Cobb school board delays meetings Yom Kippur Archives

Cobb school board COVID-19

The Cobb County School District said Monday is it pushing back the Cobb Board of Education’s monthly meetings in September due to Yom Kippur, the holiest observance of the Jewish calendar.

The board’s work session and voting meeting were to have taken place Thursday, but that’s during Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Instead, those meetings will take place next Thursday, Sept. 23, at 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively.

Yom Kippur begins at sunset Wednesday and continues through sunset Thursday.

From a Cobb school district release Monday afternoon:

“We recognize that Yom Kippur is of vital importance to our Jewish community members and have decided to postpone our regular meeting to ensure that as many of our community members as possible can participate.”

The district’s announcement also said that “while we understand that this schedule change may cause inconvenience to some, the Board and District are committed to making our meetings as inclusive as possible.”

The change comes a few days after the Pope High School principal announced an investigation was underway following the discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti on the wall of a boys bathroom.

There were two swastikas scrawled above urinals with the words “Hail Hiter!,” and prompted a visit to the campus Friday by Rabbi Larry Sernovitz of Temple Kol Emeth in East Cobb.

The Southern Division of the Anti-Defamation League in Atlanta said on Monday that the Cobb school district’s response to the Pope incident was inadequate.

In a Friday letter to assistant superintendent Christian Suttle, ADL regional vice president Allison Padilla-Goodman was critical of the district for failing to specify the incident as being anti-Semitic.

The ADL said that letter has gone unanswered, and in a statement issued to the media, she blasted the school board’s vote in June to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory.

She said it was a decision that “could tie their hands in responding to and countering incidents of hate through educational initiatives for the school community.” More from Padilla-Goodman:

“This is a direct example of how these shortsighted, politically-driven policies will have a detrimental impact on our children — antisemitic incidents, and hate of all forms, must be called out and countered as teachable moments and through educating the school community to create equitable, inclusive environments where all students can learn and thrive.”

She also noted that Cobb has dropped a public education campaign, “No Place for Hate,” that the ADL had offered to school districts.

There will be a special school board meeting this Thursday at 2:30 p.m. for a student disciplinary matter that is closed to the public.