Private funds were raised in the Walton High School community to replace an electronic scoreboard at the sports stadium in Raider Valley.
But the Cobb County Board of Education was asked this week to approve the purchase, which caused some confusion in the community.
An agenda item for Thursday’s board meetings noted that the $439,497 amount would pay for removal of the existing scoreboard and replacing it with “a new multi-sport digital video scoreboard with video control and software systems on a new monopole structure.”
The agenda item includes a line item that states “Budgeted:” and the filed indicates “Yes,” but it wasn’t specific.
Typically such items specify a funding source, such as a SPLOST (special-purpose local-option sales tax) earmark.
At a board work session Thursday, board member John Cristadoro, who’s a football coach in the Walton feeder program and whose daughter plays volleyball for the Raiders, asked Marc Smith, the Cobb County School District’s Chief Technology and Operations Officer, about it.
“Just to be clear—are we writing a check for $439,000?” Cristadoro asked.
Smith told him that “Walton” is paying for that, meaning the individual donors, who were not identified in the agenda item.
“So, not the district?” Cristadoro asked.
“Correct,” Smith replied.
That led to some further discussion after board member Becky Sayler asked why the board needed to approve it.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told her that the district changed a policy regarding such matters years ago after schools were going into debt getting loans for such purchases, and were finding it hard to retire that debt.
“It was damaging to the students and it was damaging to the coaches and to the sports at those schools to keep having that debt,” he said, “and have all the fees that parents pay to participate in extracurricular activities.”
“He said the district also requires construction and equipment items to go through its SPLOST and maintenance department since “regardless of who pays for it, it becomes school district property.”
All items costing more than $200,000 also need board approval, Ragsdale added.
The Cobb school district doesn’t fund a variety of equipment and other items related to extracurricular activities, including sports uniforms and equipment.
Walton’s football, soccer, lacrosse and track and field teams compete at Raider Valley, which was part of the original campus that opened in 1975.
The Walton High School Foundation has been conducting a fundraising drive for what it has called a new “jumbotron,” and solicited donations last weekend at the 50th anniversary celebration for the school.
The objective is to have the new scoreboard installed and in place for the start of the 2025 football season in August.
Cristadoro asked Ragsdale if the district had the latitude to turn down a privately-funded project if it thought it would be too cost prohibitive or posed other concerns.
“On the front side, we’re able to say, okay, you’re going to have to cover said expense and upkeep,” Ragsdale said, referring to a non-district funding source.
The Cobb school district spent $6.78 million to construct a new baseball field and tennis courts on Pine Road as part of Walton’s campus rebuild project, as well as $5.65 million to acquire property there.
In that time, the district also relocated the softball field to the former baseball field on Raider Mountain at the back of the campus, and another $1 million for a pedestrian bridge on Bill Murdock Road to the new sports complex.
Those projects, along with a new campus classroom building that opened in 2017 and a new gymnasium and performing arts theatre that opened in 2020, were funded with SPLOST revenues.
Related:
- Proposed Cobb FY 2026 budget ‘far from gloom and doom’
- Cobb school district removes ‘American Psycho’ novel
- East Cobb students receive National Merit corporate scholarships
- East Cobb robotics team shines at FIRST world championships
- Editor’s Note: A golden anniversary for Walton—and East Cobb
- Cobb schools postpone safety sessions—for safety reasons
- Cobb school board, commission to start FY 2026 budget process
- East Cobb resident named to Ga. charter schools commission
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