Cobb Board of Education candidate John Cristadoro said Friday that a number of prominent business, community, educational and political leaders have endorsed his campaign for the East Cobb-based Post 5 seat.
They include former Cobb commissioner and Georgia Public Service commissioner Stan Wise, Superior Plumbing CEO Jay Cunningham and former Cobb Republican Party chairs Scott Johnson and Rose Wing.
Cristadoro is a Republican with two children in the Walton attendance zone who is seeking the seat currently held by GOP school board vice chairman David Banks, who has not said said if he will be seeking a fifth term next year.
The Post 5 seat includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope attendance zones. Democrat Laura Judge, also a parent in the Walton zone, has announced her candidacy.
Cristadoro is a first-time candidate but has compiled a lengthy list of influential supporters he’s calling his “campaign leadership team.”
They include John Loud, CEO of Loud Security Systems and a former chairman of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce and Scott Sweeney, a former school board member from East Cobb who’s the current chairman of the Georgia Board of Education.
Cunningham is one of four current members of the Cobb County School District’s Finance and Technology Committee that conducts oversight of the education SPLOST to endorse Cristadoro.
The others are Shane Spink, a community leader in the Sprayberry High School area and Wayne Brown, an engineer, both appointed by Post 4 Republican school board member David Chastain.
Lesley Litt, business executive, was appointed by Republican Brad Wheeler and Cunningham by Republican Randy Scamihorn.
The seats held by Banks, Wheeler, Scamihorn and Democrat Tre’ Hutchins will be up for election in 2024.
As East Cobb News first reported earlier this month, Cristadoro has raised nearly $30,000—loaning his campaign $10,000—for what’s expected to be an expensive campaign. Judge has raised nearly $9,000.
In his release Friday, Cristadoro said of his new supporters that “I am very honored these known leaders have chosen to join our campaign team. They will be very beneficial in assisting our campaign goal to keep the Cobb County School District strong and a recognized leader in academics.”
Stan Wise—Former Ga. Public Commissioner, Cobb County Commissioner
Jay Cunningham—CEO of Superior Plumbing, CCSD F & T Committee
Scott Johnson—Served on Georgia Board of Education; previous Chairman of Cobb GOP
Shane Spink—F & T Committee Member for CCSD and businessman
Alice Stouder—Former Cobb school district assistant superintendent
Wayne Brown—Member of CCSD F & T Committee
Lawson Kirkland—Senior V.P. in the banking industry
Peter Heinzleman—Former CEO of Cobb EMC and current business owner
Lesley Litt—Immediate Past Chair of CCSD F & T Committee and CEO of CrystalFlex
Hilda Wilkins—Retired Cobb school principal and Director of Accreditation for Cobb Schools
Dan Joy—Principal with Rule Joy Tramell & Rule Architecture Design
Dan Payrow—President of R.S. Andrews
Rose Wing—Attorney and former Cobb assistant district attorney and previous Cobb GOP Chair
Tracy Cullo—Chair of East Cobb Republican Women’s Club
Simone Thomas—East Cobb Community resident and community activist
Irey Sanders—Regional V.P of Brasfield & Gorrie
Pam & Tom Reardon—Cobb Republican activists
Bob Kilinski—Regional Operating Partner Keller Williams International
Jeff Chassner—Chief Sales Officer at New Realm
Lewis Lampley—Senior Clinical Research at Boston Scientific
Stephanie Joseph—East Cobb Resident and community activist.
Ryan Casey—Owner of Paper Connexion
Michael Trent—CEO of Trent Consulting and youth baseball coach
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Suzette Spinelli of Lassiter talks to the media after being told she was the Cobb school district’s 2023 high school teacher of the year. ECN photo and video
For Suzette Spinelli, Tuesday started out the same as it had for the last 47 years, the first day back to school for teachers.
The veteran Lassiter High School art teacher wore a light, sleeveless dress on a hot day as she attended a teachers’ assembly at the school’s concert hall, where Cobb County School District Chris Ragsdale was a special visitor.
He had come there not just to thank teachers—”what you do every day makes a difference”—but to acknowledge a certain teacher in particular.
It was Suzette Spinelli, whom he announced had been named the Cobb school district’s high school teacher of the year for 2023.
She was in a total state of surprise as she was greeted by family members bearing flowers and hugs.
“You thought when you got up you were just going to work today,” Ragsdale told her as her colleagues, administrators from Lassiter and Cobb school district and two board members rose to congratulate her.
Now in her 48st year as an educator, Spinelli has been with the Cobb school district for 41 years, and has spent much of her career at East Cobb schools. She’s been at Lassiter since 2001, and previously taught at Daniell and Simpson middle schools.
She said teaching isn’t something she does for recognition.
“This was the last thing I expected,” Spinelli told the media after her honor.
She said for a few years now, she’s been asked how long she might want to continue to teach, but retiring isn’t something that’s crossed her mind.
“Every day, every year is a new beginning,” she said, noting that her first students are now in their early 60s.
“The students haven’t changed in all these years,” Spinelli said. “I see them grow and develop and and I still stay in touch with some of them.”
Spinelli said her passion for teaching stems from her desire to instill creativity in their students, even though most of them won’t have professional arts careers.
Spinelli’s previous teaching stops include Daniell and Simpson middle schools in East Cobb.
She said she’s learned as much from them as she teaches them, and “they have made my art better. . . . Being an art teacher is the best job ever.”
What drives her, she said, is her “hands-on” approach to teaching. “I’m still old school,” Spinelli said, admitting the difficulties of teaching art virtually at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I survived,” she said. “I wasn’t the best at it, but I survived. I just love what I do.”
Her work goes far beyond the classroom, as she has been an advisor and instructor for students entering art competitions, as well as a judge for art shows. She’s also had her own work exhibited at the Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Gallery at Kennesaw State University and The Gallery at Johnson Ferry.
Spinelli’s daughter, Cara Smith, was named Chalker Elementary School’s teacher of the year in 2022.
Spinelli was named Lassiter’s teacher of the year in April and is a finalist for the Cobb school district’s overall teacher of the year, which will be announced later in the fall semester.
Ragsdale said that after the individual school teachers of the year are named by their peers, a special committee at the Cobb school district begins the process for choosing the grade-level recipients.
Before his stop at Lassiter, he visited teachers at Awtrey Middle School and Bells Ferry Elementary School, who are the other finalists for overall teacher of the year.
They are Annelisa Bellack at Awtrey, who teaches social studies. Dr. Elizabeth Goff is an English as a Second Language teacher at Bells Ferry.
“It’s an awesome event to go to all three schools,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
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Carly Lyon reads to the school board from “My Shadow is Purple,” the book at the heart of the firing of a Cobb school teacher over Georgia’s divisive concepts in education law.
Although they weren’t permitted to directly address the firing of a Cobb County School District teacher over Georgia’s “divisive concepts” in education law, parents, teachers and other citizens found a creative way to get their point across on Thursday.
During a public comment session at a Cobb Board of Education meeting, a speaker read from the book that got fifth-grade teacher Katie Rinderle fired from her position at Due West Elementary School.
The book in question, “My Shadow is Purple,” by Australian author Scott Stuart, is a picture book about a child of elementary school age who doesn’t identify as a boy or a girl, but falls into what has been called by some as “non-binary.”
Among the charges against Rinderle is that she told students to use “they/them” pronouns to refer to the main character of the book instead of a gender-specific identifier.
Speakers at the school board meetings were told by Suzann Wilcox, the school board attorney, they couldn’t comment about a pending personnel matter. Rinderle is appealing her termination and a hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 10.
Michael Garza
The Cobb school district concluded the subject matter taught by Rinderle violates the 2022 divisive concepts law, which bars educators from teaching that racism is “systematically” racist, that a group of people is inherently “oppressive” and covers some issues about sex and gender identity.
The law that prompted an outcry from teachers and education organizations across the state as being draconian and lawsuits have been filed.
Rinderle’s termination, which came after the school district investigated complaints by Due West parents, is the first in Georgia since the law was passed.
For some parents, who came to the school board meeting wearing purple shirts saying “Ban Bias Not Books,” the action smacks of what they claim is the district’s lack of an embrace of a diversity and inclusion agenda.
Jeff Hubbard, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators, asked that the district reinstitute “No Place for Hate,” a curriculum program developed by the Anti-Defamation League.
Anna Clay, who said she is a Cobb teacher, was wearing a purple shirt.
She said the schools “should be welcoming of all students. Some are boys. Some are girls. Some are neither. Some are trans. Some are still figuring it out. They all deserve to be treated with respect. They all deserve to be represented in classroom literature.
“Our students are human beings, not divisive concepts.”
Michael Garza of East Cobb adapted a portion of the book’s text to explain his some of his educational experiences, and to comment on the Cobb school district’s actions.
Caryn Sonderman
“What I am left wondering is why is hate speech always free, yet your administration is quick to dismiss speech that validates me,” he said. “Being gay, being brown, being Jewish, being different is not a sin. When we all band together, your bigoted policies will not win.”
At a Thursday afternoon work session, Caryn Sonderman of East Cobb thanked the district for not allowing the teaching of those issues.
She said that the “truth is found in only one source God’s word. . . Are you building the kingdom of Satan or are you building the kingdom of God?”
“Children are being confused and deceived when God clearly made a man and a woman, a boy and girl, and you influence children to get them to think they can be other than what God made them to be.”
Board members did not comment, but later in the meeting approved a request by Superintendent Chris Ragsdale to give him authority to establish procedures and create a list of qualified candidates to serve on tribunals that conduct personnel hearings that are submitted to the school board.
“Tribunal members must possess academic expertise and must be impartial,” according to the agenda item, which was passed on the consent agenda.
During a brief discussion at the work session, the matter involving Rinderle was not mentioned.
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“I don’t want to get into a situation where we tax people out of their homes or can’t pay the rent,” Cobb school board member David Banks said in supporting a 0.5 millage rate cut.
As he did during the adoption of the Cobb County School District’s fiscal year 2024 budget in May, school board member David Banks didn’t cast a vote Thursday when it came time for setting a new millage rate.
As he did previously, Banks, the board’s vice chairman from East Cobb-based Post 5, voted present as his colleagues voted 6-0 to set the millage rate at 18.7 mills.
The millage rate is set separately from budget adoption since the Cobb tax digest isn’t formalized until July, when the Cobb school district budget goes into effect.
That’s 0.2 mills less than the millage rate that’s been set annually since 2007, but not as much as Banks wanted.
At a work session and voting session Thursday, he reiterated his desire for cut of 0.5 percent, due to rising property tax assessments that have prompted an outcry from citizens across the county.
He repeated claims that even with a 0.2 cut, the FY 2024 budget includes the largest tax increase in the history of the Cobb school district.
But during the work session, Brad Johnson the district’s chief financial officer, said he researched that issue and found that in 1972, the Cobb school budget had a tax increase of more than 30 percent.
That was a few years before the Georgia legislature approved a senior tax exemption for homeowners 62 and over from paying school taxes.
“I’m not for a wholesale reduction,” said Banks, a fourth-term Republican, saying that a 0.5-mill cut would suffice “until we get to a level that is appropriate.
“I don’t want to get into a situation where we tax people out of their homes or can’t pay the rent.”
It’s a similar concern expressed at a town hall meeting held Wednesday by JoAnn Birrell of the Cobb Board of Commissioners, which is scheduled to adopt a budget and millage rate on Tuesday.
The new $1.4 billion school district budget based on an 18.7 millage rate includes substantial pay increases for teachers and full-time employees, who have received strong pay and benefits raises for after several lean years.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said those initiatives have been necessary to make Cobb schools competitive for hiring and retaining teachers, issuing a common refrain of “so goes the district, so goes the county.”
But Banks persisted with a line of questioning that irritated board chairman Brad Wheeler, a fellow Republican, who wanted to “move along” with the discussion.
“Please don’t interrupt me,” Banks shot back, as the two went back and forth like that for a few moments.
At the evening voting session, the board’s three Democrats also said they liked the idea of a bigger reduction, but only one of them, Tre’ Hutchins of Post 3 in South Cobb, voted with Banks on the latter’s amendment to reduce the rate to 18.4 mills.
First-term Democrat Nichelle Davis of Post 3 in Smyrna said the 18.4 millage rate is “a step in the right direction.”
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A federal judge has said a group of plaintiffs suing over redistricting of Cobb Board of Education seats doesn’t have a legal claim against the Cobb County School District.
Cobb Board of Education maps passed by the legislature were first recommended by the school board’s Republican majority.
That doesn’t end the lawsuit, filed on behalf of several plaintiffs by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU and other attorneys.
Judge Eleanor Ross also ruled against the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration, the defendant, to have the suit dismissed entirely.
Plaintiffs claimed that the Georgia legislature, which passed the new maps last year, violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act and used race as a guiding factor in redrawing the seven school board posts.
Those actions included Post 2 and 3 in South Cobb and Post 6, which had covered most of the Walton and Wheeler high school attendance zones, and which was moved out of East Cobb, and mostly into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area.
Among the claims made by the plaintiffs was that the Cobb Board of Education’s four-member white Republican majority “voted on racial lines and without substantive debate to hire—at great expense to the county—a consulting firm to draw a proposed map” and that the process “both the hiring of a third party to draw the redistricting maps and the Board’s decision to forego bids from multiple firms— strayed from the Board’s past practices.”
That map was adopted by the legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp and went into effect for the 2022 elections.
The lawsuit seeks to declare the drawing of posts 2, 3 and 6 unconstitutional based and to order the legislature to draw a new map.
But in a ruling issued Tuesday, Ross, of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta said that “the Court finds that the above allegations are insufficient to establish a ‘longstanding and widespread practice’ by the District of recommending a racially gerrymandered map for the Board of Education elections in Cobb County.”
Ross, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, issued the ruling nearly a month after a hearing in her courtroom.
The Cobb school district hired an outside law firm as it sought a judgment that it shouldn’t be held liable for a redistricting map approved by the state legislature.
In a release issued late Thursday afternoon, the Cobb school district said the following:
“The suit is an unfortunate extension of efforts by political activists and organizations to exert influence in Cobb County’s schools. . . .
“While the Court’s opinion frees the District and its Board members from baseless accusations of racial discrimination, the District continues to be concerned that Cobb County Board of Elections, a politically appointed body, chose not to join the District in asking Judge Ross to rule in its favor and conclude the lawsuit.”
The SPLC issued the following statement from Poy Winichakul, one of its attorneys for voting rights:
“Despite the district’s mischaracterizations of the court’s order and the case itself,we are pleased that the plaintiffs’ case against the Board of Elections is moving forward. Judge Ross declined to rule on any of the district’s arguments related to the map. What this means is that our case is proceeding exactly as plaintiffs originally pled it last summerand the district will no longer spend the county’s resources litigating the case, but instead will return to its important job of educating the students of Cobb County. We look forward to proving our case on the merits.”
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David Chastain, a third-term member of the Cobb Board of Education, has been fined $250 and ordered to pay back a portion of two campaign contributions from last year that were deemed to be a violation of state campaign finance limits.
The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission ruled last month that two donations Chastain’s campaign received exceeded state limits and that his campaign didn’t file the proper paperwork to separate them between the primary and general election.
A Republican, Chastain was re-elected last year to serve Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry high school clusters, after a bitter general election campaign against Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
Neither of them had a primary opponent last March. Pozniak, a Sprayberry High School graduate who took an early fundraising lead over Chastain, accused him of violating state laws limiting the amounts of individual contributors three weeks before the general electdion.
One of them was a total of $5,000 from State Rep. Ginny Erhart, a West Cobb Republican who filed reapportionment maps for the Cobb school board and Cobb Board of Commissioners that were passed by the legislature.
Another was $4,000 from Jonathan Crumly, an attorney with Taylor English Duma who drew the school board maps. Erhart’s husband, former State Rep. Earl Erhart, was the CEO of Taylor English Decisions LLC, the lobbying arm of the law firm, last year.
The individual limit under Georgia campaign finance law is $3,000, and Chastain later filed amended reports that split the contributions in two.
He said his campaign mistakenly forgot to separate the contributions from Ginny Erhart and Crumly. But the state campaign finance commission, in a June 26 consent order, concluded that Chastain didn’t file the necessary paperwork to bundle the donations.
At the time, Chastain said Pozniak’s complaint was “baseless and politics at its worst,” and showed “a deliberate attempt by Catherine Pozniak and her small platoon of Democratic socialists [that] is on full display by Cobb County.”
A few days after the Pozniak complaint was filed, Ginny Erhart issued a press release claiming Pozniak fraudulently filed a senior school tax exemption for her late father’s home.
Pozniak denied the charge and said that “for Mr. Chastain and his political cronies to retaliate with a smear campaign launched on a family tragedy is beyond reprehensible.”
Chastain defeated Pozniak with 54 percent of the vote as Republicans kept a 4-3 majority on the Cobb school board.
The school board map sponsored by Ginny Erhart is the subject of a federal lawsuit that the Cobb County School District has joined.
Earl Erhart is now the managing director of Freeman Mathis Decisions, the lobbying group for Freeman Matbis and Gary, which the Cobb school district has hired to represent it in the lawsuit.
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“I’m very disappointed that you all are not trying to save us money instead of costing us money,” East Cobb resident John Frank Sanders Jr. told commissioners Tuesday.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners and Cobb Board of Education got an earful this week from Cobb citizens who say their property tax bills will be crippling them and others.
Public hearings are underway as both bodies get ready to set their millage rates for 2023, which has a record tax digest of $58 billion, up 15 percent from last year.
That’s due to tax assessments that across the board are an average of 18 percent higher than last year.
Because neither commissioners nor the school board are “rolling back” to match last year’s revenue collections, the state considers that a tax increase and governing bodies must advertise that and hold hearings.
The proposed fiscal year 2024 Cobb government budget of $1.2 billion includes retaining a general fund tax rate of 8.46 mills. The fiscal year 2024 Cobb County School District budget of $1.4 billion that began July 1 is based on a property tax reduction of 0.2 mills, from 18.9 to 18.7.
But public commenters at those hearings this week said that’s not going to help them that much, and that government should look for ways to tighten its belt when citizens are having to do so.
“I’m very concerned about the most vulnerable members of our community, and that’s the renters,” said Daniel Larkin, a resident of the Meadowbrook neighborhood of East Cobb, at a commission public hearing on Tuesday.
Since rental property owners cannot claim homestead exemptions like homeowners, “they’re going to have to pass the increases on” to their tenants.
“It’s ironic that people talking about affordable housing are driving rising rents” that will hurt tenants more.
The proposed FY Cobb budget is $43 million higher than the current budget, and reflects what county officials say are growing needs for many county services, including fire and emergency services.
Some departments would be getting double-digit percentage increases in their budgets, including public safety.
East Cobb resident Hill Wright likened the county’s appetite for spending to the plight of addicts.
“When they come and bug you to moderate your drug habit, your answer to them is ‘What would you have Cobb County sacrifice? How dare you have Cobb County sacrifice.’ ”
He said when the budget is adopted and the millage rate is set by commissioners on July 25, “you will decide to snort or not to snort.”
John Frank Sanders Jr., who has lived in his East Cobb home since 1982, said Cobb has been a “wonderful place” to live and raise a family.
East Cobb resident Daniel Larkin said commissioners and the school board “are playing a shell game, and there’s no pea under any of the shells.”
“But I can’t believe in the current economic climate we’re debating raising our taxes and not lowering them,” he said, referencing higher costs for groceries, gasoline, housing and interest rates.
“My property value is up but I don’t get the benefit for that. I’m going to live in that house until they drag me out. Yet I have to pay more for that house in addition to all the other expenses that are going up. I’m very disappointed that you all are not trying to save us money instead of costing us money.”
During a budget presentation, Cobb Chief Financial Officer Bill Volckmann said that taking out homestead exemptions, the tax digest growth is closer to 10 percent.
Those exemptions, he said, are 38 percent of residential tax digest, compared to 25 percent less than a decade ago.
“Even if your assessment goes up, you don’t pay any more into the general fund,” he said.
Volckmann also showed a sample tax bill for a resident who saved more than $600 due to the floating homestead exemption.
The Cobb fire fund millage rate, however, doesn’t have that exemption, and that same homeowner would pay $145 more for taxes in that category under the proposed budget.
He also referenced in that bill a rise of nearly $800 in school taxes, even though the Cobb school board lowered the millage rate for the first time in 15 years. But Post 5 board member David Banks of East Cobb wanted a bigger increase, and at budget adoption in May voted present instead.
The school board held two public hearings Thursday for the millage rate, and the small handful of speakers—some who also addressed commissioners—asked them to lower it even more.
Larkin was among them, and he repeated his claims that the commissioners and school board are engaging in “a shell game.
“You’ve made it abundantly clear you’re going to ram this through,” Larkin said, adding that the cutback is “a token percent.”
“I want you to think about the wreckage you’re going to instill on families,” he said. “The rents are very high in this county, and the mortgages are very high. It’s a de facto tax increase. It’s a shell game, but there’s no pea under any of the shells.”
The school board adopted a budget with pay raises for full-time employees between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent, and the hiring of 11 new officer positions for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
Laura Judge, an East Cobb resident who is seeking the Post 5 board seat, suggested a tax rate rollback of 0.5 mills, the same as Banks.
“I would like this board and the superintendent and staff to please listen to the folks that come here to ask for some relief on the millage rate,” she said during comments that she later sent out in a press release. “Maybe even listen to the current vice-chair who asked for a rollback of .5 mills.
“I know the budget revolves around what we expected the millage rate to be and rolling back the millage rate means tightening up within our budget. Please listen to the community members who are asking for relief.”
Commissioners will hold another public hearing on the proposed millage rate increase Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. and on July 25 at 7 p.m., when they’re scheduled to adopt the hearing and set the millage rate (more info here).
Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell will have an open house on the budget next Wednesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3322 Sandy Plains Road).
The Cobb school board will have a final millage rate hearing next Thursday at 7 p.m. during its voting session, at which the millage rate is to be formally adopted.
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As we’ve been reporting this spring, several public schools in East Cobb will be getting new principals for the 2023-24 academic year that begins on Aug. 1.
Bradley Blackman, Dickerson MS principal
There will be five new principals to be exact, and they and other members of the Cobb County School District’s leadership team are meeting at Harrison High School this week for the district’s leadership kickoff event.
They include key central office staff as well as principals and assistant principals.
A total of 13 new principals will be starting their jobs, including the following at schools in East Cobb. They were profiled recently by the Cobb school district about their new appointments and their expectations:
“Student success looks different for every student. It is important to see value in the growth of students. Individual growth is the best way to measure success for all students! “
“Under my leadership, you will see a school that focuses on teaching and learning. I believe that building positive relationships between stakeholders is imperative for a school to be successful. You’ll find our teachers using highly effective teaching strategies to engage students and create academic growth.”
“To me, student success begins with building trusted relationships and is grounded in the belief that all children are capable of growing, learning, and accomplishing amazing things. Our students thrive when their learning is facilitated and supported by teachers and staff that believe in their ability to impact the future.”
“Students are most successful when they are provided with the opportunity, engaged by highly trained and loving staff members, live in safe and supportive homes, and when they are taught to be advocates for themselves!”
“As the school leader, I will focus on creating an environment where staff and students feel safe, valued, and motivated to be the best version of themselves. I want students and staff to feel proud of their school and excited to walk through the doors each day.”
At the leadership kickoff, staff were greeted by Harrison leaders as well as Cobb school district superintendent Chris Ragsdale and Cobb Board of Education chairman Brad Wheeler.
The priorities emphasized, according to a Cobb school district release, include the following:
• Ensure that Cobb is the best place to teach, lead, and learn. • Simplify our foundation for teaching and learning in order to prepare for innovation. • Use data to make decisions.
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Therefore, state law considers that a tax increase and requires the school board to hold three public hearings on the millage rate.
Two of those will take place at 11:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday in the board room of the Cobb school district’s central office (514 Glover St., Marietta).
Members of the public are invited to speak on the millage rate at those hearings, and at the final hearing on July 20 at 7 p.m. in the same location.
That’s when the school board also is scheduled to vote on adopting the millage rate.
The county’s tax digest comes out in July, and this year in Cobb it’s another record—$58.1 billion, which is up 15.7 percent from last year.
The Cobb school board voted in May to pass a budget and lower the millage rate for school taxes from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills in the wake of rising property tax assessments.
It was the first time in 15 years the school board has unofficially lowered the property tax rate, which in Georgia is capped at 20 mills.
But board vice chairman David Banks of Post 5 in East Cobb wanted the tax cut to be larger, and voted present at budget adoption.
He called it “the largest tax increase the school district has ever had” and suggested a cut of 0.5 mills.
In its official notice of a tax increase that is required to be publicly advertised, the Cobb school district said that because of those increased revenues, the 18.7 mills still represents an effective increase of 2.612 mills.
“Without this tentative tax increase, the millage rate will be no more than 16.088 mills,” the notice said. “The proposed tax increase for a home with a fair market value of $400,000 is approximately $391.80 and the proposed tax increase for non-homestead property with a fair market value of $550,000 is approximately $574.64.”
The FY 2024 budget includes salary increases between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent for full-time employees, and the Cobb school district will hire an additional 11 officers for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
After her husband was arrested, pleaded guilty and sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting a Kell High School student, Jen Faison started a true-crime podcast to process what had happened.
“Betrayal: The Perfect Husband” explores the saga of Spencer Herron, named a Kell Teacher of the Year, who engaged in multiple extamarital affairs and eventually was accused by a female student of sexual assault.
In 2019, he pleaded guilty in Cobb Superior Court to five counts of sexual assault on the Kell campus and was sentenced to serve five years in prison and 15 more on probation.
The documentary is a three-part series that explores, from Faison’s perspective, what she thought was a “storybook romance” that went badly wrong.
The series finale includes an interview with Rachel, the Kell student who accused him of assaulting her when she was 16. According to court filings, Herron admitted to having sex multiple times with a student on campus from early 2016 through the end of the 2017-18 school year.
Faison and Herron were sweethearts at Berry College and married more than two decades later, after he was teaching video production at Kell. He also was a member of the Cobb County School District’s Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Council shortly before his arrest.
She was a television producer who moved to Georgia to be closer to him as their relationship deepened.
He had been previously married and divorced, but it wasn’t until his 2018 arrest by Cobb Police in connection with the Kell allegations that Faison began to learn about her husband’s double life.
The Hulu series includes material first presented in the podcast about Faison discovering photos of naked and scantily clad women on his e-mail server.
Herron was released from prison on June 1, according to the documentary, but the Georgia Department of Corrections has no further information since he was incarcerated as a first-time offender.
A review of “Betrayal” by the Daily Beastconcludes that the documentary “is stretched thin for maximum melodramatic purposes, lowlighted by cheesy drone shots and songs whose on-the-nose lyrics seem designed to inspire eye-rolls and guffaws. Yet its core tale remains compelling, especially when, during its closing chapter, it lets a sexual abuse survivor detail the step-by-step means by which she was groomed into participating in a criminally inappropriate relationship.”
When summer vacation began last month for Cobb County School District students, Wheeler High School student Luke Lee was starting to prepare for a longer break from his home school.
According to the organization, the program is “a fellowship funded by the German Bundestag and U.S. Department of State, that annually provides 75 American and 75 German young professionals, between the ages of 18½–24, the opportunity to spend one year in each other’s countries, studying, interning, and living with hosts on a cultural immersion program.”
The program began in 1983 and has involved more than 26,000 students from the U.S. and Germany
The Cobb County School District said this week that Lee is one of 50 students chosen for the program from the Southeastern U.S.
“Luke is an amazing young man, and this will only enhance his high school experience,” sWheeler Principal Paul Gillihan said in a statement via the Cobb school district. “It is a fantastic opportunity for him and will help him change the world!”
In the program, Lee and the other students will live with German families as they learn the language and culture, and attend local German high schools.
CBYX is part of Cultural Vistas, founded in 1963 to promote “global understanding and collaboration among individuals and institutions.”
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The Cobb County School District announced Thursday that a new principal at Dickerson Middle School has been appointed.
He’s Bradley Blackman, who has been an assistant principal for the 7th grade at Dodgen Middle School since 2020.
The Cobb Board of Education voted 7-0 to approve his appointment and two others at the principal level or higher following an executive session Thursday afternoon.
Blackman succeeds Adam Hill, who had been at Dickerson since 2018 and who recently was named an assistant superintendent at the Cobb school district.
Blackman also was an assistant principal at Palmer Middle School and served as a school leadership intern at Simpson Middle School.
From 2003-2014, he was a teacher at Sprayberry High School.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia, a master’s degree from Kennesaw State University and an educational specialist degree at Berry College.
Blackman’s appointment at Dickerson is effective July 1.
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The LGE Community Credit Union, based in Marietta, has announced its 2023 LGE Community Credit Union Scholarship and the Positive Athlete LGE Extra Credit Award winners.
They include students from Kell and Sprayberry high schools in East Cobb.
Taylor Couey of Sprayberry and Megan Paschall of Kell were named recipients of a $2,500 scholarship through the 2023 LGE Community Credit Union Scholarship Program, which went to 11 seniors at metro Atlanta high schools.
They were the only students so named from the Cobb County School District. Five other students were named recipients of a $1,000 scholarship for the Positive Athlete LGE Extra Credit Award.
According to a release, “these awards reflect the credit union’s commitment to education and are designed to support high school students from Bartow, Cherokee, Cobb, Douglas, Fulton, and Paulding counties.”
The scholarship awards combined for this year amount to $32,500.
Chris Leggett, President and CEO of LGE Community Credit Union, said in the release that “we believe in investing in the future of our community, and supporting education is a critical part of that mission.”
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Six more students from Wheeler High School and Walton High School in East Cob have been named recipients of National Merit Scholarships.
These scholarships are provided by the college or university of the student’s choice, and range between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study. Probable career fields are also listed.
Madison Bohm, Wheeler: Rochester Institute of Technology; Mechanical Engineering
Peter Fink, Walton: University of Georgia; Computer Science
Misha S. Gupta, Wheeler: Emory University; Finance
Ethan T. Liu, Walton: University of Georgia; Kinesiology
Ashley Kay Rice, Walton: Emory University; Bioinformatics
Hanif A. Zaman, Wheeler: University of Georgia; Cell Biology
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Teresa Sykes of the Johnson Ferry Homeschool Group passed along the flyer below about its curriculum and used book sale Friday and Saturday.
The sale takes place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday in the Magnolia Room at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church (955 Johnson Ferry Road).
The sale includes a wide variety of curriculum, as well as general reading literature from preschool on up, games, puzzles, DVD’s and other items of general interest to the public.
For more information, scan the QR code on the flyer below.
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Before the disruptions caused by school closures in response to COVID-19, Laura Judge was forging a deeper interest not only in educational issues but broader political topics.
Her son was six years old during the 2016 and excited about the prospect of the first female president of the United States to follow the country’s first black commander-in-chief.
“We tried to keep politics out of the home,” said Judge, who at the time was working in the biotech industry.
While historical lightning didn’t strike twice, that campaign ignited Judge’s political involvement.
In the 2017 special election for the 6th Congressional District, she took her soon to the East Cobb Government Service Center for a meet-and-greet with Jon Ossoff.
He lost to Karen Handel, but that launched his political career, and he currently serves as Georgia’s senior U.S. senator.
Judge began paying closer to attention to school-related issues after Charisse Davis was elected in 2018 to serve part of East Cobb on the Cobb Board of Education.
But Judge said she felt as though voices in the school community outside of those held by Republican majority were not only not being heard, but not welcome.
When the board was conducting business remotely via Zoom, she said she was bothered when David Banks, the longtime Post 5 incumbent, left a meeting when some his colleagues were speaking.
(Banks and Davis and Jaha Howard sparred frequently during the single term served by the latter two.)
“I wrote the board that I didn’t think that represented our values or our schools,” Judge said in a recent interview with East Cobb News to discuss her candidacy for the Cobb school board from Post 5, which includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope high school clusters.
She said only Davis responded, a pattern Judge said she saw as typical.
“Our community should have access to board members,” said Judge.
Judge, a Democrat, is involved in Watching the Funds-Cobb, a citizens watchdog group that scrutinizes Cobb County School District finances.
The mother of two children who attend Dickerson Middle School and Mt. Bethel Elementary School, Judge also is involved their respective PTA organizations.
She was the education chair in the citizens cabinet of District 2 Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson until launching her campaign (here’s Judge’s campaign website).
She also has been active with the Georgia chapter of Moms Demand Action, which advocates for gun safety, and spent much of the 2023 legislative session at the state Capitol.
Judge said that many of the messages she sent to board members about a number of concerns were falling on deaf ears.
“I never received any responses, and other parents feel like they don’t know where to find information.”
When the pandemic was declared and schools closed in March 2020, Judge’s daughter, whom she called a “struggling reader,” felt further behind.
“I didn’t know until then how in-depth her problems were, but it helped me understand her struggles and advocate for her,” Judge said.
She took her children out of the Cobb school district for the 2020-21 school year. After they returned, she worked with her daughter’s teachers at Mt. Bethel who are certified in the Orton-Gillingham evidence-based literacy training approach.
Having just completed third grade, Judge’s daughter is now reading at grade-level, and “I’m very excited.”
Judge speaking at the Georgia Capitol during the 2023 legislative session.
Long Island roots
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Judge, 41, moved to the Atlanta area with her family in 2005 and settled in East Cobb in 2014. She attended the U.S. Naval Academy and received a bioscience research degree from Farmingdale State University.
She and her husband run Monsta Content, a digital marketing and content company.
She said her priorities in her campaign are transparency, safety and literacy.
The Watching the Funds-Cobb group has been critical of the Cobb school district’s handling of some financial matters.
Judge applauded the board and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale for the recent $1.4 billion fiscal year 2023 budget that includes a property tax millage rate reduction and pay raises for teachers and other employees.
But the budget process, Judge said, is an example of transparency issues she sees.
“Our budget looks great,” she said. “It’s the smaller projects that don’t always go to the board.”
She pointed to the district’s handwashing machines and security alert system that Watching the Funds-Cobb has been critical of over the last two years.
By the time the proposed budget goes to public hearings, Judge said, “there is no interaction. The budget is already done.
“It’s by design. It’s how it’s been working for a long time,” and said that in the aftermath to the district’s COVID response, “people were seeing that’s not how it should be working.”
Partisan lines drawn
The Post 5 seat will be one of four on the seven-member school board to be decided in the 2024 elections. Two others are also held by Republicans, who hold a 4-3 majority.
Banks hasn’t announced whether he’ll seek a fourth term. Business owner and Walton cluster parent John Cristadoro announced as a GOP candidate and has assembled a committee of supporters that includes former school board member Scott Sweeney of East Cobb and John Loud, a former president of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce (Cristadoro interview here).
Post 5 was redrawn to include the Walton and Wheeler clusters that formerly were in Post 6, where Davis served until deciding last year not to seek re-election.
Of Banks, Judge said that she “appreciates all the years he has spent” devoted to local education matters.
“I hope he does what he feels like is best for him.”
But she thinks that his status as a lightning rod works against him and the district.
“I don’t think David Banks represents East Cobb,” she said. “I don’t like a school board member being in the press for making controversial comments.
“Some people like those who speak their mind, but I don’t think that represents Post 5 as a whole.”
When asked about Cristadoro’s supporters, Judge said “I don’t think they want [the partisan dynamic] to change. So many parents wish our school boards weren’t partisan. That’s why I think our board should have policies that are above partisanship.”
Thoughts on the Superintendent
In certain conservative circles in Cobb, some have expressed concerns that a Democratic majority would undermine the school district in a number of ways, including the appointment of new superintendent.
Board Democrats in recent years have voted against extending Ragsdale’s contract, and they went to the district’s accrediting agency, Cognia, which issued a special review in 2021 but reversed those findings early last year.
Judge said there is “no fiscal responsibility to changing the superintendent.”
She said that any such change “would have to be something done with the other six colleagues” and would hinge on “what would be best for the community.”
If Democrats were to gain the majority, Judge said, “I don’t think things would change as much as people are talking about. Children aren’t political pawns.
“I think more people will have a voice.”
After Ragsdale lashed out at Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid’s school-related comments at the recent Cobb Prayer Breakfast, Judge said “I wish they would work out their differences behind closed doors.”
Other issues of concern for her are improving mental health services for students and being more responsive to students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), where the Cobb school district “is involved in a lot of litigation. . . . I don’t think they want to lose, but it’s something that I think doesn’t need to get to that level.”
Judge said the school board’s ban on the teaching of Critical Race Theory in 2021 was “unnecessary” because it’s not included in current Georgia curriculum standards.
The Cobb school district also has resisted calls for a diversity officer and programs. Judge said students are being “insulated” from a diversifying society.
“It doesn’t have to be in the curriculum per se, but there are ways of teaching people to be kind to others,” she said.
Judge and her family moved to East Cobb in 2014.
Pledging a moderate approach
Judge says that “I’m not looking for radical change” and that her priorities rise above partisan politics.
“I want to see our county continue to grow,” she said. “Things are changing a lot faster for some people that they are uncomfortable with.
“I think that people are fearing others. I don’t want to ‘other’ anybody.”
While Post 5 remains something of a Republican stronghold in a Cobb County that has seen significant Democratic political gains in recent years, Judge thinks her party affiliation shouldn’t be an issue.
She said Davis and Howard, who served from 2019-2022, were successful “in letting people know how the district operates.”
She said she would go about dealing with some contentious issues—including along racial and ethnic lines—in a different way.
Efforts to change the name of Wheeler High School, over the namesake’s history as a Confederate general in the Civil War, also have been spurned by the board’s GOP majority and the district.
Judge said she would “defer to the community” on that issue, but was critical of the board’s decision to disband a name-changing committee shortly after it was formed in 2021.
She maintains that one of the biggest challenges facing the district is “people being heard. Everybody deserves to have a voice, to be at the table.
“We have a great district. We have more people paying attention to what the district is doing and how it operates.”
Judge said that if she were elected, “I would like to think that would change more voices to be heard.”
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Last Saturday a final walkthrough was scheduled at the longstanding Eastvalley Elementary School main building on Lower Roswell Road.
It was a chance for students, parents and staff to bid farewell to an aging building after more than 60 years of use.
Furniture, books and other items had all been packed up, ready to be moved to the new campus across from Wheeler High School on Holt Road.
But construction delays mean that those items will remain where they are for the time being.
The new campus won’t be ready when the 2023-24 school year begins Aug. 1.
The Cobb County School District told East Cobb News that the issue is supply chain issues, but a spokesperson wasn’t more specific. Here’s the statement we received:
“We are told that our new building should be completed around Fall break. We know this timing is not ideal, but the construction team assures us that every step is being taken to complete the project as soon as possible. Until then teaching and learning will continue in our current building.”
The fall break in the Cobb school district is the week of Sept. 25-29.
The $36.7 million Eastvalley rebuild began in the spring of 2022 and will contain 136,110 square feet and 61 classrooms, with an expected capacity of around 960 K-5 students.
The present campus has been overcrowded for years, with more than 700 students crammed into a main classroom building designed for 400. A dozen trailers have been in use but have generated parental complaints.
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L to R: Dr. Cheri Vaniman, Principal Rocky Mount ES; Peter Munk (dad); Karen Munk (mom); Aimee Mendel, past president KCMGK: Jim Perry, presenter and past president KCMGK; John Kone, president KCMGK and Dr. Sage Doolittle, Rock Mount ES. Front: DEANNA MUNK, SP award winner
Thanks to John Kone, president of the East Cobb-based Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K, for the following information and photo:
The Silver Pen Program, now a statewide award, was created over 25 years ago by the Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K (KCMGK). Since then, the Silver Pen Award has been presented by the KCMGK to Cobb County Fourth grade students. The essay completion was competitive since the award was open to all 4th grade students on a school wide level.
Jim Perry, past president of the KCMGK and Silver Pen Award presenter summarized it this way, “The Club challenges all fourth graders in three schools to write a comprehensive essay on a topic assigned by the Club. Teachers in each section of fourth grade send their best two submissions to the school administration. One paper from each class is submitted to the Club, who has a panel of judges select the winner from each school. The Silver Pen Award was our Signature Program for many years, but its success became widely known. Now, this is an approved program for Kiwanis Clubs throughout the Georgia District.”
This year, the KCMGK awarded the Silver Pen Awards at three Cobb County schools: Acworth, Rocky Mount, and Tritt Elementary Schools. The winning students were: ASHLEY LANGAN, Acworth ES; JAMES THORPE, Tritt ES, and DEANNA MUNK, Rocky Mount ES. Each winner was presented with a silver pen in a velvet sleeve, a roll of $25 uncirculated one dollar coins acquired directly from the Philadelphia Mint, and an engraved plaque. The presentations were made during the morning broadcast to the whole school.
Everyone was extremely proud of the Silver Pen Award winners, however, the most surprising change observed by us, the adults (parents, teachers and Kiwanis Club members) was the delivery! At each school, the SP awards were presented LIVE, to each classroom, via a “closed circuit” in house TV system. “We never had anything like this when I was in Elementary School,” one parent went on to say.” Both students and adults are thankful for all the technological changes that have taken place in our schools over the years.
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From L-R: Wheeler valedictorian Rithu Hegde; Sprayberry valedictorian Sebastian Jean Francois; Kell salutatorian Elana Darsey.
As graduation ceremonies continue this week, the Cobb County School District on Tuesday announced the Class of 2023 valedictorians and salutatorians.
Overall, the valedictorians in the Cobb school district combined for an average grade-point average of 4.705, with salutatorians at 4.67.
Five seniors from high schools in East Cobb had grade-point averages above 4.8.
Two of them are from Walton, valedictorian Chaitanya Yetukuri (4.826), and salutatorian Gavin Du, with a GPA of 4.808.
The others are Pope valedictorian Shaunak Karnik (4.815), Wheeler valedictorian Rithu Hegde (4.803) and Lassiter valedictorian Arsh Mukhtar Ali (4.8).
What follows are the vals and sals from the six East Cobb high schools, their GPAs, college choices and intended majors.
Eight of the vals and sals from East Cobb are headed to Georgia Tech, with others bound for Cal Tech, MIT, Cornell and Northwestern.
Kell High School
Valedictorian—Clare Wu, 4.750, California Institute of Technology, computer science
Salutatorian—Elana Darsey, 4.719, Georgia Tech, computer engineering
Lassiter High School
Valedictorian—Arsh Mukhtar Ali, 4.8, Georgia Tech, computer science
Salutatorian—Joshua Michael Wu, 4.75, Georgia Tech, computer science
Pope High School
Valedictorian—Shaunak Karnik, 4.815, Georgia Tech, computer science
Salutatorian—Amy Kokan, 4.778, Georgia Tech, mechanical engineering
Sprayberry High School
Valedictorian—Sebastian Jean Francois, 4.750, Cornell University, computer science
Salutatorian—Thomas George, 4.742, Georgia Tech, civil engineering
Walton High School
Valedictorian—Chaitanya Yetukuri, 4.826, Georgia Tech, business administration
Salutatorian—Gavin Du, 4.808, Northwestern University, economics
Wheeler High School
Valedictorian—Rithu Hegde, 4.803, Undecided, mathematics
Salutatorian—Ewuraba Buckle, 4.766, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, computer science
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The Class of 2023 in the Cobb County School District begins receiving their diplomas on Monday, with commencement exercises taking place through Saturday.
As the schedule would have it, the graduations for the six public high school in East Cobb will be spread out over all six of those days.
All East Cobb graduations will take place at the KSU Convocation Center (590 Cobb Ave., Kennesaw).
The Cobb County School District has a full schedule and other information on graduation ceremonies, including parking, ordering DVDs and live streaming information at this resource page.
The parking cost is $10 per vehicle, and KSU requires all persons entering the venue to pass through a metal detector.
All bags and packages will be searched, and only bags with a clear tote or small clutch will be allowed.
All guests must be ticketed, and balloons and signs are not permitted. Strollers also may not be brought to the graduation site.
Kell High School: Monday, May 22, 7:30 p.m.
Pope High School: Tuesday, May 23, 7:30 p.m.
Walton High School: Wednesday, May 24, 7:30 p.m.
Lassiter High School: Thursday, May 25, 10 a.m.
Sprayberry High School: Friday, May 26, 7 p.m.
Wheeler High School: Saturday, May 27, 2:30 p.m.
Three school days remain in the 2022-23 academic year in the Cobb school district. All school levels will have early release on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Schools will release students, and buses will run, as follows:
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