East Cobb News

The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday will hear a proposed policy that would allow the Cobb County School District to stop airing public comments from citizens on its meeting broadcasts.

According to an agenda item for Thursday’s meetings, “Public Participation in Board Meetings” provisions, and specifically, a subsection on broadcast policies, currently state that:

“Speakers should be aware that their public commentary may be broadcast live, filmed, photographed, or recorded by the District or others non-District media sources. The District may rebroadcast public commentary on COBB edTV or on the District or school websites. Any portion of the public commentary that is not in compliance with this Policy (such as prohibited in Section F. above) and/or applicable broadcast authority may be edited prior to broadcast.”

The proposed change would state the following:

“Speakers should be aware that their public commentary may be filmed, photographed, or recorded by the District or others.”

You can read the policy and proposed changes by clicking this link. The public comment period, which typically allows up to 30 minutes of speakers per meeting, would continue in person only.

The measure also would add “tortious” comments to those described as “slanderous, or defamatory . . . or other unsubstantiated claims about an identified or identifiable employee” that would be prohibited from being made by public commenters at the meetings.

That policy change proposal is among several put on the agenda by Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and to be presented to the board at a work session Thursday at 2 p.m., followed by possible voting action Thursday at 7 p.m.

All meetings take place in the board room of the CCSD Central Office, at 514 Glover St. in Marietta. An executive session will follow the work session.

You can read through the agenda details for the meetings at this link; and you can watch the public meetings on a livestream on the district’s Boxcast Channel.

The Cobb school district has been airing its public school 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.

In recent years some citizens have grown increasingly critical of Ragsdale and the Republican majority on the school board, which holds a 4-3 edge, and sometimes in blistering fashion.

The topics have included district finances related to its COVID response, racial and LGBT cultural issues, school safety plans, demands to change the name of Wheeler High School, removals of sexually explicit books from school libraries and complaints from parents of special education students.

At times, the meetings have been disrupted, either by speakers or attendees, some of whom have been ushered out of the meeting room. Among those incidents included a school board vote in 2022 to hire armed guards, which drew protests.

Other recent public commenters appearing before the school board include bus drivers complaining about safety issues and short staffing, and the head of the Cobb County Association of Educators citing allegations of leadership issues at an unnamed elementary school.

In another proposed change to be discussed Thursday, members of the public who “willfully and actually” disrupt meetings “so as to render the orderly conduct of the meeting unfeasible” could be barred from making public comments or attending meetings for “a specific period of time as allowed by law.”

The current policy ban is up to 60 days, but the district hasn’t taken any such action against commenters. The board has revised its policies to require that all people attending board meetings in person pass through a security screening area.

Tensions involving members of the public and district boiled over in September 2023, when school district officials changed the process for signing up for public comments at board meetings. That prompted a federal lawsuit that is still pending.

Critics complained that was meant to prevent them from speaking up. One of the plaintiffs, East Cobb resident Jenny Peterson, has been a frequent critic of Ragsdale and the Republican board members.

The Cobb school district has been airing live meetings, including public comments before a state law went into effect requiring public comments at all school board meeting statewide. But there are no provisions for whether those public comments must be aired.

Last August, the district prohibited the airing of comments by JoEllen Smith, a resident of East Cobb, who was reading from sexually explicit books that had been removed.

The district said it was doing so due to federal regulations, and resumed airing after her two minutes were up.

During public comment periods, Ragsdale and school board members do not engage with speakers.

Critics have accused Ragsdale and the Republican board majority of being insensitive to their concerns over a period of years and don’t want the public to hear that.

On a school-related social media page Tuesday afternoon, parents were urged to contact board members, including vice chairman John Cristadoro of Post 5 in East Cobb, whom one poster said is a “swing vote,” but didn’t elaborate.

“We need to flood his inbox TODAY and urge him to vote NO on removing public comment from the broadcast,” the poster said.

“Tell John: Cobb families have a right to be heard—and seen. Don’t vote to silence us.”

East Cobb News has left a message with Cristadoro seeking comment.

Related:

• Wheeler, Walton students receive National Merit Scholarships
• More leadership position changes made at East Cobb schools
• Georgia resumes mandatory cursive instruction in grade school
• Cobb schools won’t offer pouches for student cell-phone ban
• East Cobb students honored at Positive Athlete Awards event
• Cobb Schools Foundation board proposal would OK major donors

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