During the first weeks of the 2019-20 Cobb County School District academic year, two East Cobb high schools went on lockdown, and a student at another school was arrested after threatening violence and attacking a teacher.
Those incidents raised concerns by school safety advocates about the district’s measures to handle such incidents.
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- Threats of violence heighten school safety concerns
- Wheeler HS placed on lockdown; student found with a weapon
- Walton student arrested for battery, making terroristic threats
- Sprayberry trespasser arrested after being found with gun
A trespasser was quickly apprehended after walking onto the Sprayberry campus with a gun and a Wheeler student was arrested after other students alerted teachers and staff that he had carried a gun on a school bus.
At Walton High School, a student was arrested for making terroristic threats, saying he would shoot up the school when he was taken from a class for having alcohol in a water bottle. He also was charged with battery for kicking a teacher.
An East Cobb parent who helped form a Cobb schools safety group last year acknowledged that the district is taking more concerted steps to ensure safety and communicate better, but still thinks its approach is largely reactive.
She’d like to see the district invest more in mental health counseling and a “social emotional learning” program other school systems have begun.
The Walton incident wasn’t made public for a week, and then only because of news reports, while the Sprayberry and Wheeler cases were made public the day they occurred.
The district has continued to stress its safety resource effort called Cobb Shield, which contains information about its police force, emergency management procedures and code red drills, which are required each semester at all 16 high schools.
District spokesman John Floresta said Cobb schools was “batting 100 percent in the way each incident [at the East Cobb schools] was handled,” from quick actions by school officials to apprehend those posing a threat, to relaying information to the school community.
“We’re being as proactive as any school district I know,” he said.
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