The Cobb Board of Education meets Tuesday in its 2020 organizational meeting, at which it will select its chair and vice chair for the year.
Charisse Davis of Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, said she’s interested in becoming chair.
It’s a duty that includes running meetings and representing the board in an official capacity.
“I’ve expressed my interest to serve as chair, a role that many other board members have held, even in their first term,” Davis noted in her January newsletter.
The first-term Democrat, who lives in the Campbell cluster, was nominated for vice chair last year, shortly after taking office. But the board’s four-member Republican majority voted for two of its own members for the leadership roles after multiple votes.
The 2019 chairman was David Chastain, of the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, and the vice chair was Brad Wheeler of West Cobb. Per board rules, officers cannot serve in the same roles in consecutive years.
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The board had a 6-1 Republican majority until Davis and Jaha Howard of South Cobb joined in 2019.
During the year, they sparred with Republicans on issues including revisiting the school senior tax exemption and equity and diversity matters in the Cobb County School District. Votes to formally consider them were defeated in party-line votes, as was a proposal by Davis for formalize a process for communicating with the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Regarding the senior tax exemption issue, Davis has said she wants to examine closing loopholes, not do away with the exemption altogether.
“Right now, the age-based tax exemption, which exempts anyone 62 and over who applies for it from paying school taxes in Cobb (regardless of your income or any other qualifier), amounts to $122.7 million,” Davis wrote in her October newsletter. “That represents 27% of our total residential property tax digest and Cobb’s age-based exemption has more of an impact on our school funding than any other metro district.”
The four GOP members also voted in August to bar board members from making comments at meetings after Howard had spoken out in that forum on non-school matters. Both he and Davis decried the ban as censorship.
Tuesday’s meeting starts at 1 p.m. in the board room at the CCSD Central Office, 514 Glover St., Marietta. Board members also will vote on meeting dates for 2020.
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I hope she’s not elected Chairman!