Cobb school district sued by parents over COVID-19 protocols

Cobb schools sued COVID-19 protocols — *The middle school son of East Cobb resident Sara Cavorley has been learning at home due to a rare form of cancer.*

Four parents of Cobb County School District students with disabilities or illnesses have filed a federal lawsuit against the district, saying its COVID-19 protocols aren’t protecting the students’ safety.

One of the parents is Sara Cavorley, whom East Cobb News profiled in August after she pulled four of her children out of schools in the Sprayberry High School attendance zone.

She did so, she said at the time, to protect her homebound son, a 13-year-old enrolled at Simpson Middle School but who suffers from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare form of cancer.

Cavorley said she was unaware of the district’s masks-optional policy when the 2021-22 school year arrived and was upset that parents could not switch from in-person to virtual learning, as they could do during the previous school year.

In their lawsuit (you can read it here), filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta by local attorneys working with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cavorley and the other three Cobb schools parents allege that the Cobb school district’s “current COVID-19 response jeopardizes the health and safety of more than 110,000 individuals in the District, approximately 15,000 of whom are students with disabilities, like Plaintiffs, as well as the District’s employees and the entire Cobb County community.”

As a result, the lawsuit contends, their children can no longer attend classes in person, and they are being deprived of an appropriate education.

According to the lawsuit, the Cobb school district has “acted with deliberate indifference to Plaintiffs’ rights to inclusion, health, and education” and are seeking “relief from this Court to ensure they receive the educational services, programs, and benefits to which they are legally entitled” under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

Ragsdale and each of the seven members of the Cobb Board of Education are listed as defendants.

The defendants are asking the court to require the Cobb school district to develop COVID-19 protocols that follow existing CDC guidelines for schools and to “maintain consistency with CDC guidelines in the event of subsequent changes.”

Earlier this spring, parents opposed to the district’s mask mandate at the time filed a federal lawsuit, but their attempt for a temporary injunction was denied. They dropped their suit when Ragsdale announced that a masks-optional policy would be in place for the 2021-22 school year.

In the August East Cobb News profile, Cavorley said she kept her children at home in the Cobb school district’s virtual option last school year to protect her son Leland, who needs regular blood transfusions.

He also was not old enough at the time to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which is available to people ages 12 and older.

But she wanted her children to return to in-person learning for this school year, and said they were upset when they returned to classes to be around staff and other students who weren’t wearing masks.

The lawsuit said her son has been vaccinated and his doctors approved him returning to in-person classes “so long as the 2020-2021 safety protocols were in place, namely universal masking, plexiglass between students, and social distancing. [Her son’s] doctors advised against him attending school in-person if the District discontinued those safety protocols.”

Cavorley withdrew her son from in-school instruction and requested hospital/homebound (HHB) services for him, according to the suit, which further claims that “HHB is not an appropriate placement for a child who could attend school in-person with reasonable modifications.”

The lawsuit continues that he gets only five hours of instruction a week and is isolated from his peers, as are the children of the other parents in the lawsuit.

According to the suit, the Cobb school district threatened to disenroll Cavorley’s other children, and her homebound son’s siblings “now attend school fearful of bringing COVID-19 home” while he is “being denied access to in-person education opportunities because of his disability.”

The lawsuit also details Cobb school board discussions about masking and COVID-19 protocols, noting the partisan divisions on the board, and also how Ragsdale abstained from voting for a Cobb Board of Health statement in September calling for universal masking in schools.

That’s following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Association of Pediatricians, as well as Cobb and Douglas Public Health.

At the Cobb school board’s September meetings, Ragsdale adamantly defended the district’s masks-optional policy, citing dropping COVID-19 case rates and saying its metrics weren’t much different from nearby school districts that mandated masks.

“This district will not be anti-mask,” Ragsdale said, emphasizing that mask use is “strongly encouraged” among students and staff.

After being refused a request to question Ragsdale, the three Democrats on the school board walked out of the meeting.

“Because of Defendants’ actions, Plaintiffs are being denied critical educational opportunities, including the social, emotional, and academic advantages of being in the classroom with their peers,” the lawsuit states.