Commissioners spar over Cobb schools CARES Act request

Cobb school superintendent honored — *Cobb superintendent Chris Ragsdale says the district needs to complete a “more robust” online learning portal.*

A presentation by the Cobb County School District for emergency funding resulted in a bit of a clash between county commissioners Monday.

The Cobb and Marietta superintendents are seeking CARES Act funding from the Cobb Board of Commissioners, which is overseeing distribution of $132 million for responses to COVID-19.

Cobb superintendent Chris Ragsdale is seeking $8.1 million for the CCSD to complete development of its Cobb Teaching and Learning System, an online resource that became more heavily utilized than usual when district schools closed to in-person learning in March.

Ragsdale told commissioners that the final phase of the portal, called CTLS Learn, has been in progress but needs to become “a more robust” resource should schools have to close again.

He said the district has redirected existing funding for that effort, “but we’re going to run out of funding” to have CTLS Learn ready by the time classes begin on Aug. 17.

“We have to be prepared with 113,000 students and 8,000 teachers to be online with CTLS without missing a beat,” Ragsdale said.

The district is offering both classroom and remote learning options for students, whose parents have all this week to choose that environment.

The CARES Act funding, Ragsdale said, would enable the district to purchase and develop enough online curriculum materials to accommodate full-fledged distance learning.

CTLS currently has around 700,000 resources, he said, and the additional elements would be purchased from vendors, obtained from open sources and developed in-house.

Ragsdale also said that unlike the end of the last school year, when students’ grades as of March 13 were allowed to stand, there will be academic accountability.

Commissioner Lisa Cupid, who represents South Cobb, said she was disappointed the district’s proposal didn’t include technology assets—computers and internet access—for students in need.

Ragsdale said that wasn’t part of his proposal, and based on unused Chrome Books that were given out this summer to students in need, he was confident the district could provide them.

She also asked if the district would be providing masks to students, since they’re not going to be required, and Ragsdale said that each student would be given one mask. Masks also will be available for teachers and staff, who are “expected” to wear them.

At that point, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce cut off Cupid, saying her questions were off-topic, telling her “I’m running this meeting.”

She protested, saying all aspects of the district’s preparations for the start of school were germane.

(Boyce and Cupid will be squaring off in the November general election in the chairman’s race).

Commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb told Ragsdale that “all this could have been avoided” if the district had requested funding to pay employees and for personal protective equipment (PPE).

“If you had done that, there would have been no questions from the board,” Ott said. “I’d rather see a request for PPE than for a learning system.”

Ragsdale said he was asking the county for online learning funding since that’s “a finite amount of money, “whereas PPE funding “is a flexible amount.”

The Cobb school district received $16 million in CARES Act funding from the Georgia Department of Education, and Ragsdale told commissioners that’s being used to pay for employees providing student meals during the summer, and to help offset an anticipated $62 million budget deficit.

When asked by Commissioner Keli Gambrill of North Cobb if the CTLS Learn could be completed by Aug. 17, Ragsdale said it could.

Marietta City Schools are asking for $2.9 million in CARES Act funding from the county, to be used for social distancing and safety measures that include classroom partitions and required masks, and for staffing to provide daily temperature checks for students.

Superintendent Grant Rivera also wants to purchase Chrome Books for every student in the district, which has around 9,000 students.

Commissioners will take action on both funding requests at their voting meeting Tuesday morning.