A group of citizens who are regularly critical of Cobb County School District Chris Ragsdale have scheduled a rally Thursday to call for his ouster.
The “Replace Ragsdale” rally will start at 3:30 Thursday at the Cobb school district’s headquarters (514 Glover St., Marietta), as the Cobb Board of Education is holding its September meetings.
A work session starts at 2 p.m., followed by an executive session and a 7 p.m. voting meeting.
Ragsdale has come under fire by some critics for terminating a Due West Elementary School teacher after she read a book about gender identity to her students, and after the Cobb school district pulled two books from 20 middle- and high school shelves that were deemed sexually explicit and in violation of a new state “divisive concepts” in education law.”
It’s the latest in a long line of complaints that a group of parents and educators have been making about Ragsdale in recent years. Some of them have publicly expressed their concerns at public comment periods at school board meetings, but they have said they rarely get a response.
The Cobb school board has a 4-3 Republican majority, with those GOP members routinely backing Ragsdale. In late 2021, the Republicans voted to revise Ragsdale’s contract as the district was undergoing a special review by its accrediting agency.
The organizers of Thursday’s rally call themselves the Cobb Community Care Coalition and include Micheal Garza, an East Cobb resident who ran as a Democrat for the Georgia legislature in 2020 and Jennifer Susko, a former Mableton Elementary School counselor who resigned in protest when the Cobb school board banned the teaching of Critical Race Theory in 2021.
“Chris Ragsdale’s decision making is the reason for everything occurring in Cobb Schools that has been embarrassing us in the national news over the last several years,” said the rally organizers. “We are showing up as a community to resist and demonstrate that we will not remain silent while he and his leadership staff abuse their power.”
The group says that Ragsdale is responsible for “firing and disparaging teachers,” removing books against the district’s policy, “creating a hostile work environment where educators fear for their jobs,” “fostering school climates that are harmful to LGBTQ+ and Black and brown students, families and educators,” “banning programming that helps protect marginalized students and prevent identity based bullying” and “disrespecting a teacher who died of COVID.”
The Cobb Republican Party is urging its members to attend to thank and show support for Ragsdale.
Party chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs said that “we need to have 50-60 people on our side” for the 7 p.m. meeting, which “is the one the left will show up to.”
Susko, who was a temporary special assistant to Democratic Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, responded that the Cobb MOB has seen our efforts and responded frantically and irrationally as usual. Thank him for WHAT exactly? . . . Salleigh, you CAN HAVE CHRIS RAGSDALE! He wants to work for the GOP anyway. Take him.”
The work session agenda includes a discussion of recent Georgia Milestones test scores in Cobb and metro Atlanta school districts, while the evening meeting will include a request to purchase 38 new school buses and recognition of state champion athletes, include track and field and tennis participants at Walton High School.
Agendas for both meetings can be found by clicking here.
The school board’s public meetings Thursday will be live-streamed on the Cobb County School District’s BoxCast channel and on CobbEdTV, Comcast Channel 24.
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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