Cobb school board candidate: ‘Not looking for radical change’

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.”

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.

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.”

Related:

• Opening of new Eastvalley ES campus delayed until the fall
• Cobb schools announce 2023 valedictorians and salutatorians
• East Cobb high schools to have a graduation ceremony a day
• New principals named at Mountain View ES, Sedalia Park ES
• Cobb superintendent responds to Cupid’s ‘derogatory’ comments
• Cobb school board adopts FY 2024 budget; Banks votes present

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