On the darkest day in the Cobb County School District since the COVID-19 pandemic began, neither the superintendent nor the school board had much to say about it.
As the board was in session twice Thursday for their monthly meetings, two teachers in the school district died of COVID-19.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale did mention them by name during the meetings: Dana Johnson, a first-grade teacher at Kemp Elementary School and Cynthia Lindsey, a paraprofessional at Sedalia Park Elementary School here in East Cobb.
The perfunctory “thoughts and prayers” from Ragsdale were all that were even referenced about their deaths and the district’s ongoing pandemic response.
With classes being all-virtual this week, I figured Ragsdale would provide an update. Are case numbers easing off? Is there ample staffing available for in-person learning? What about the schools that closed early last week?
It was his decision to shut down in-person learning this week due to increasing COVID cases in the schools and teachers absent due to quarantine. It has been his decision to offer parents a choice of face-to-face or remote instruction.
During these months of uncertainty, he’s explained his thinking about these matters in some detail. While not everyone has been happy with the decisions, he’s been above-board in laying out the difficult task of reopening, establishing safety protocols and providing dual learning environments.
This week, with concerns about the safety of students and staff rising along with a case count that’s higher than ever, there was nothing on the board agenda to discuss the COVID response.
Even though Dr. Janet Memark, the director of Cobb and Douglas Public Health who’s advised Ragsdale, continues to urge students and adults to stay home as much as possible.
At both school board meetings, teachers and their advocates urged that all-remote learning continue. They were mourning the loss of their colleagues, and emotions were also rising high.
Face-to-face learning resumes on Monday, and with tensions and case numbers growing, Ragsdale had nothing to say about it.
At a Thursday afternoon work session, school board member Jaha Howard wanted Ragsdale to comment on the COVID-19 situation in the schools, but board chairman Randy Scamihorn put a halt to the inquiry.
“Would you be open to a dialogue?” Howard asked Ragsdale. “There are a lot of concerns out there [from the public] and we’re about to move on.”
“That’s it,” Scamihorn said.
Scamihorn had more than the power of the gavel at his disposal. The Cobb Board of Education, at least at its public meetings, has chosen to censor itself.
In 2019, before the pandemic, the board’s Republican majority voted to ban public comments from board members at their own meetings.
It was a contentious time marked by the additions of Howard and Charisse Davis, first-term Democrats whose elections in 2018 trimmed a 6-1 GOP advantage on the school board to 4-3.
Howard in particular has ruffled feathers, sometimes eagerly so, making regular accusations about racial disparities in the district, and he has used his comment time at board meetings to denounce Republican elected officials elsewhere.
His grandstanding can be over the top, but the attempt to silence him and Davis was absurd. Partisan bickering since then has grown even worse, and members of both parties are to blame. There’s no spirit of compromise at all, even with the serious business of navigating a pandemic.
So on Thursday, we saw one board member cutting off another who wanted ask the superintendent about the most important subject in the second-largest school district in Georgia.
Board members can put items on the agenda, but a policy change pushed through last month by Scamihorn on a party-line vote now requires the approval of a board majority.
Given the deep partisan divide, anything that Howard, Davis and newly elected Democratic board member Tre’ Hutchins want to bring up needs at least one Republican vote. There’s no budging going on in the slightest.
With anxiety heightening and parents wondering how their children might be learning in the coming weeks, the public was owed much more than petty parliamentary maneuvers.
The policy to muzzle unwanted speakers and topics also stifled any comments from elected representatives to the Cobb school district about a very sad, grim day.
At the end of the public comment period Thursday night, Scamihorn thanked the speakers for being “informative and succinct,” but to paraphrase him, that was it.
On Friday, Davis offered some school-related public health guidance on her Facebook page “in the absence of ANY COVID-related discussions or presentations from the superintendent at our board meeting. . . . These are difficult times, but like many of our teachers tell their students: we can do hard things.”
While Cobb County government and public health leaders carved out dedicated time this week to help frazzled citizens navigate the COVID-19 vaccine process, the Cobb school board and superintendent offered nothing of reassurance on the one day of the month they have to come before the public.
Their silence was as damning as it was haunting.
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