East Cobb News

After threats of violence or lockdowns at three East Cobb high schools in the last two weeks, Cobb County School District officials are trying to reassure the public that they’re being as proactive as possible in responding to those threats.

All three of those incidents—at Sprayberry, Walton and Wheeler—ended peacefully, and suspects at all three schools, including two students, were taken into custody.

School officials communicated with parents with varying levels of detail.

The first two incidents—both last week, at Sprayberry and Walton—included a code yellow alert and a student arrest, respectively.

On Friday morning, a code red alert was issued at Wheeler, where a student was found with a weapon and was arrested.

“We’re being as proactive as any school district I know,” said John Floresta, chief strategy and accountability officer for Cobb schools. He spoke to East Cobb News Thursday, before Friday’s incident at Wheeler.

According to a school district statement Friday morning, “students made [the] Wheeler administration aware of a rumor of a current student who had made a threat to Wheeler’s campus.”

The school was placed on a Code Red lockdown—the highest stage of alert—while school district police and administrators investigated. A student found with a weapon—which was not specified—was taken into custody.

“Wheeler administration, staff, CCSD police, and District student-safety supports performed well,” the school district statement further stated.

In each of the previous incidents, Floresta said, “we’re batting 100 percent in the way each incident was handled,” from quick actions by school officials to apprehend those posing a threat, to relaying information to the school community.

Related stories

• Wheeler placed on lockdown after student found with weapon
• Walton student arrested for battery, making terroristic threats
• Sprayberry trespasser arrested after being found with gun

At Sprayberry, a trespasser was stopped by school officials last Friday and was found to have a gun. He was arrested, and a code yellow alert was issued. That means the outside doors to school buildings were locked while classes and activities continued inside.

A 45-year-old man who lives nearby, Daniel Ryan Caudell, was charged with possession of a weapon and alcohol on a public school ground.

At Walton, alcohol also was a mitigating factor in another incident last week. Ty Holder, a 17-year-old student, was charged with battery for kicking an assistant principal and threatening to shoot up the school when he was found with a water bottle containing alcohol.

He was later released on his own recognizance.

At Wheeler, Rolando Figueroa Moore, 18, was arrested at the school around 9 a.m. Friday by Cobb schools police and then booked into the Cobb jail, according to the Cobb Sheriff’s Office. Jail records indicate Moore has charged weapons possession on school grounds and bus hijacking, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of carrying a weapon without a valid license.

An East Cobb parent who helped form a Cobb schools safety group last year acknowledged that the district is taking more concerted steps to ensure safety and communicate better, but still thinks its approach is largely reactive.

Rene’ Brinks Dodd, who helped start the Cobb County Schools Safety Coalition before the last school year, said she thought the message from Sprayberry principal Sara Griffin was prompt and detailed.

It said in part that the incident “did not disrupt the school day, at no time were students threatened or in danger.”

At Walton, an initial message to parents referenced “a student-related incident . . . that some of our students may have witnessed” but said only that the “situation has been resolved and the student involved is in the care of medical professionals.”

Principal Catherine Mallanda sent out a longer, more detailed message later the same day, saying that some information couldn’t be revealed for medical and student privacy reasons.

But she did describe the safety features of the Walton classroom building that opened two years ago, and explained a school safety day that took place last week “in which we reviewed all safety procedures with students and had a Code Red Drill. Additionally, our school safety plan has been vetted with the Cobb County School District Police Department.”

Mallanda also told parents about the 65-member Cobb schools police force, which has a combined 1,690 years of service. “We have some of the very best police officers at Walton High School keeping your child safe every day,” she said.

The second Walton message also referenced safety measures the district has begun within the last year, including the Safe Schools Alert, an anonymous tip-reporting service, and AlertPoint, an emergency response notification system that triggers a warning message throughout a school within seconds and identifies where an incident has taken place.

Those are featured in a Cobb schools safety resource effort called Cobb Shield, which also contains information about the district police force, emergency management procedures and code red drills (required each semester at each of the district’s 16 high schools).

Last fall, district officials also held a school safety town hall meeting at Lassiter High School to outline its safety program.

The Walton incident wasn’t made public for a week, and then only because of news reports, while the Sprayberry and Wheeler cases were made public the day they occurred.

Last month, Dodd addressed the Cobb Board of Education with some of her longstanding concerns, saying the Cobb school district “is taking a reactive approach to student safety and support and there are several ticking bomb-type situations that could result in someone getting hurt, hurting others or another tragic situation.”

Others are taking a “more proactive approach, and this could be done in Cobb County as well.”

Dodd, whose daughter attended Mountain View Elementary School, has advocated for more mental health counseling, and pointed to a special committee appointed by the school superintendent in Cherokee County for “social emotional learning” as an example of an initiative she would like to see tried in Cobb.

“We want change for everyone in the district, not just those students who are going to get the district high test scores and ratings,” she told the school board.

In referencing direct safety initiatives, including Cobb Shield, Floresta said that “I can point you to 1, 15, 20 things that we’re doing. I’d be curious to hear of something that we can do that we’re not doing.”

He said that “we’ve been pretty aggressive in steering the community to what we’re doing.”

Mallanda closed her longer message to the Walton community by saying that:

“Helping students succeed is our first priority, but we can only accomplish this mission if our schools are safe, our students are confident, and our teachers are able to focus on teaching. I am confident we are doing everything possible to keep your student safe.”

After the Wheeler incident, Dodd said she was “pleased to see more transparency in [the Cobb school district] statement than what has been done historically,” she said. “Also, would be curious if the new AlertPoint and SafeSchools Alert system is the reason it seems there are more incidents.

“Meaning, now that the teachers and students have the proper tools, a lot more things are being caught in a more efficient time frame and before something [is] escalated.”

However, the Code Red drill that took place at Walton last Thursday unnerved student Emily Ross, who wrote in an essay for the AJC that “this is warping me. I never feel safe.

“The teachers are expected to be self-sacrificing and stop someone with a weapon that can kill nine people in less than 30 seconds. The administration is expected to appease parents with procedures that might—or might not—work.

“I’m 16. I don’t have a solution.”

 

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