Cobb school board member to discuss naming/renaming policy

A member of the Cobb Board of Education is asking for a discussion on the Cobb County School District’s policy of naming and renaming schools and its other facilities.

David Morgan, who represents the Pebblebrook and South Cobb clusters, is scheduled to present that matter at the school board’s work session Thursday morning.

The virtual meeting begins at 10 a.m. and you can watch here or on Channel 24 on Comcast Cable.

The agenda for the work session and other meetings on Thursday can be seen here.

Morgan’s agenda item is called “Facility Naming Policy and Renaming of Some Schools” but doesn’t go into any detail. East Cobb News has left messages for Morgan seeking comment.

His agenda item comes a couple months after online petitions were started demanding name changes for Walton and Wheeler high schools in East Cobb.

The Walton and Wheeler renaming petition creators have said the namesakes of the schools were white supremacists. George Walton, one of Georgia’s signatories to the Declaration of Independence, was a Revolutionary War veteran, governor and senator.

Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate general during the Civil War, was later readmitted to the U.S. Army, served in Congress and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

East Cobb News contacted Charisse Davis, who represents Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters. She said because of the lack of details in the agenda item, she’s “not sure what Mr. Morgan will bring up.”

She forwarded a link to the school district’s naming policy and said that “members of the community have expressed concerns about the names of schools in Post 6, but also elsewhere in the county.”

She signed the Wheeler petition but has not said if she supports a Walton name change. The Walton petition, started by a student named Joseph Fisher, has more than 3,000 signatures.

Those behind the Wheeler petition (which has nearly 4,500 signatures) noted that the school opened in 1965, just as the Cobb County School District was preparing for integration.

Also during the work session, the school board will discuss an anti-racism resolution for the third time, after previous attempts to reach a consensus have fallen through.

The school board will hold a public forum on the proposed fiscal year 2021 budget at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, and final adoption is scheduled during a voting meeting to follow the work session and an executive session.

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