Rob Madayag

Cobb school board candidate withdraws; threatens to sue district

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A candidate for the Cobb Board of Education says he’s withdrawing after he announced that he may file a lawsuit against the Cobb County School District.Rob Madayag, Cobb school board candidate

Rob Madayag, an attorney, said late Monday that he wouldn’t be qualifying for the Post 5 seat currently held by two-term incumbent David Banks.

Madayag had been one of four GOP hopefuls to announce for the seat, including Banks, as qualifying began Monday.

Post 5 includes the Pope and Lassiter clusters.

In a post to a Cobb schools-related Facebook page, Madayag said that “based on several factors, I do not think I am the best candidate at this time.”

Madayag filed notice last week that he may take the CCSD to court, saying it doesn’t properly report bullying incidents under the state’s school anti-bullying law.

“I intend to win the lawsuit and will not be able to dedicate the amount of time to campaign and win that i think necessary,” Madayag said in his statement on Monday. “I do not plan on losing, and with the number of depositions and document requests in the litigation I have mapped out, I expect to have most of my free time taken up.”

In a letter sent to school board members and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale on Feb. 25 (you can read it here), Madayag said he was skeptical of huge reductions in reported instances of bullying in Cobb schools under Ragsdale—to be specific, 86 percent between 2014 and 2018.

Madayag, who said his daughter has been bullied in Cobb schools, wrote that it’s “a rate that defies all logic and reason and is a significant outlier with respect to all the other school districts in the metro-Atlanta area, and quite possibly the entire United States.”

In addition to Banks, the other Republican candidates for the Post 5 season are Shelley O’Malley, a Delta Air Lines pilot, and IT consultant Matt Harper.

Two Democrats also have announced, current Lassiter PTSA co-president Tammy Andress, and physical therapist Julia Hurtado.

Qualifying for the May 19 general primary ends at noon Friday.

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Critic of Cobb schools on bullying issues running for school board

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An East Cobb attorney who has been critical of the Cobb County School District on bullying issues is running for Post 5 on the Cobb Board of Education in 2020. Robert Madayag, Cobb school board candidate

Robert Madayag is seeking the seat currently held by David Banks, whose third term ends next year. Post 5 includes most of the Pope and Lassiter high school attendance zones, as well as part of the Sprayberry cluster (see map at the bottom).

Madayag is the father of students at Sprayberry, Simpson Middle School and Kincaid Elementary School.

(For his campaign website, click here.)

Earlier this year, Madayag assisted parents, including some at Walton High School, who complained about how the district responded to their claims about their children being bullied. He thinks the district underreports data on the number of students who report bullying.

Madayag said in his announcement that “there is no doubt that the CCSD has done a great job of helping those students at the top,” but said he’s heard from “countless parents about how their kids were bullied, suffered racially charged language, and were forced to fight the school district to have their kids provided basic needs.”

His priorities include doing a countywide assessment about how bullying cases are handled, providing transparency to the public on how much the district spends on legal fees and creating the position of Chief Equity Officer.

Madayag also wants to address what he says are “stories upon stories of parents with special needs kids that have had to fight and fight with the CCSD, at their own great expense, just to get treatment that other school districts provide without fighting.”

East Cobb News has left a message with Madayag seeking more information about his candidacy.

Madayag, who is running as a Republican, is a former chairman of the Modern Whig Party of Georgia, which formed in 2009 with a centrist platform aimed at those disaffected with both Democrats and Republicans.

Currently the seven-member school board has four Republicans and three Democrats. Four seats are up next year, including Post 1 (North Cobb), Post 3 (South Cobb) and Post 7 (West Cobb).

Madayag is a U.S. Navy veteran who earned an engineering degree from Georgia Tech, then earned a law degree from Villanova University. He practices patent and corporate law in the Atlanta office of Lee & Hayes, a national firm.

He and his family have been involved in school and youth sports and music activities in their community. His wife Rebecca has been a member of the PTSA board at Simpson, and he has coached and served as an emcee for his sons’ football teams and at Sprayberry freshman and JV football games.

Banks, a Republican, has not indicated whether he’s running again. Matt Harper, an IT project manager, has announced his candidacy in the GOP primary (campaign website).

Harper taught science for three years at Murdock Elementary School and he and his wife Sharon have two daughters who attend Cobb schools. He also has served on the Murdock School Council.

Post 5 includes all or part of the following school zones:

  • High Schools: Pope, Lassiter, Sprayberry
  • Middle Schools: Hightower Trail, Mabry, Simpson
  • Elementary Schools: Davis, East Side, Eastvalley, Garrison Mill, Mountain View, Murdock, Powers Ferry, Sedalia Park, Shallowford Falls, Tritt
Cobb BOE Post 5
For larger map, click here.

 

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