A Cobb schools budget proposal of nearly $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2019 is expected to be approved on Thursday night, after the Cobb Board of Education holds its final public hearing on the budget earlier that afternoon.
That hearing begins at 1:30 p.m., followed by a board work session at 2 p.m. The board will reconvene for the business meeting at 7 p.m. All will take place at the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover St., in Marietta.
The proposed FY 2019 budget (details here) includes a 1.1 percent pay raise for all employees and a 1.1 percent bonus for many others, but does not include a millage rate increase.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale included the pay raise after $10.2 million in state funding was added in May following the elimination of education austerity cuts.
The school district’s fiscal year begins on July 1.
Connie Jackson, the head of the Cobb County Association of Educators, has asked for a 3.6 percent raise be given for employees, and has pressed for the additional funding to come from a property tax increase.
That millage rate of 18.9 has not changed in a decade, and Jackson has suggested raising that to the maximum 20 mills.
Also on Thursday night’s agenda is the appointment of a new principal at Nicholson Elementary School, as well as a number of recognitions. Among the East Cobb students and schools to be recognized are the Shallowford Falls Elementary School’s Reading Bowl champions, Pope High School state wrestling champion Max Druhot, East Side Elementary School robotics student Abhijeet Ghosh and the Kell High School FIRST World Championship team.
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The Wheeler Academic Bowl team of Aaron Moss, Rex Martin, Andrew McEntaggart and Andrew Benecchi finished as state runner-up Saturday in WSB-TV’s “High Q” competition.
North Atlanta High School won the championship and $5,000 in scholarship money, while Wheeler takes home $3,000 in scholarship money.
It’s been a good spring for the Wheeler team, which finished second in March in the GATA state championships. The JV team won its first state championship in March.
The Academic Bowl competition is in game-show quiz format, and contestants are asked questions about a broad range of topics, including art, history, politics, science and literature.
Wheeler geography teacher and coach Sean Kurkjian has been the team’s sponsor for several years.
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Thanks to Jean Hunter, English teacher at High Meadows School, for the above photo and information about three students, including one from East Cobb, who recently participated in the national “Letters About Literature” program.
They are, from left, Aviv Newman, Ella Schultz of East Cobb, and Kate Hurd:
Every year tens of thousands of students across the nation send their letters to the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. Writing a letter to your favorite author might not sound like something you’d get an award for, but for several students at High Meadows School in Roswell GA, that’s exactly what happened.
This year High Meadows 6th and 7th graders participated in Letters About Literature, an annual Library of Congress national competition where young writers can express themselves to an author who’s had an impact on their lives. Several High Meadows’ students received letters back from authors, including Sharon Creech, Kate DiCamillo, and Ann Martin, who all took the time to respond to these budding writers. Three of these students were honored along with other state winners on Saturday May 5th and were able to read their letters as part of the ceremony. The following High Meadows’ students won awards at the state level, and the two first place winners will now advance to judging at the national level:
Ella Schultz received a first-place award and wrote her letter to Phoebe Gilman, author of Jillian Jiggs. Ella moved to the United States in second grade and could not speak, read or write English. In her letter, Ella described how the book, read and re-read over and over by her soon-to-be-best-friend, aided her growing understanding of English.
Those judging the letters include authors, publishers, librarians and educators. This competition challenges students through the process of crafting letters that reflect their personal responses as readers, directly back to the authors they admire most. By encouraging personal reader response and reflective writing, the contest facilitates a program which helps to enhance purposeful reading that promotes successful writing. The day’s ceremony is a testament to the abilities achieved by these young writers.
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Walton High School has been named one of the Top 10 public high schools in Georgia by U.S. News, but other East Cobb high schools also fared well in the annual rankings that were released on Wednesday.
Walton comes in at No. 9 on the Georgia list, the highest-ranked Cobb County high school. Nationally, Walton is listed at No. 314, as well as No. 96 among charter schools and No. 144 among STEM schools across the country.
However, U.S. News has come in for criticism for its high school rankings (as well as college rankings it also releases annually).
Last year, the American Enterprise Institute wrote that too much emphasis is placed on Advanced Placement results, concluding that the “rankings promote the notion that the best high schools are the ones with the highest outcomes.”
The Atlantic has written previously that the U.S. News high school rankings, which began in 1998, are harmful and have a formula that’s too simplistic.
The Cobb County School District eagerly shared the news on its social media channels on Thursday, noting that eight of the 16 high schools in the system were included in the national rankings.
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Several East Cobb students have been honored this week by the Georgia Department of Education as well as the Cobb County School District’s Career, Technical and Agricultural Education program.
Ten students from East Cobb High Schools are among those named Georgia Scholars by the state education department, which recognizes graduating seniors “who have achieved excellence in school and community life;”
Walton: Ekta Deshmukh; Daniel Hudadoff; Madelyn Johnson; Laura Key; Adarshini Raja;
Pope: Belanie Jones; Loren Tsang;
Wheeler: MJ Lock; Hisham Kashif;
Lassiter: Taylor Van Horn.
On Wednesday, Cobb schools held its first inaugural awards gala for Career, Tech Technical and Agricultural Education students at Kennesaw Mountain High School. Most Cobb high schools had a CTAE student of the year, and for East Cobb schools they were the following:
Austin Kline, Kell;
Hunter Peterson, Lassiter;
Shivani Patel, Sprayberry;
Laney Jones, Walton;
Hannah Obenhoff, Wheeler.
In addition, Kell’s Madelyn Handy and Sprayberry’s Hoang (Olivia) Nguyen were named Youth Apprenticeship Students of the Year.
The following students from East Cobb were named students of the year at their respective middle schools:
Theodore Parker, Daniell;
Scott Dobo, Dodgen;
Latasia Neal, East Cobb;
Anna Sorokoff, Mabry;
Nathaniel Gant, McCleskey.
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Students at the ‘Winglets of Aviation’ project get a release of pressurized air in their faces. (East Cobb News photos and slideshow by Wendy Parker)
For the first time in its six-year history, the Wheeler STEAM Symposium invited elementary school students to take part in its wide-ranging collection of class and laboratory projects.
Students from many Wheeler feeder schools toured the Wildcat Arena Wednesday morning to learn from their high school counterparts, who were more than happy to explain how they’ve blending high-level science and engineering knowledge with concepts from the creative arts.
For the last three years, the STEAM concept has been on display at the symposium, and earlier this school year Wheeler became the first high school in the state to receive official STEAM certification from the Georgia Department of Education.
Wheeler junior Ryan Davis was literally wearing his project, a lit multi-colored strap he calls Reactive LED Hoodie. He can change the colors and “make it a rainbow,” said Davis, who also has set the project to music streaming through a nearby laptop.
“I enjoy doing electronics for fun and am interested in wearable technology,” he said, as the device changed from yellow to green to blue to red and other colors.
Another Wheeler junior, Abigail Ochal, said her engineering class semester project, 3D Printing Plastic Filament Extruder, is designed to extract recyclable plastics from 3D printing materials. She couldn’t turn on the device with a big crowd around, however, since temperatures flare up in excess of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead, Ochal demonstrated on her laptop how the plastic pellets stream out.
More familiar robotics contraptions were also tooling around on the gym floor, and Wheeler’s F1 in Schools students drew a big crowd with their speed demonstrations down a 16-meter aluminum track.
Wheeler junior Poojan Mehta, who’s part of the AeroFlow Racing team, said recent test runs have averaged around 1.1 seconds. But while we watched, we saw what he said was the best time they’ve seen thus far, 0.996 seconds. He said the cars are designed with computer technology, and the runs are examined there as well for insights as to how to make them run even faster.
In previous years, the Wheeler STEAM Symposium was held at night, and initially it featured the work of students within the Wheeler Magnet School.
Now, says assistant principal Cheryl Crooks, head of the magnet school and Wheeler STEAM Symposium, the event has expanded to the entire school body, with outreach to students and lower school levels.
“Let’s make it inclusive, and let’s invite everybody from the school,” she said. STEAM, Crooks added, can be for “every student, every teacher and at every level.”
Elementary students also were recognized for their projects, another first for the symposium.
“Our students looked like they enjoyed it more” seeing their visitors react to their projects, Crooks said. “It really validates what they’re doing.”
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Construction will begin soon on the final phase of the Walton HS rebuild, after the Cobb Board of Eduction approved a $31.7 million contract Thursday.
The school board went with the recommended low bidder, Evergreen Construction of Cobb, which will build more than 151,000 square feet of gymnasium and performing arts space on the site of the original classroom building.
Included in the final phase are main and auxiliary gymnasiums, a wrestling room, a weight room, locker rooms, a main theater, a black box theater and band, orchestra and choral suites.
Completion is expected late next year.
The school board also approved phasing out the auxiliary gym at Lassiter High School, which is getting a replacement competition gym.
The first new principal appointment for an East Cobb school for the next academic year also was approved by the school board Thursday.
Jonathan Tanner, who has been the principal at Campbell High School for the last three years, will be the new principal at Mabry Middle School. He succeeds Merrilee Heflin, who is retiring, and will start on June 1.
Tanner is returning to the East Cobb area. He is a former teacher at Lassiter and assistant principal at Simpson Middle School, and also served in an administrative role at J.J. Daniell Middle School.
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After the end of state education austerity cuts, a new Cobb schools budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 includes across-the-board employee pay raises that were not part of the initial plan.
The Cobb County School District will get $10.2 million in state revenue under the Quality Basic Education Act after Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal announced in March that he was ending years-long austerity cuts for public schools.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said at a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday afternoon that he is proposing spending the “lion’s share” of that money on 1.1 percent raises for all county employees. The rest would be used to increase the instructional reserve allotment from six to 19 positions, teaching slots that are added when schools surpass enrollment projections.
He’s still recommending a 1.1 percent bonus for “238-day” employees, who include teachers, police officers and high school secretaries. So-called “non-238-day” employees, who work year-round, would get additional days off in the summer.
Those bonuses would be paid with $7.8 million in reserve funding. The raises for nearly 15,000 district employees would cost around $9 million. Step increases for teachers based on experience would come to another $12 million.
The new budget proposal of nearly $1.2 billion, like the original, does not include a tax millage rate increase.
“This is no small change,” Cobb schools chief financial officer Brad Johnson said about the extra $10.2 million. He estimated that the district, which is the second-largest in Georgia with more than 112,000 students, has lost more than $600 million in state education austerity cuts since 2003.
Still, the revised budget, which the school board tentatively approved Thursday night, is a tight one. Formal approval comes next month.
Johnson called it a “middle ground” budget with moderate risk, with around a month’s worth of fund balance.
He is factoring in a net Cobb tax digest growth of 6 percent, following a recent estimate by the Cobb Tax Assessors office of 7.5 percent gross growth.
Another major budget challenge that keeps growing is the exemption from school taxes for homeowners 62 and over. Johnson estimates that this year, the cost of that exemption will come to $90 million. Last year, the figure was $78 million, and he thinks the number will exceed $100 million next year.
Before the budget presentation, Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators pleaded for a 2.5 percent raise for employees, and suggested raising the millage rate from the current 18.9 that has not changed in 10 years to the maximum 20 mills.
The $10.2 million in new revenue, she said, “is not enough. . . We need a raise. It’s time, the money is there and frankly many people out there support it.”
School board member David Morgan of South Cobb agreed, saying even with the recommended raises Cobb is 9th out of 12 public school districts in metro Atlanta in terms of starting pay scale.
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Old yearbooks were on display at Saturday’s 65th anniversary celebration for Sprayberry High School (East Cobb News photos and slideshow by Wendy Parker).
Several dozen graduates, local dignitaries and present students turned out for the Sprayberry High School 65th anniversary celebration on Saturday, and not just for old time’s sake.
Artifacts from the school’s rich history were certainly on display, including a video compilation and yearbooks that told the story of the first high school in East Cobb, long before it became the busy suburb it is today.
The festivities also allowed current school leaders to tout Sprayberry’s evolution into a diverse, high-achieving school in an East Cobb community noted for public education.
Frank Wigington, Sprayberry Class of 1970.
When it opened on what is now Cobb Parkway in 1952, in a facility now occupied by The Walker School, Sprayberry had only 20 teachers. When it moved to its present campus on Sandy Plains Road at Piedmont Road in 1973, the building was the largest for a school in the Southeast and the second-largest structure of any kind in Cobb County.
“Boy, have things changed,” said Principal Joe Sharp, who recounted all 13 of his predecessors and their accomplishments.
The connections between tradition and innovation were noted frequently at Saturday’s event, held in the gym and that included a performance by the Sprayberry orchestra.
“Sprayberry and I are the same age,” said Frank Wigington, a landscaping company owner, Northeast Cobb civic leader and a 1970 Sprayberry graduate who’s also the public address voice of Yellow Jackets sports teams.
“It has aged a lot better than I have.”
The Sprayberry graduates who have enjoyed nationwide success include Mike Greene, who had his own band in high school and later became president of the Grammy Awards, and John Bridges, is now the chief marketing officer for Chick-fil-A.
Perhaps Sprayberry’s most famous graduate is another entertainment industry figure, country music star Travis Tritt.
Regardless of their school popularity or claim to fame as adults, Wigington said, they came “from this little school, this little community. . . . Their foundation was Sprayberry.”
Maddie Wonders, the 2018 senior class president, said she chose Sprayberry for its mix of academic programs and social atmosphere. Like many of Saturday’s speakers, she was proud of the school’s diverse student body and academic programs that reflect it.
“It has unlocked opportunities I never knew existed,” she said. “It’s my home away from home.”
Maddie Wonders, Sprayberry 2018 senior class president.
Among them are the Sprayberry International Spanish Language Academy, a dual-language immersion program for native and non-native speakers, and other Scholars Academies for STEM and leadership, law and public service.
On another video presentation, current Sprayberry students and teachers emphasized how their school is “a microcosm of America.”
Sprayberry’s enrollment of around 1,700 students is the second-lowest for a high school in the Cobb County School District. Its sense of family and community is something that “you can’t script,” superintendent Chris Ragsdale said. “You can tell what people feel about Sprayberry. It’s awesome.”
Cobb Board of Education member David Chastain represents the Sprayberry district, and as a graduate of Wheeler High School, appreciates his old rival’s sense of tradition, and how its student body today “really represents America.”
That sense of community spreads to civic and cultural institutions that support from organizations the Piedmont Church and the Northeast Cobb Business Association.
The Sprayberry community, Chastain said, “is built around that school. It’s unlike any other in the county.”
After the speakers, guests were treated to refreshments and visited classrooms devoted to specific decades to revive old memories, and renew longstanding friendships. The Sprayberry Foundation was holding a gala fundraiser Saturday night at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church.
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The original Walton High School building has been torn down, and new gymnasium and performing arts space will go in its place. According to an early look at next week’s Cobb Board of Education meeting, a low-bid contract for $31.7 million is being recommended for approval.
The school board will hold a work session at 1 p.m. Thursday and a business meeting at 7 p.m., also on Thursday. Both meetings take place in the board chambers at the CCSD Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta). Here’s the full agenda packet for the meetings.
Before the evening session, a public budget forum will take place in the same place starting at 6:30 p.m. Citizens can comment on a proposed $1.2 billion fiscal year 2019 budget. That figure has grown from an initial figure of $1.059 billion in March.
Board members also are scheduled to tentatively approve that budget, and future public hearings will be held before formal adoption in May.
Walton students moved into a new $48 million classroom building in August, and demolition of the original 42-year-old building has taken place over the winter.
The new 151,000-square-foot project will include main and auxiliary gymnasiums, a wrestling room, a weight room, locker rooms, a main theater, a black box theater and band, orchestra and choral suites.
Cobb-based Evergreen Construction is the low bidder, and its proposal comes in at nearly $3 million less than the estimated cost of $34.69 million. The funding is earmarked in the current Cobb Education Cobb SPLOST IV, and the projected completion date is November 2019.
The new Walton project isn’t the only major rebuilding contract on the school board’s agenda Thursday. A rebuilding contract totaling $47.4 million will be considered for Osborne High School, as will a new gym and theater project at Harrison High School for $22.3 million.
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On Saturday, East Cobb’s oldest high school will mark its 65th anniversary.
Sprayberry High School (2525 Sandy Plains Road) will hold a special assembly in the gym at 2 p.m. Saturday, and tours of the school from 3-5, followed by a fundraising gala.
Attendance to the assembly, which includes comments from Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale and leading figures from Sprayberry’s past, is free, and the dress is casual.
The event also includes special displays from each decade of the school’s history, including its early years on what is now Cobb Parkway and the current location of The Walker School.
The Sprayberry Hall of Fame Hall of Fame Gala, a fundraising event for the school’s foundation, starts at 6:30 p.m. at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Catholic Church (3431 Trickum Road).
The cost is $100 and there will be raffle prizes, food, music and other entertainment.
Sprayberry opened its doors in the fall of 1952 and moved to its present location in 1973. It’s named after Paul Sprayberry, a Cobb school superintendent in the 1950s.
Sprayberry was the only public high school in East Cobb for more than a decade, until the area began transforming from rural to suburban. Wheeler opened in 1965, followed by Walton (1974), Lassiter (1981), Pope (1987) and Kell (2002).
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Thanks to Lisa Hatch, executive director of East Cobb Robotics, for sending along the photo and great news about the latest accomplishments for the FRC 4910 team. She said the students on the team attend Pope, Sprayberry, Walton and Wheeler high schools, and some are home-schooled:
East Cobb Robotics, FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) team 4910 is excited to announce that for the 3rd year in a row, its students have again earned a spot at the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, Texas. East Cobb Robotics (ECR) is a community-based, not for profit organization providing STEM education to high-school aged students through its participation in the FIRSTRobotics Competition. Each year, over 3600 teams from around the world are provided a ‘game,’ challenging them to design, build, and program a robot in order to compete. ey have just six weeks to accomplish this goal, followed by tournaments where their team strives to outperform the robots of other teams. At the end of these tournaments, the top 400 teams earn an invitation to the championship event.
This year, the students of ECR won their two qualification tournaments in the Peachtree District as first place winners, and nished third overall in Georgia after a challenging District Championship event in Athens. We are very proud of their accomplishments and can’t wait to see what the future has in store for them. Over the years of our existence, ECR has won numerous awards including Engineering Inspiration, Safety, Quality, Team Spirit, Excellence in Engineering, and Gracious Professionalism as well as nishing as part of the third highest ranked alliance at the 2017 World Competition.
East Cobb Robotics is a 501(c)3 not-for-pro t organization based in Marietta, GA. Tax deductible contributions can be made via PayPal to eastcobbrobotics@gmail.com.
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Students from Shallowford Falls Elementary School took first place in the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl in Athens on March 24.
Students read 18 Georgia Children’s Book Award nominees (this year’s booklist can be found here) and memorized details of the books, then answered questions in a bowl-type format. It’s the first time Shallowford Falls has won the Reading Bowl.
The competition is named after Helen Ruffin, school librarian in DeKalb County, and was begun in 1986.
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The Cobb County School District expects more than 2,000 educators to attend two upcoming job fairs open to anyone interested in certified teaching positions. The job fairs put teachers face-to-face with school administrators in a relaxed and personal setting and gives them the opportunity to talk directly about teaching and learning in a diverse and dynamic school district.
Elementary Schools Job Fair
March 27, 2018 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Wheeler High School
375 Holt Rd NE
Marietta, GA 30068
Middle and High Schools Job Fair
March 29, 2018 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Kennesaw Mountain High School
1898 Kennesaw Due West Rd NW
Kennesaw, GA 30152
Cobb County is the second largest school district in Georgia and is recognized as a premier system in which to teach, lead and learn.
“The Cobb County School District was, once again, the first district in Georgia to issue contracts for the upcoming school year,” says Kevin Kiger, Executive Director of Human Resources, “Doing so enables us to recruit and hire the best educators before anyone else. We are always seeking the finest educators who are ready to join the Cobb Family and support our vision: One Team, One Goal: Student Success.”
For more information and to start an application, interested persons can visit www.teachcobb.org.
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Parents, friends and family members of Walton students offered support during the March 14 walkout. (East Cobb News photo)
Cobb County School District high schools are beginning to issue suspensions for students who participated in National Walkout Day last week. Some East Cobb students say they’re still waitng to hear what there punishment will be.
Kara Litwin, organizer of the walkout at Pope High School, told East Cobb News Wednesday that she and others who walked out are receiving a day of in-school suspension on Monday.
Walton walkout leaders said the estimated 260 students at their school who walked out will receive a day of ISS on Tuesday.
Cobb schools did not support the walkout and said students who left their classes in a gun-control protest would be subject to disciplinary action under the district’s student code of conduct. Those actions would be left up to individual school principals.
Hannah Andress, the Lassiter leader, told us Wednesday night her administration hasn’t announced any punishment. She thinks it’s also going to be a day of what’s referred to as ISS. Instead of attending classes, students will gather in what’s essentially a day-long study hall. She also told us this:
“I want something like assigned community service for the younger participants so, when the apply to college, they don’t have to explain ISS on their record. But I’m willing to take any punishment if it means getting my message across.”
We also heard from Josh Spear, a student at Harrison High School in West Cobb, who said his school also has issued one day of ISS that he will be serving on Friday. “However,” he added, “I will fight to ensure that the school district pays for the violation of students’ first amendment rights.”
We’ll update this story as we get more information about forthcoming punishments.
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We’ve posted here earlier about fundraisers conducted by Lassiter parents for the band’s 2019 trip to the Tournament of Roses Parade. One of those parents, Tim Pattison, has been in touch with us to say they’re holding a 5K race next month to help three band members who need financial assistance for the trip. The cost estimate is about $3,000 a student.
He says they’re holding the For the Love of Music 5K, a virtual race being held anytime between April 29 and May 12. There are full details posted on a website and Facebook page, but here’s what Tim told us about what they need to make this work for each of the three students.
“We need 500 runners to meet our goal, anything past that we are donating to help any of the other band kids whose parents might need financial help. Feel free to share this with anyone else or with other running groups, we can use all the help we can get!”
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Walton parents held up signs in support of their children who walked out Wednesday (East Cobb News file photo).
The day after they ignored threatened punishments by Cobb schools and walked out of classes, students at Walton, Pope and Lassiter high schools denounced the district’s position on opposing the nationwide event and asked for leniency.
In a public comment session at the Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday, several students decried what they described as efforts to “silence us,” and vowed that their demands for greater school safety, including “commonsense” gun control laws, would continue.
“This will not deter us,” said Kara Litwin, who led the walkout at Pope High School.
She was among the 1,000 students estimated by the Cobb County School District who left their classes for 17 minutes Wednesday as part of the National School Walkout.
The walkout took place exactly a month after 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., were shot to death on campus. A former student was charged with their killings.
The Cobb district said it did not support the walkouts because it was concerned about school safety and not disrupting the school day, and said that students who walked out would face consequences for their actions.
The punishments were not specified, and the district said disciplinary action is up to individual schools. Those actions have not been announced, but judging by students’ comments, some could be facing a three-day out-of-school suspension.
“I walked out for 17 minutes,” Litwin said. “Seventeen minutes, compared to the lives of 17 people.”
She said Cobb schools “taught us to stand up for what we believe in. Why are you going back on your word?”
Natalie Carlomagno, a Walton High School sophomore who organized her school’s walkout, echoed similar thoughts.
“Why do you want to punish us for using the excellent education you’ve given us? We just want to be safe.”
She said three days of an out-of-school suspension “is much more disruptive than 17 minutes.”
Only 260 Walton students walked out, a much smaller number than the more than 2,000 organizers said had signed up. Walton freshman Divya Vismani, another walkout leader, said that was “because of the threats” students received from school officials not to join the protest.
Lassiter High School senior Hannah Andress, who led her school’s walkout, was the most critical, saying she felt like she had to march because “I am tired of fearing for my life.”
She also referenced a possible three-day suspension, and asked the board members “shouldn’t you be supporting me? Listen to me. I am begging you.
“I am advocating for myself, because you didn’t.”
East Cobb resident Pamela Riordan, who lives near Walton, commended Cobb schools for opposing the walkout, and said that “students are being used by factions in society,” especially on gun issues.
“The problem is not guns,” she said, but that the suspect in the Florida shootings had not been previously detained, despite numerous calls to law enforcement about his behavior.
“That is the breakdown, that is what we should be talking about,” she said.
At the end of the meeting, most board members did not respond to the walkout students’ comments, and they have said little publicly about the issue in general.
Susan Thayer of Smyrna thanked the students for their remarks and said she respected their opinions but said only that “it’s been a frustrating week.”
Scott Sweeney, who represents the Walton district, wished everyone a happy spring break. David Banks, who represents Pope and Lassiter, said he enjoyed a recent visit reading to students at Eastvalley Elementary School. David Chastain commended Kell High School culinary students for the Mexican meal prepared for the board before the meeting.
Randy Scamihorn of north and west Cobb mentioned four police officers nationwide who have recently been killed in the line of duty, something he does regularly. He urged everyone associated with Cobb schools to support the work of the district’s public safety officials to keep students, teachers and staff safe.
Cobb schools superintendent Chris Ragsdale also did not comment on the students’ remarks.
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A summary of a proposed $1.059 billion fiscal year 2019 Cobb schools budget was presented to the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday, and it reflects a slight increase from the present fiscal year 2018 budget of $1.023 billion.
David Banks
The FY 2019 proposal includes a 1.1-percent bonus for annual employees, district police officers and high school secretaries, also known as “238-day” employees. There are no pay raises included for any Cobb County School District employees.
At a board work session Thursday, district officials laid out a budget plan that doesn’t raise property taxes, but uses $7.8 million in reserve funding to pay for the bonuses.
On a more long-term level, the budget forecast for the 112,000-student district, the second-largest in Georgia, is a bit grim.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said that “revenue has not changed,” and that “while we always try to guard against crying wolf,” the district’s tight fiscal situation does not appear to be changing any time soon.
“We have cut until we are at the bone,” Ragsdale said. “We have nothing left to cut.”
The one-page budget presentation (below, or click for PDF version here) also includes $12 million in salary step increases for eligible employees and an increase in the employer contribution to the state teacher retirement system from 16.81 percent to 20.9 percent, or a total of $25 million more.
Of that amount, the state is contributing $16 million, according to Cobb schools chief financial officer Brad Johnson.
He added that state austerity cuts for FY 2019 will take another $10 million in funding away from Cobb. The district also will have to contribute $155 million in state “fair share” funding that is spread around other school districts in Georgia, up from the present $145 million.
Johnson also said that flat student enrollment growth figures in Cobb also figure to reduce the funding the district receives from the state.
This is all in spite of Cobb coming off a record tax digest in 2017, and a net estimated digest growth of six percent for this year that would yield an additional $24 million in school revenues.
The current Cobb school millage rate is 18.9 mills, and is capped at 20 mills. Residential property owners in Cobb age 62 and over are eligible to apply for an exemption from paying school taxes, which the district estimates costs around $100 million annually.
“We have very little additional state revenue coming in next year,” Johnson told the board members. “We have a revenue problem. We have a problem with state revenue.”
The current FY 2018 budget includes the use of $18 million in reserve funds to purchase property adjoining the school district’s Marietta headquarters ($4.2 million) and $5.6 million for school building additions and modifications in the south Cobb area.
Ragsdale said the district is still down around 900 teaching positions. Estimating that the average teacher cost is $90,000 a year, he said there’s “no way we can even attempt to think about” how to close that gap.
The proposed budget includes a total of six new instructional positions across the district, at a cost of $542,000.
Saying that revenue sources aren’t just “tapped out,” but that “we are taking on water,” Ragsdale said that “it’s really a shame that we cannot do anything more with our budget as it is now. It is what it is.”
Board member David Banks of East Cobb, who represents the Pope and Lassiter districts, admitted during the presentation that “we’re in a danger zone.”
Later on Thursday, Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators said the budget “isn’t pretty, it’s not what we were hoping for” and urged board members to include pay raises.
“We need a raise, and we need it this year,” she said, referring to information provided by school officials that Cobb is ninth out of 12 metro Atlanta school districts in recruiting new teachers.
She said “we are slipping” and fears Cobb will slide in other indicators for paying and retaining teachers and school administrators.
There hasn’t been a millage rate increase for Cobb schools in 10 years, Jackson said, and while no one wants a tax increase, boosting the millage rate to the full 20 mills would cost homeowners an additional $80 a year on a home valued at $200,000 and would yield a 2.5 pay raise.
“That’s not much to ask for . . . for a living wage,” she said.
Johnson said more detailed budget information will be available soon, and will be posted on the district’s website as well.
The school board will hold a public hearing on the budget on April 19 at 6:30 p.m., shortly before tentative approval.
Formal adoption is scheduled for May 17, following a second public hearing at 12:30 p.m. The Cobb schools budget goes into effect on July 1, and the final tax digest figures are determined later in July.
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As a television news helicopter buzzed overhead, several dozen parents, family members and friends of Walton High School walkout students gathered Wednesday morning to show their support on National School Walkout day.
The group of about 30-40 people huddled in brisk temperatures at the back entrance to Walton, near the football field where walkout students were planning their protest, holding signs and talking quietly among themselves.
At 10 a.m., they grew quiet as the names of the 17 victims of the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., were pronounced. A moment of silence followed, and the group waved to students walking to and from the main school building, and to those who remained inside.
A solemn reading of the names of the 17 victims of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting a month ago today.
Walkout activity was not visible from their gathering spot on Bill Murdock Road and Pine Road. Motorists were stopped by officers patrolling the entrance to the back parking lot.
Initial reports were that only a few hundred Walton students walked out, far fewer than the more than 2,000 students protest organizers said had signed up online. Around 100 or so students each at Lassiter and Pope reportedly participated in walkouts.
UPDATE: Around 12:30 p.m. today, John Adams, the deputy superintendent of Cobb schools, posted this message on the Cobb County School Unofficial Community Page on Facebook:
In short, only a small fraction of our students engaged in protests, mainly at a relatively small number of schools. Over 99% of the students in CCSD behaved appropriately and did not violate school rules in any way. Over 90% of our schools did not experience any significant disruption. Less than 1% of our students engaged in some sort of protest.
In total, less than 1,000 students engaged in a brief protest out of approximately 112,000. Walton, for example, only had about 250 students walk out, which was far less than the 2,300 number that had been recently forecast for that location.
In general, nearly all of our students complied with the school rules and worked successfully with our principals to find non-disruptive ways to express any concerns. Congratulations to both our local school administrators and to our students for handling this situation so well.
The gates to the front entrance of Walton were locked, and no visitors were allowed earlier in the morning for a memorial event approved by the school administration.
No vehicles were allowed near the main Walton High School entrance after the school day began.
At nearby Pope High School, several Cobb Police vehicles blocked the lone entrance to the school on Hembree Road, and uniformed officers approached motorists seeking to enter.
Pope High School was off-limits to outsiders Wednesday.
The National School Walkout was observed across the country on the first-month anniversary of the Parkland, Fla., shootings, and students at Walton, Lassiter, Pope and other East Cobb high schools have been vocal and visible in expressing their desire to do something about school safety.
Officially, however, the Cobb County School District did not support the walkout, and threatened students who did with unspecified disciplinary action. School officials cited safety and a desire not to disrupt classes for their decision.
Various news outlets and social media posts were reporting that students at some schools in East Cobb and elsewhere were being strongly encouraged and possibly even physically forced to remain in their school buildings.
In response, a message posted at the Sprayberry Athletics Facebook page said 150 students gathered in the school cafeteria at 10 a.m. and staged a 17-minute peaceful observation in honor of the Parkland victims, “but at no time did students attempt to leave the building, nor were they locked in their classrooms and prevented from exiting.”
Jane Mathers, the grandmother of Walton senior Madeleine Deisen, one of the walkout leaders, said she doesn’t believe the safety explanation given by Cobb schools.
“I don’t believe that at all,” said Mathers, who was part of the supporters group, adding that the school district’s threat of student discipline “is a very big disappointment.
“What I support is action that will cause change and that will protect students,” said Mathers, who lives here and part of the year in her hometown of Haddonfield, N.J., where she said a school-endorsed observation was scheduled Wednesday at 10 a.m., the designated walkout time, at a school football field.
The National School Walkout also was planned as a demonstration in favor of gun control. Few of the signs at the Walton parent gathering specifically referred to that issue, but many had signs and wore buttons saying “Not One More.” Most expressed their disappointment with the Cobb schools decision and encouraged students to get involved in what they believe in.
Mathers acknowledged that gun-control alone isn’t the solution to the problem of school shootings. “There is no one answer to the problem,” she said, but added that it’s a shame “this particular school district and this particular school” has taken the stance it has.
Before the school day Wednesday, Walton administrators, teachers, students and invited guests gathered for a commemoration of the school shootings.
The event wasn’t open to the public, and East Cobb News was denied a coverage request. But we were allowed to have a program from the service. It indicated that the names of the Parkland victims were read aloud, and participants had an opportunity to lay flowers and visit a letter-writing table to leave their tributes.
At the end of the event, trumpeters Daniel Hudadoff and Duncan Farquahar played “Taps.”
The event was organized by the Walton Principal’s Leadership Committee, Student Government Association and other student groups. On the back of the program, it read “Thank you for supporting the students and keeping us safe,” listing Principal Judy McNeill and the Walton administration, Cobb schools superintendent Chris Ragsdale and Cobb school board member Scott Sweeney.
“We are pleased to let you know we had a beautiful day today,” the Walton administration said in a message to parents Wednesday afternoon, detailing the morning service that was “followed by a very calm day and classes proceeded as usual.”
The message concluded that “a large police presence” accompanied the students walking out, “and as typical of Walton students they thanked the officers for keeping them safe.”
One of the Walton students who walked out is sophomore Ema Barber. She told East Cobb News she left her biology class at 9:55 and signed a sign-out sheet, then walked to the stadium area.
“I was a little bit anxious because I didn’t know how many people would show up,” she said. But she the walkout was rather uneventful. There were some police and security blocking doors, but Barber said she was not stopped.
She said the Cobb schools estimate of around 250 students walking out sounded right to her, and figured the lower turnout than expected was because students weren’t sure what the consequences might be for their actions.
At 10 a.m. the names of the Parkland victims were read aloud as the students huddled on the football field. There also was contact information posted about elected representatives, including U.S. Rep. Karen Handel, and Barber said some of the students were going to call her office about gun control and school safety issues.
She said students were allowed to return to the classroom without any incidents that she knew about. Cobb schools had an early release day Wednesday, and Walton and other high schools wrapped up their school day at 11:30 a.m.
Barber said while she supports some gun control measures, the importance of the walkout was to begin to raise awareness that she hopes will continue. She also said she’s not sure what kind of suspension or punishment she may receive, but “I’m not too worried about it.”
The message from the Walton administration sent out Wednesday made no reference to any possible disciplinary action.
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Walton High School Principal Judy McNeill sent out this message to parents this afternoon:
We have received many reports of a threat made against the school for tomorrow, March 14, 2018. The administration along with school police have thoroughly investigated all reported information and have found nothing credible to substantiate a threat to our school. We are very thankful students and parents have come forward with various information as we must all work together to keep us all safe. If you ever receive any concerning information in the overnight hours, please call our local police at Precinct 4.
ORIGINAL POST, 3:41 P.M.
The day before students are staging gun-control “walkout” protests, Cobb schools issued a reminder that all campuses will be closed to “visitors” on Wednesday.
This doesn’t include parents dropping off or picking up their children. Cobb schools are on an early release schedule Wednesday, with high schools letting out at 11:30 a.m., followed by elementary schools at 12:30 p.m. and middle schools at 1:30 p.m. The rest of the afternoon is a professional learning day for teachers.
The Cobb County School District is not endorsing the walkouts and is threatening to subject those students who do to its code of conduct.
Walkouts are planned nationwide for 17 minutes at 10 a.m. as part of what’s being called National School Walkout, to honor the 17 victims of the Feb. 14 high school shootings in Parkland, Fla., and to advocate for gun control.
Students at Walton, Lassiter, Pope and other East Cobb high schools have said hundreds of students have signed an online petition to take part.
Individual schools have been given latitude to conduct their own observances as an alternative. Cobb schools cited safety reasons and conducting an undisrupted school day for its decision.
J.J. Daniel Middle School will conduct a 17-minute period of “observation and reflection” and a school-wide moment of silence. Students also will participate in a 17-day student “walk-up challenge,” in which they will be asked to get acquainted with 17 students they don’t already know.
Walton High School is holding a memorial service before classes as part of a #WhatsYour17 effort for students to engage in acts of kindness.
A visitor invited to attend the Walton event is Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who said in his remarks at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting that such an alternative to a walkout “is making it into a teaching moment.”
The Cobb schools statement issued today didn’t indicate whether media wishing to cover Wednesday events would be considered “visitors” or not. East Cobb News was initially denied a request to cover the Walton service at the school level; we’ve got a call into the CCSD for clarification.
The Cobb office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was holding a press conference later this afternoon at Pope High School to support the right of students to walk out and “to make sure that any consequences which result are fair and not excessive or disparate.”
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