a year.
The $90 million in bonds, called TANS (tax anticipatory notes) would be repaid at the end of 2019 with revenues from SPLOST V.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said it’s a “no brainer” to get started with construction at a lower cost, “instead of waiting for a higher interest rate to kick in.”
Johnson estimated that the strategy could enable the district to “come close to breaking even” after the interest costs are paid.
Earlier this year the school board approved $40 million in TANs for similar reasons. Those funds were applied to completion of the East Cobb Middle School and Brumby Elementary School rebuilds, as well as the Lassiter and Walton gym and fine arts projects that are part of the current SPLOST IV collection.
“We’re borrowing more,” Johnson said, “but we’re borrowing for a longer time.”
Also included on the SPLOST V project list is rebuilding Eastvalley Elementary School on the former site of East Cobb Middle School on Holt Road.
The school board is expected in January to formalize issuing the bonds, with revenues anticipated by February.
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Photo and info from the Cobb County School District:
Because of their dedication to community beautification, students in the Lassiter-Pope-Kell (LPK) NJROTC program earned the title of Adopt-a-Mile Youth Group of the Year by Keep Cobb Beautiful.
Capt. Jim Minta (USN, RET) and First Sgt.Lorenzo Cox (USMC, RET) recently paired the NJROTC unit with the Keep Cobb Beautiful initiative by adopting Shallowford Road in front of Lassiter High School. Once a quarter, cadets, armed with plastic gloves, trash bags, and neon vests, spend a morning picking up trash along the mile stretch.
Knowing that individuals are far less likely to desecrate a well-maintained community motivates the Cobb students to keep their community beautiful. The student volunteers are not only helping the local community, but they are also helping the environment.
Ever since the unit’s involvement along the road, litter within the area has decreased dramatically, according to the students’ NJROTC leaders. The reduction of litter mitigates the effect of pollutants flowing into the surrounding water basins. Both the Lassiter High School campus and the area surrounding it appear healthier and cleaner than ever. LPK’s NJROTC cadets plan to continue to set an example with their clean-up efforts in their East Cobb community.
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A brief lockdown at Murdock Elementary School has resulted in extended voting time at the polling station located there in today’s runoff elections.
The extra time is only brief—11 minutes, to match the period of a Code Yellow lockdown, according to Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt.
He said Cobb County Senior Judge George Kreeger signed an order to keep the precinct open there longer this afternoon.
So if you vote at Murdock (2320 Murdock Road), that precinct will now close at 7:11 p.m. instead of the usual 7 p.m.
We’re seeking further information about the Murdock lockdown from the Cobb County School District.
It was the second such lockdown in Cobb schools today, and that also affected voting times.
Earlier this morning, Teasley Elementary School in Vinings was locked down for around 20 minutes after reports of a man with a gun in the vicinity of the school.
Those reports turned out to be false, but the polling station at Teasley will stay open until 7:20, also after Kreeger issued an order, according to Cavitt.
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The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday adopted a set of legislative priorities for the 2019 session, and the contentious issue of school calendars tops the list.
Scott Sweeney
The board voted 6-0 to endorse Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s recommendation that the Cobb County School District determine when school years should begin an end.
The issue came up this year with the creation of a special State Senate study committee.
Some within the Georgia tourism industry have indicated that starting school in early August has had a detrimental effect on their business.
The study committee has held hearings around the state and is meeting now during a special session. Among the bills being considered would call for a statewide school start after Labor Day.
As far as Cobb schools are concerned, that should be a matter of local control.
“Whether it is giving Cobb the flexibility to test a new assessment system that has the potential to benefit all students in Georgia or allowing local communities, like Cobb, to approve school calendars that best serve the needs of their students and staff, local control is a must,” Ragsdale said in a statement.
Earlier this decade members of the Cobb school board sparred over setting the calendar. In recent years, however, it’s adopted what’s called a “balanced” calendar, with an early August start date and more breaks than a calendar with a later start time.
The balanced calendar also is strongly supported by the Cobb County Association of Educators.
The board also included in its legislative priorities proposed changes to the “Local Fair Share” component of the Georgia Quality Basic Education Act.
In this provision, school districts are levied five mills of their local property tax rate, with the funding going to the state.
East Cobb board member Scott Sweeney noted at a work session earlier Thursday that Cobb sends $144 million annually to the state, and advocates capping the Local Fair Share amount at $100 million.
Cobb schools said that getting $44 million in return would enable it to hire 488 teachers or build two new schools.
Other priorities include changing graduation rate calculations “that more accurately reflect schools’ academic process” and pushing for a return to local control of K-12 dual enrollment programs.
Current graduation rate guidelines require school districts to count all students enrolled in a four-year period, regardless of how long they attended classes in that time.
In 2018, Cobb reported a countywide graduation rate of 85.18 percent. While that’s a record, district officials said the graduation rate would be 97.1 percent if only students who attended high school in Cobb all four years were counted.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved an agreement to continue a joint school bus camera program with county courts and public schools for another five years.
The automated enforcement system issues citations to motorists who ignore school bus “stop arm” signs. The cameras, equipped on about 100 of nearly 1,000 buses in the Cobb County School District, take photos of the license plates of violating vehicles.
The agreement (agenda item here, formal agreement doc here) includes the Cobb County State Court Clerk, the camera manufacturer American Traffic Solutions and the Cobb Board of Education, which also must approve the agreement.
Cobb State Court judges had not been enforcing the violations for a time earlier this year, questioning their legality. Enforcement resumed in February, but the county said the burden of handling stop arm violations required additional staffing.
In September, commissioners approved the creation of three positions in Cobb State Court and two more in the Cobb Solicitors office to start with the fiscal year 2019 that began in October.
County officials estimate more than 8,000 such cases are generated annually. Each violation comes with a fine of $300.
The fine money, which exceeded $2 million in 2017, is split evenly between the county, Cobb schools and ATS, which provides the cameras at no charge.
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Administrators at Wheeler High School were sending out word around lunchtime that there was “an interruption to the instructional day” but that “all is fine.”
We contacted the Cobb County School District for more information, and this is what a spokeswoman told us:
“An alarm was accidentally triggered at Wheeler High School today. The issue was resolved quickly. Teachers are teaching, and students are learning.”
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Charisse Davis will be the only woman on the Cobb Board of Education. (East Cobb News file photo)
Catching you up on the day after some notable elections results in East Cobb, and starting with one incumbent who was defeated last night.
That’s Republican Scott Sweeney, who was vying for his third term for the Post 6 seat on the Cobb Board of Education that includes the Walton and Wheeler attendance zones.
He was ousted by Charisse Davis, who like many fellow Democratic challengers in local races was running for the first time.
Some additional votes came in from when when we posted early this morning, and Davis received 21,654 votes, or 51.27 percent. Sweeney had 20,580 votes, or 48.734 percent.
As we noted last night/early this morning, Davis’ win closes the GOP majority on the school board to 4-3 come January. She’s a former school teacher and now librarian in Fulton County whose children attend school in the Campbell attendance zone, some of which is in District 6.
Here’s what Davis told her supporters this morning.
As a school district, we have an opportunity to celebrate our successes while facing our issues with the goal of finding solutions. As an educator and mom of two in the district, I am committed to seeing the district become a leader in implementing solutions that can help all of our students achieve. We can, and will, do better to provide access to early learning options, provide transparency to the families in this community, and focus on the students of this district, no matter how they learn.
East Cobb News covered a candidates’ forum between Davis and Sweeney last month during what came to be a competitive election. Both were unopposed in the primaries, but she received more votes than Sweeney, whose sons attend Walton and Dickerson.
On Tuesday, Sweeney won most of the East Cobb precincts, although Davis carried the Terrell Mill precinct handily. He carried a precinct in Vinings, but she enjoyed large margins in all other precincts in the Cumberland-Smyrna area.
We’ve got a table below that breaks it down, and will be adding more reaction.
For now, she breaks the Republican lock on elected officials that represent East Cobb residents. The 6th Congressional District and State House 37th District races are still in too-close-to-call mode.
Republican Cobb school member David Chastain won a second term Tuesday, defeating Democrat Cynthia Parr to keep the Post 4 seat that includes the Kell and Sprayberry districts.
Chastain received 20,592 votes, or 53.61 percent, while Parr got 17,820 votes, or 46.39 percent.
We’ll have more later in the week on reaction from other races, including commissioner JoAnn Birrell’s close re-election, legislative results and where the Georgia governor’s race stands.
Rev. Ike Reighard of MUST Ministries opens the Brumby Elementary School food pantry with students, volunteers and staff. (Cobb County School District photos)
The 31st school in Cobb and Marietta schools to be provided with a food pantry had a ribbon-cutting Thursday. The Brumby Elementary School food pantry is now open to students as part of the non-profit’s Save It Forward initiative.
The pantries are located primarily at Title I public schools in the county to address hunger and nutrition needs for at-risk students.
In the Save It Forward program, volunteer shoppers receive weekly e-mail lists for items that cost less than $6 each. Those items, which also include toiletries, are then stocked on the shelves at the school pantries for students and their families who need them.
Partial funding for the pantries also comes from the United Way of Greater Atlanta. More than 3,000 Cobb students and their families are served by the school pantries.
On hand for Thursday’s event were Cobb Board of Education member Scott Sweeney and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, as well as members of the Rotary Club of East Cobb, which is involved extensively with community service projects at Brumby Elementary School.
Rev. Reighard meets with Charlene Brisco, the Brumby social worker.
Other Save It Forward schools in East Cobb include Lassiter and Sprayberry high schools and McCleskey Middle School.
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One of the most complicated measurements of academic progress in the state of Georgia has been streamlined in order to become less complicated. But the Cobb CCRPI scores for 2018, which were released Monday, are lower across the board than last year.
The drops include schools in East Cobb, which still had some of the highest figures in the Cobb County School District and in Georgia.
The CCRPI—which stands for College and Career Ready Performance Index—is a state accountability measure that gauges overall achievement results and how schools are preparing students for the next level of education.
Cobb’s average of 79.6 (out of a maximum score of 100) is nearly three points higher than the state average, but lower than the 82.9 score from 2017.
Student performance is assessed in several ways, and they differ according to school level. They include content mastery, progress, closing performance gaps, readiness and graduation rates.
The Georgia Department of Education made some changes to its formula in the spring (here’s a PDF that breaks it all down, but as stated above, it’s really complicated). These changes were done to reduce the number of indicators to measure.
‘They’ve redone the math’
It’s the third time in the last five years that the state has changed the formula, and both Georgia and Cobb officials are urging parents not to compare 2018 scores to those in years past.
“Whatever analogy you want to make—apples to apples, oranges to oranges—this is reflected across the state,” said John Floresta, the Cobb schools chief strategy and accountability officer. “They’ve redone the math.”
He said the changes that are being felt the most are at the elementary school level.
One was to remove “challenge points” for “exceeding the bar” activities that allowed some schools to get a score of more than 100 points.
The other major calculation that affected scores was the “closing the gap” measurement. In essence, Floresta said, there’s now a lower ceiling for the highest-performing schools, while that ceiling has been raised for lower-performing schools.
A good example is at Timber Ridge Elementary School in East Cobb, which last year had a score of 100.5, a school that “exceeded the bar.” This year, Timber Ridge’s CCRPI score is 93.3.
Like many schools in East Cobb, Timber Ridge students did very well in content mastery at 98.6 and also scored above 90 in progress and readiness. But Timber Ridge’s closing the gap number, which comprises 15 percent of an elementary school’s score, was 78.6.
“The frustration is with the principals and staff more than anything else,” Floresta said. “It’s the reality of how they’ve redone the categories. We just want to know what our kids know.”
On the other hand, Mt. Bethel Elementary School was a perfect 100 in closing the gap, along with Wheeler High School.
Those East Cobb elementary schools that had double-digit drops had closing the gap scores that in some cases were below 50 (full East Cobb school results here).
Ups and downs
Some East Cobb schools came close to the maximum in 2018: Walton High School (96.3), Lassiter High School (95.8), Simpson Middle School (94.7) and Dodgen Middle School and Hightower Trail Middle School (both 91.8).
At the elementary school level the leaders included Mt. Bethel (95.6) and Timber Ridge’s 93.3. They were among the 19 schools in Cobb that had averages of 90 or more.
Some schools did report sizable increases in their CCRPI scores from 2017. Among them are Simpson Middle School, which jumped from 89.9 to 94.7, one of the biggest moves up among Cobb middle schools.
Seven schools got perfect scores of 100 in content mastery, including Walton, Lassiter, Pope, Dickerson Middle School and Murdock and Sope Creek at the elementary school level.
“Although we are glad to see strong CCRPI scores yet again, we are more focused on supporting our teachers to identify what their students know and immediately acting on what they learn about their students,” Cobb schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said in a statement.
School-by-school breakdowns have been provided by the Cobb County School District, and you can click on this page to see the full table.
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Officer Phil Bradford was appointed to a new emergency management specialist role with the Cobb County School District police. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
As they were rolling out a new website dedicated to safety issues, officials—as well as officers— from Cobb schools tried to reassure parents at an East Cobb town hall meeting Thursday that they were being proactive in dealing with a variety of threats to students, teachers and staff alike.
The new site, called Cobb Shield, includes much of the material presented to the audience of around 50 parents at the Lassiter Concert Hall.
Some of them had specific questions about threats of violence, accidents, assaults and bullying, but school officials said they couldn’t answer some of those questions in public.
One came from a Lassiter mother, who wanted more information about a report of bullet casings that were found in a classroom during the current school year.
John Adams, the Cobb schools deputy superintendent for human resources and operations, told her that a communication was sent to parents from the Lassiter administration. When she said she hadn’t received it, Adams said that he “couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
Adams said the matter “illustrates how . .. students have to be our eyes and ears” in reporting such incidents.
Being watchful was the watchword at the town hall, which featured leaders of the Cobb County School District Police force, which has 65 uniformed officers.
Many of them have years of previous law enforcement service, including Cobb Police. Capt. Wayne Pickett, a former Precinct 4 commander in East Cobb, is one of them, and he’s second-in-command to Chief Ron Storey, also a Cobb Police retiree.
Capt. Wayne Pickett of CCSD said that Code Red drills serve as “a way to surveil” how well schools are prepared for serious threats of violence.
The department average is 26 years of experience, according to Adams, and 12 officers have SWAT training. “We want mature officers who have some experience,” Storey said.
Pickett detailed how ongoing “Code Red” drills are working, especially at the high school level, which are supposed to have one each semester.
He said the unannounced drills are designed to train staff, teachers and students to be better prepared for suspicious persons activity. During the drills, a plain-clothes officer comes to the school and tries to go as far as possible before being noticed.
“The administration has no idea we’re coming,” Pickett said. They’re told “We’re in a Code Red right now. What are you going to do?”
More than anything, he added, school police want to gauge how prepared each school is, with a checklist of around 25 items to keep in mind.
“There’s no way to pre-plan such a stressful activity,” Pickett said. “It’s snapshot of what they do. Do they know the policies for Code Red?”
After a drill, school police meet with administrators to identify successes and improvements. If there are enough problems at a school, another drill may be ordered.
A report is sent up the administrative line at the district, all the way to the superintendent.
Pickett said “we haven’t had too many that are bad. Most are exceptionally good.”
The AlertPoint system, Ofc. Phil Bradford said, “empowers every member of the staff to take action” to ensure safety.
When a parent asked about inspecting Code Red drill reports, Adams said that’s also something that’s not available to the public, for security reasons.
Officer Phil Bradford, another Cobb Police veteran, heads up a newly created position with the school police as emergency management specialist. He updated the Lassiter audience about the AlertPoint emergency communications system that’s gradually being rolled out at every school in the district.
It’s a $5 million system that was begun in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shootings, and features a device issued to teachers and staff. The card-type device allows them to trigger an alert to designated first responders in case of any kind of emergency, from a suspicious person to a health issue.
“The badge identifies who you are and where you are,” Bradford said. “Most important, it leads to instant action.”
Flashing lights and beeper alarms are activated in the case of a Code Red alert and the entire school is notified of a lockdown.
High school classrooms are being issued AlertPoints now, to be followed by those at the middle school and then elementary school level.
An active-shooter training video has been shown to staff for more than a year. Bradford said a safety video has just been completed for elementary students, and another for high school students should be done soon.
Those videos, and other safety-related measures, will gradually be added to the Cobb Shield webpage, said Adams, a former Cobb Police officer. That page also will include a tip line, which is expected to be fully functional by the spring semester.
He encouraged parents to contact him with suggestions at: john.adams@cobbk12.org.
“This is the most important thing we do,” Adams said.
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Walton’s average score of 1,262 once again led all Cobb schools, followed by fellow East Cobb schools Lassiter (1,204) and Pope (1,203).
They were among 12 high schools in Georgia with a mean score of 1,200 above (out of a maximum 1,600).
Wheeler’s mean score was 1,147, followed by Kell (1,059) and Sprayberry (1,049).
Cobb’s 1,107 average outpaced both the Georgia and national mean scores (see chart below).
The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) 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.
According to Cobb schools, more than 70 percent of the 2018 graduating class in the district took the new SAT.
Two East Cobb schools had mean increases of 20 percent or more: Pope (39) and Walton (20). Lassiter’s mean score is 15 percent better than 2017.
“The growth that we have seen this year on our SAT scores is amazing. We are extremely proud of our students for the focused and intentional effort they have put into achieving a high level of success on their SATs,” Pope Principal Tom Flugum said in a statement released by Cobb schools.
“These results are a testament to the commitment of our staff and students to continually improve so that they can learn, grow, and lead both now and in the future.”
Here are the six East Cobb high school scores, as well as the Cobb, Georgia and national results. ERW is an abbreviation for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing.
# Test Takers
ERW Mean
Math Mean
2018 Overall Mean
2017 Overall Mean
Kell
198
541
518
1,059
1,091 (-32)
Lassiter
480
602
602
1,204
1,189 (+15)
Pope
307
608
596
1,203
1,164 (+39)
Sprayberry
255
540
509
1,049
1,040 (0)
Walton
528
628
634
1,262
1,242 (+20)
Wheeler
273
576
571
1,147
1,153 (-6)
Cobb
5,472
563
544
1,107
1,088 (+19)
Georgia
542
522
1,064
1,050 (+14)
National
536
531
1,068
1,060 (+8)
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Lassiter students cheer on science teacher Keelan Seabolt, who’s also the school’s STEM coordinator.
Submitted photos and information are from the Cobb County School District about Tuesday’s special celebration for Cobb teachers of the year on a countywide basis.
We’ve posted before about Fred Veeder, the Dodgen Middle School seventh-grade math teacher who was named the county’s teacher of the year for 2018.
He was on hand for the celebration at Roswell Street Baptist Church, and so were students, staff and each school’s teacher of the year. Teachers also were honored for Marietta City Schools, Chattahoochee Technical College, Life University, Georgia Highlands College and Kennesaw State University.
The event was put on by the Cobb Chamber of Commerce as part of its “Give Our Schools a Hand” program.
The individual teachers of the year for all East Cobb schools are listed below:
Debbie Burdett, Addison ES, (2nd Grade)
Sayonara Aybar, Bells Ferry ES, (Special Ed)
Mandy Spence, Blackwell ES (Physical Education)
Shirley Davis, Brumby ES (ESOL)
Susan L. Cronin, Daniell MS (6th Grade Social Studies, ESOL)
Nancy Parsons, Davis ES (Target)
Sunny Williams, Dickerson MS (6th Grade AC ELA)
Fred Veeder, Dodgen MS (7th Grade Math, Cobb Teacher of the Year)
Addison Brooks, East Cobb MS (Special Ed)
Jayne Becker, East Side ES (1st Grade)
Lida Sacia, Eastvalley ES (2nd Grade)
Fred Veeder of Dodgen Middle School, the Cobb Teacher of the Year, and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.
Sharon Hanna, Garrison Mill ES (1st Grade
Kaitlin Hankinson, Hightower Trail MS (Special Ed)
Sarah Dupuis, Keheley ES (Media Specialist)
Lauren Hines, Kell HS (Physical Ed/Health)
Sheila Hitt, Kincaid ES (3rd Grade)
Keelan Seabolt, Lassiter HS (Science)
Libby Lippincott, Mabry MS (6th Grade Math
Carin Wilkes, McCleskey MS (PE/Health)
Missy Bain, Mt. Bethel ES (2nd Grade)
Ashley Montejo, Mountain View ES (3rd Grade)
Susann Peck, Murdock ES (Kindergarten)
Katherine Hines, Nicholson ES (Special Ed)
William Blythe, Pope HS (Science)
Oscar Tromp, Powers Ferry ES (5th Grade)
Laurie McGillis, Rocky Mount ES (Speech and Language Pathologist)
Anne Bernard, Sedalia Park ES (3rd Grade)
Lynn Boland, Shallowford Falls ES (Music)
MaryColclasure, Simpson MS (8th Grade Math)
RebeccaDershowitz, Sope Creek ES (Special Ed)
MarykayWright, Sprayberry HS (Math)
Staci Carper, Timber Ridge ES (1st Grade)
Joni Adams, Tritt ES (3rd Grade)
Laura Speer, Walton HS (Math)
Michael Sawyer, Wheeler HS (U.S. History)
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A Cobb schools safety town hall meeting that will include district officials and public safety leadership will take place Thursday at Lassiter High School.
The town hall is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. at the Lassiter Concert Hall (2601 Shallowford Road).
Here’s what CCSD is saying about the town hall:
Parents will have the opportunity to participate in the conversation about student safety with members of Cobb’s public safety team and CCSD officials.
“We believe the combined efforts of the police department and school administrators with the support of the superintendent’s office and the school board has resulted in our district having safe schools,” said CCSD Captain Wayne Pickett.
It’s been a little more than a year since Cobb schools unveiled the AlertPoint security system at select schools, including Bells Ferry Elementary School in Northeast Cobb.
Earlier this year, after the Parkland, Fla., high school shootings, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced that the district would be stepping up unannouced code red drills to measure the effectiveness of safety preparations.
In March, some school students around the county, including East Cobb, staged a walkout for gun control and student safety that was not endorsed by the district, and that earned them in-school suspensions.
In August, Campbell High School was placed on a lockdown after three students made what were termed non-specific threats of violence over the school’s walkie-talkie system.
The AlertPoint system was triggered and a code red alert was issued during that incident. All students and staff were safe, and those responsible were detained but not formally charged.
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The Post 4 Cobb Board of Education contest pits Republican incumbent David Chastain against Democrat Cynthia Parr, a first-time candidate.
They were both unopposed in the primaries.
Chastain, a logistics analyst in the aeronautics industry, is completing his first term representing the area that includes the Kell and Sprayberry attendance zones. He and his wife are Wheeler High School graduates, and their three grown children also graduated from Cobb schools.
Parr is a pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church in Canton, and her son graduated from the Wheeler STEM magnet school.
Chastain has served as the chairman and vice chairman of the Cobb school board in his first term. He has touted his experience, not just on the school board
He is in favor of eliminating the Georgia Milestones tests, and has been endorsed by Educators First, which advocates for teachers.
In a recent Cobb County School District podcast, he said maximizing educational opportunities for students may not necessarily be due to smaller class sizes but to have staff and technology in place to meet those needs on an individual basis.
“If the teacher has the tools and people available to help address the situation, that’s where we’re headed,” he said.
On her campaign website, Parr said the Cobb district ideally should balance individual learning styles with local, state and federal standards.
She also supports “an environment that nurtures and encourages parental involvement as doing so decreases behavior problems and increases graduation rates.”
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During the October 18 Board of Education meeting, Cobb County School District leaders discussed the January launch of a new parent portal—CTLS Parent—that will show parents what their child knows and provide resources to help their child master other content areas. Initially, CTLS Parent will roll out to a select group of schools to serve as a proof-of-concept. The District will collect feedback from parents and teachers before CTLS Parent is expanded to all schools.
CTLS Parent is part of the Cobb Teaching and Learning System (CTLS). The innovative digital platform empowers teachers with information on what each student knows and what they don’t know so the educators can realign instruction time to help students achieve success.
The new parent portal was developed with input from parent focus groups. Parents helped District leaders understand what Cobb parents want to see about their children. The system will not only provide information, in real-time, about the progress their students are making, CTLS Parent will also give parents access to on-demand resources so they can support their children at home. The thousands of District-vetted resources will make up Cobb’s Learning Object Repository (LOR) within CTLS Parent.
“Parent engagement is critical to the success of the educational process,” said Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale. “We have talked to parents. We have talked to teachers. With their help, we have developed a system that will help each student succeed, and I think CTLS could be used as a model to help students outside of Cobb succeed too.”
The Cobb County School District has already taken steps to pilot CTLS as the foundation of a new assessment model for Georgia. Learn more about Cobb Metrics here.
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