Cobb school board candidate profile: Susan McCartney, Post 4

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After ending a 40-year teaching career, most of it in the Cobb County School District, Susan McCartney said she still felt like there was more she wants do with local education.Cobb school board candidate profile: Susan McCartney, Post 4

A longtime teacher and later paraprofessional at Shallowford Falls Elementary School, McCartney filed to run as a Democrat in the Post 4 primary election for Cobb Board of Education.

“This is my chance to give back to education,” McCartney said in an interview with East Cobb News.

She’s facing school activist Michael Garza (here’s our profile of him) for the right to challenge three-term incumbent David Chastain in November.

Chastain is unopposed in the Republican primary—we’ll be interviewing him during the general election campaign.

Early voting in the primaries began Monday and continues through May 15; consult our early voting guide for more information.

McCartney posts campaign updates on a Facebook page.

The Post 4 race is considered a crucial one given the GOP’s 4-3 majority status, and it’s the only seat among the three up for election this year that is in Republican hands.

Post 4 includes most of the Sprayberry, Kell and Lassiter high school attendance zones (see map below), and it was redrawn in 2022 to maintain most of its previous boundaries in partisan redistricting battles that preserved that Republican majority.

The Post 4 boundaries were redrawn in 2022; for a larger view click here.

A native of Florida, McCartney taught at Shallowford Falls from 1998-2003, and after living in Texas, her family returned to Cobb and she returned to the same school, this time as a parapro.

It was in that role that her eyes widened to what she says are disparities that need attention, especially in some special education areas.

“Being a parapro gave me the chance to see schools with a different perspective,” McCartney said.

“Those are some of the hardest-working people in the profession.”

Addressing changes in special education programs are among her priorities, especially the Mild Intellectual Disabilities program, whose offerings are being reduced in some areas.

That includes at the kindergarten level, where McCartney said she saw as a parapro a student not get the attention she thought was needed.

A girl diagnosed as having a MID was placed in a general education program, and McCartney said that “my concern is that had she been [in a specialized program], her learning may have been more impactful.”

McCartney also disagrees with a board policy enacted last year that prohibits the airing of public comments during board meetings.

The comments are heard only in the meeting room and don’t get distributed to the general public, a decision Democrats have claimed is being done by a Republican-led board to discourage dissent.

“It’s essential that we understand the community that we serve,” she said. “They are part of what makes us who we are.”

School safety issues also have grown in recent years, and the Cobb school district is contracting with a private cyberintelligence company and has hired another firm to place and train specially-trained dogs to detect weapons in high school.

The Cobb school district has paid more than $2 million to Servius, the intelligence firm, much of that via state grant money, but the school board never voted on the contract.

McCartney said the board did so “with no understanding of how it would be spent.” Superintendent Chris Ragsdale has said publicly only that board members will be briefed in executive session as needed about the details.

The district has said that Servius is conducting threat assessments at individual schools and developing processes to help schools identify patterns in student behavior that could become safety concerns.

But the program otherwise has been shrouded in secrecy. The district issued this Q and A in February, but McCartney said the public deserves more information.

“We needed it,” McCartney said of more initiatives to enhance safety, and the Servius contract. “But we should have been told more on how it was going to be spent.”

The issue of bus safety also has been a recent issue in Cobb schools, with maintenance workers publicly complaining about unsafe buses on routes.

McCartney said she’s spoken to a woman who did speak out at public comment session—and not aired publicly—and “who wants to know why we’re not getting important updates” from the district.

She said she appreciates how the district, and Ragsdale in particular, recognize the contributions of educators and of student achievers, and said Cobb schools have much to be proud of in terms of general academic achievement.

But she thinks he’s being heavy-handed in overseeing removals of books from school libraries he says are sexually explicit and not appropriate for minors.

McCartney also said she takes a dim view of his recent comments aimed at those who are critical of him sending out “thoughts and prayers” messages at school board meetings.

Those comments normally come when he’s announcing deaths in the school district. Ragsdale responded in March that ““If you’re going to say it, do it. Words matter.”

McCartney said she thinks Ragsdale at times is too opinionated about the wrong things.

“Who are y0u to say that? The way he stands out—that’s not the place for him to say that. He’s not a member of the board.”

While she considers herself a longtime Democrat, McCartney said her first time seeking public office is about helping students and families.

The board could become non-partisan by 2028, which would be just fine with her.

“What we have to focus on is what’s best for our students, staff and communities,” McCartney said, adding that her experience navigating the school district “is what I bring to the table.”

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