Top East Cobb stories for 2018: School walkouts lead to punitive action

East Cobb school walkouts
Parents and family members of Walton students walking out came to lend support outside the locked school gates. (ECN)

Here’s something that took a lot of people by surprise in East Cobb in 2018: Student walkouts in favor of gun-control, a month after the high school shootings in Parkland, Fla.

Students from Walton, Pope, Lassiter and Wheeler were vocal about their plans to leave their classes at a designated time on March 14 as part of a national campaign to protest gun violence.

The Cobb County School District announced that it did not endorse the walkout, and said students who violated school disruption policies would be subject to disciplinary action.

The day after the Florida shootings, principal Chris Ragsdale announced the district would step up code-red drills to improve preparedness.

At Walton, walkout leaders said they were undeterred, claiming they had 2,300 students signed up to take part in the protest.

In an interview with East Cobb News, Walton principal Judy McNeill said she was disappointed with the students who were walking out, and that other students were organizing an alternative to honor the Florida victims before the start of the school day.

Cobb schools closed high school campuses to visitors on March 14, and even locked the gates at Walton, where parents, friends and family members brought signs to signal their support for the walkout students.

At Pope High School, police blocked the only entrance. Cobb schools claimed only 250 Walton students walked out.

As the walkout period approached, a Walton parent read the names of the 17 victims in Parkland.

The following day, some of the East Cobb walkout leaders blistered Cobb school board members during a public comment period for attempting “to silence us” about their concerns over student safety.

Most of the board members said nothing. The students who walked out generally received a day of in-school suspension.

Other top East Cobb schools stories for 2018 include the opening of new school facilities at East Cobb Middle School and Brumby Elementary School, a Dodgen math teacher being named the Cobb teacher of the year, Sprayberry High School marking its 65th anniversary and school officials conducting a school safety town hall meeting at Lassiter High School.

Principal Amanda Richie (in black dress) said the Brumby ES family will make the new campus “not just a school house but a school home.”

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!

Sprayberry to celebrate 65th anniversary, hold gala fundraiser Saturday

PHOTOS: Sprayberry High School 65th anniversary celebration

On Saturday, East Cobb’s oldest high school will mark its 65th anniversary.

Sprayberry High School (2525 Sandy Plains Road) will hold a special assembly in the gym at 2 p.m. Saturday, and tours of the school from 3-5, followed by a fundraising gala.

Attendance to the assembly, which includes comments from Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale and leading figures from Sprayberry’s past, is free, and the dress is casual.

The event also includes special displays from each decade of the school’s history, including its early years on what is now Cobb Parkway and the current location of The Walker School.

The Sprayberry Hall of Fame Hall of Fame Gala, a fundraising event for the school’s foundation, starts at 6:30 p.m. at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Catholic Church (3431 Trickum Road).

The cost is $100 and there will be raffle prizes, food, music and other entertainment.

Sprayberry opened its doors in the fall of 1952 and moved to its present location in 1973. It’s named after Paul Sprayberry, a Cobb school superintendent in the 1950s.

Sprayberry was the only public high school in East Cobb for more than a decade, until the area began transforming from rural to suburban. Wheeler opened in 1965, followed by Walton (1974), Lassiter (1981), Pope (1987) and Kell (2002).

 

Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click the button below to sign up, and you’re good to go!