Cobb County’s public schools are among the best in Georgia, but trouble is brewing.
A dispute over the school calendar and criticism over the process to select a new superintendent is threatening to cause serious damage to the board’s relationship with the community. And if previous rifts are any indication — such as the 2005 proposal to buy laptops for thousands of students and the placement of evolution stickers in science books in 2002 — critics of the board won’t be ready to move on anytime soon.
“The trust is gone, and I think it is irreparable,” said Joan Keene, a longtime east Cobb parent who opposed the board’s February decision to ditch a balanced calendar — and shorter summer break — and move to a more traditional one.
“This board is pretty immature,” Keene said. “I don’t want that kind of mentality to make decisions for me, my children and my money.”
The calendar measure passed 4-3, supported by newly elected board Chairwoman Alison Bartlett and three new members who took office in January.
Critics said they felt blindsided by the change and believe their concerns were ignored. The original plan was to try the balanced calendar for three years, and some parents had booked vacations during the midyear breaks.
Board members who voted to revert back to the traditional calendar say the vote was no surprise. The three new members campaigned on a promise to restore the traditional calendar, believing it’s a cost savings for the district. The measure was discussed at meetings before the vote was taken.
Board member Tim Stultz, who voted in favor of switching the calendar, said there was ample opportunity for community input and feedback. It’s time to agree to disagree, he said, while respectfully acknowledging differing viewpoints.
“I think there’s a group still upset about the vote, but I also think there is a larger group of people who are content with the vote and who just want the board to move on to other business,” he said.
But the vote could bring scrutiny to the district’s accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Hundreds of parents have sent letters asking the agency to investigate the board’s governance practices. They accused board members of making decisions with a four-person majority rather than a consensus approach, and individually dealing with potential superintendent candidates even with the Georgia School Board Association hired to assist in the search.
Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University and a Cobb parent, said there’s been an attitude shift on the board in recent years and that some members think district administrators should decide what’s best. That creates a conflict between other board members who think they should be independent decision-makers, accountable to voters.
“A lot of controversies are out of personality clashes, turf wars between the superintendent and the board, out of ego,” he said. “A lot of it is personal, differences in philosophy about governing.”
Similar clashes got the Atlanta school board in trouble with SACS, which recently placed the district on probation.
The threat of SACS scrutiny wasn’t an issue during the laptop and evolution stickers controversies, but both eroded public trust.
In 2005, the Cobb school board approved a $70 million laptop program that would have put computers in the hands of all Cobb teachers and students in grades 6-12. The program never gained public support and eventually led to the resignation of then-Superintendent Joseph Redden.
In 2006, the board settled a four-year lawsuit over whether it was constitutional to place stickers warning evolution is “a theory, not a fact” in thousands of science textbooks. The stickers were removed in the 2004-05 school year.
Since then, the makeup of the board has changed dramatically. All of the board’s current members are in their first terms. The four longest-tenured members joined in 2009. Three new members joined in January after two incumbents decided not to seek a second term and one, Holli Cash, was defeated.
Former Cobb school board member Betty Gray, who served four terms before losing in 2008 to David Morgan, said she was disappointed the board didn’t honor its decision to leave the calendar in place for three years. She thinks board members can do a better job of acting as a team.
“Once the election is over and you won your seat, your agenda needs to be set aside for the bigger agenda. That agenda belongs to all seven people,” she said.
The next major decision facing board members is the selection of a new superintendent to succeed Fred Sanderson, who is retiring in June. It is one of the most important decisions a school board will make. Therefore, it’s crucial to have broad support, said Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED, which oversees the SACS accreditation agency.
“[The superintendent decision] is a situation where the board should strive for full support,” Elgart said. “A vote by simple majority does not start the process of establishing a new governance leadership team in the best conditions.”
Cobb board members have been criticized for making key decisions along a 4-3 split, the election of board leadership and the calendar used as the primary examples. Voting in the majority have been Bartlett and new members Stultz, Kathleen Angelucci and Scott Sweeney.
Bartlett acknowledged she had met with someone interested in the superintendent position, though not a formal candidate, but wouldn’t identify the person.
SACS will review the complaints before deciding whether to launch an investigation into governance issues. An accreditation loss can impact scholarship money, federal funding, college acceptances, property values and pre-kindergarten funding.
Every five years, SACS reviews school districts and gives them full accreditation, advisement, warning, probation or loss of accreditation. Cobb received an “advisement” accreditation following a 2009 school year review, meaning the agency recognizes the district has some challenges that if left unaddressed could turn into significant issues. In this case, the agency recommended the board get training and approve a strategic plan through an open, inclusive process.
Sanderson told the board it needs to pursue ongoing training, as opposed to attending one session, to satisfy the SACS requirement.
State law requires board members to take six hours of training every year, and state records show that in past years, board members have exceeded that amount.
Cobb will be reviewed again for reaccreditation in 2014-2015.
Parent Nancy Mangiante, who supported the switch back to the traditional calendar, said she thinks the board can move on if all the board members set the example.
“Leadership starts at the top, and if board members are talking about each other, that’s where people get their opinions,” she said. “The board members set the tone.”
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