After hearing from those in favor of and against his recent decisions over controversial issues involving school library books and gender identity topics, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale responded in dramatic fashion Thursday night.
During a Cobb Board of Education meeting, Ragsdale read from lengthy, prepared remarks—running around 20 minutes—about a number of controversies over school library books and the firing of a teacher for reading a book to her class about gender identity.
He defiantly defended his decision to fire Katie Rinderle, who is appealing that decision to the Georgia Board of Education, and for pulling two books from middle- and high school libraries that contained sexually explicit materials.
He also denied that teachers, media specialists and other personnel have been threatened with their jobs, nor have district policies and processes for vetting books been ignored.
His critics have complained that the Cobb school district succumbed to conservative activists in removing the books, which contain language and graphics depicting sex acts.
They held a rally before the meeting wearing red “Replace Ragsdale” shirts and called for his ouster, and echoed those sentiments during a public comment period.
But at the end of his remarks (you can read them in full here), Ragsdale was emphatic that the district acted properly in removing “vulgar, sexually explicit, lewd, obscene, or pornographic” materials and that it would continue to be vigilant in doing so,
“This situation is about right and wrong, good and evil. This sexualization of children can never be defended nor allowed in any context, but especially in education,” he said to applause.
“There is no middle ground in this situation. There is no room to flip-flop on where you stand–you are either in favor of providing inappropriate material to children or you are against it. I assure you–I am against it, and I will not be moved.”
He said the district has a responsibility to the 109,000 students enrolled in the district and their parents to keep them safe, including from sexually explicit materials.
At a school board work session Thursday afternoon, Ragsdale supporters turned out in force, stressing parental rights and protecting children from adult themes they may not understand.
But for the evening session, most of the speakers spoke in heated opposition to the book restrictions and Rinderle’s termination.
They accused Ragsdale and the district of censoring books and limiting the education of students, especially on LGBTQ+ matters and other issues over cultural identity.
Gabriel Sanchez, a Walton High School graduate, was one of them.
“There is indoctrination in the school district,” he said, “and it’s coming from extremist, right-wing ideology from politicians and the elites who want to ruin our education, privatize it, and make sure that only what right-wingers approve of is taught in our schools.”
He said when he was a Walton student, he was taught that the Civil War was prompted by states-rights instead of slavery, “that is objectively false, that is right-wing ideology.”
Sanchez also said that “trans kids and non-binary kids also exist, and they need affirmation,” which prompted cheers in the room.
Jeff Hubbard, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators, said his pleas with the district to clarify policies on book restrictions and vetting have been ignored.
Two of the co-leaders of the Cobb Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl, both district media specialists, resigned their volunteer positions after Rinderle’s termination, concerned that there might be books that would violate district policy and state law.
“Please do not scare the heck out of staff when taking books without notice and investigating media specialists,” he said. “This is about creating and following policies correctly.”
Ragsdale responded to that point by saying that the Reading Bowl has not been called off, nor has any staff member been threatened with being fired.
Those spreading such “inaccurate” information, he added, are “doing nothing more than engaging in fear-mongering. . . .
“We are not enforcing radical new policies and practices. We are not going rogue and refusing to follow our own policies. We are following well-established federal and state law and policies and practices of the District that have been with us for years, if not decades. We are not usurping the rights of parents to make key decisions regarding the upbringing and education of their children.”
He said the Cobb school district provides an ample diversity of perspectives in its curriculum and related materials, along cultural, historical and viewpoint lines.
But the “ ‘radical new idea’ is not that schools have an obligation to protect students, but the radical new idea is that all children should somehow be forced to encounter sexually explicit language and instruction while at school,” he said.
He specified what was objectionable about the two books—”Flamer” and “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl” and noted that the sexually explicit content wasn’t incidental but “central themes of the books,” with multiple instances of profane language and even illustrations of nude children.
Ragsdale added that parents have the right to expose their children to such material at home, but “anyone working in education who knowingly provided students with access to sexually explicit, obscene, or pornographic materials should not be in a position of educating other parents’ children.”
A Cobb school student, George Moore, who identified as gay and non-binary, said “Flamer” and books like it can help people like him feel safer to be in school.
Removals of such books, Moore said, “does not make me feel safer. It makes me feel as if I should not be there. If a book about that cannot be there, can I?”
East Cobb resident Micheal Garza, one of the organizers of the rally and frequent Ragsdale critic, said in a social media posting Friday that Ragsdale’s comments were a “tirade” and that neither he nor others like him advocates for pornographic materials.
“The district tried to divide us and intimidate us last night. And they failed,” Garza said. “We are more resolved than ever to continue to work. We will continue to organize and strategize with a common goal of the removal of Chris Ragsdale and having a Board of Education that reflects the quality of our educators in this district and the diverse community that is Cobb.”
Related:
- East Cobb MS students design scooters for students with mobility needs
- Wheeler student hospitalized after being hit by bus
- Cobb school district disputes e-mail over reading contest
- Cobb school district removes ‘sexually explicit’ books from libraries
- Cobb school board candidate denounces teacher’s firing
- Divided Cobb school board votes to uphold firing of teacher
- Cobb schools tribunal rejects recommendation to fire teacher
- East Cobb schools hold steady in 2023 Georgia Milestones scores
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Correction note – to the editor:
Cobb County schools do not have 109,000 students.
The latest number, right off the school board site, is 106,703 found here:
https://www.cobbk12.org/page/285/the-district#:~:text=The%20Cobb%20County%20School%20District,and%20one%20adult%20education%20center.
FTE numbers will be updated in October, per state law.
Regarding the school book issue:
God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for doing the things written in most of these books and now they want to teach these things to our children.
MATTHEW 18:6. Says: But whoso shall cause one of these little ones who believe in Me to fall, it were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
I’m just sai
Here’s what your Bible says, if you would take the trouble to read it: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49.
But right-wing wackaloons are all on-board with that
Sorry, Wyatt, but “reading” is above the pay-grade of most of the trump-bootlicking reich wing Fascists. They have no control whatsoever over themselves, so they’re going to control YOU, and what your children are taught, and what they are allowed to think, instead. They glom together like cockroaches, to mindlessly wave the flag, promote Christo-Fascism–and now the word is spreading among them that the 14th Amendment just doesn’t apply to trump! Their goal is to destroy Democracy for being “woke” (whatever the hell that’s supposed to be), and to anoint their dotard-god trump as dictator-for-life. Then, people like you & me will probably be sent off to camps.
I bought a copy of Flamer, one of the books that is often attacked as inappropriate. When this topic comes up I loan it out and ask “Do you think this should be in the library of your child’s school?” I have yet to meet a parent who thinks it’s a good idea.Mostly they are horrified at the sexualization of children and wonder about the motives of a person who would think this book belongs.
The idea that you need to sexualize children to make someone feel “safer” is just ridiculous.
FAKE. The above post from “Oscar L. Hogg” are the faux rantings of an online TROLL–a dumb masquerade, wrapped in a dumb caricature filled with predictable “misspellings” and faked bigotry—- in a failed attempt to ridicule decent people and their legitimate, rational rejection of this insidious effort to ruin the developing psyches of our children. None other than Adolf Hitler said “who owns the youth, gains the future”. The left follows this same predictable pattern. They seek to collapse us from within by infecting the bedrock of healthy, family-centered, faith-based, cooperative life. Do not buy the ad nauseam propaganda that it is ‘hip’, ‘enlightened’, and ‘tolerate’ to be “open-minded” to this debasement of our children —lest you become so ‘open-minded’ that your brain falls out. It is a CANCER. Fight it.
Well its been two days now and I still can’t believe some goverment paid leftard calling himself D Thompson is saying I’m a fake? I’m more real than any D Thompson is, that’s for sure. I didnt grow a pointy head going to some leftard college up north so I could get a job as a goverment paid fake writer trying to say true Patriots like me aren’t real! I may not be the best speller but I’ve been working hard all my life and not using daddys money to go learning how to be a loudmouth leftard at some colege up north somewhere. I still say if we put Mr. President Trump back in the White House where he belongs, then we can get rid of all these crying leftards like D Thompson and get back to having a Real Amerika again. Amen!