Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday that a proposed policy change to bar broadcasts of public comments during school board meetings is necessary for legal and other reasons.
During a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday afternoon, Ragsdale said the Cobb school district could be legally held liable for the statements of public commenters.
The school board approved the measure, 4-3, along partisan lines (you can read it here) at its voting meeting Thursday night.
The board’s Republican majority voted in favor, and the three Democrats were opposed.
Georgia law requires public school districts to hear public comments but does not mandate that they be aired.
Cobb airs its public board meetings live on Comcast and Charter cable outlets and COBB edTV, its own livestreaming channel including comments from members of the public.
The district’s channel also archives past meetings for the public to view on replay. Other portions of the meetings would still be shown on those broadcasts.
In making prepared remarks at the work session, Ragsdale said that “we provide more opportunities for public comments” than most other school districts and having citizens’ statements aired is “far from the only way to communicate.”
He said comments are designed to address the board and superintendent, and not the public at large. Ending the broadcasts, Ragsdale added, would enhance efficiency and keep the district focused on “the business of students, teachers and our schools.
“We assume risks to the content” when airing comments, said Ragsdale, who said district staff have had to edit comments “due to legal concerns.”
The legal issues concern copyright and intellectual property infringement issues and “tortious” speech, and that on occasion public commenters don’t follow the rules governing their speaking time.
He also said that he’s heard from parents and other citizens who are reluctant to make public comments because “they don’t want to be subjected to Internet ridicule, abuse or doxxing,” a reference to a practice of publicly sharing private information about someone to intimidate or embarrass them.
Ragsdale said that claims that speakers’ ability to express themselves was being denied is “one hundred percent false. This will not diminish anyone’s ability to comment in the least.”
At the start of the work session, six citizens said the proposal amounts to censorship and would diminish the district’s transparency with the public.
East Cobb resident Stacy Efrat, a member of the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration, said that if her body had proposed such a change, “the outrage would be swift, and absolutely justified.”
A member of the Jewish community, Efrat said having the ability to publicly air concerns about anti-Semitic comments and actions in the schools has been vital.
“We must be heard, and our experiences must be part of the public record,” she said.
Efrat, who was appointed by the Cobb County Democratic Committee, mentioned new board member John Cristadoro, a Republican from Post 5 in East Cobb, whom she said “promised us that had our backs, that he would speak out and take action to prevent anti-Semitism in this district. And now we are counting on him to keep his word.”
Cristadoro said that “a lot of my constituents reached out with very pointed questions” and the gist of their concerns were over access, accountability and the timing of the proposal.
He asked how many school districts broadcast public meetings, and Ragsdale replied that there are “far greater number of districts that don’t broadcast anything . . . than there are who do.”
Cristadoro asked whether not airing public comments would restrict the public from access to board members or district officials as a result, and Ragsdale said “no, it will not limit access in any way, shape or form.”
Laura Judge, a Democrat who lost to Cristadoro in the November elections, said the public comment proposal “isn’t about order. It’s about power.”
She said that the public’s access to the board has been restricted since groups and individuals critical of board and district leadership began speaking up more vocally.
The board’s three Democratic members expressed concern about the proposal.
Post 2 member Becky Sayler of Post 2 said that for some parents, they come to public comments only after they haven’t been able to redress an issue previously.
Public comment, she said, “sometimes is an option of last resort” and doesn’t support the change.
When she asked whether public comments would be recorded at all by the district, if not for broadcast reasons but for the official record, she was told no.
Related:
- East Cobb schools recognized with John Hancock Awards
- Cobb school board may end broadcasts of public comments
- Wheeler, Walton students receive National Merit Scholarships
- More leadership position changes made at East Cobb schools
- Georgia resumes mandatory cursive instruction in grade school
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