Board Looks Ahead to Positive Impact of Community’s Investments
At the first regularly scheduled meeting of 2025, the Cobb Schools Board of Education expressed their excitement about the positive changes coming to school communities through Ed-SPLOST. This community-funded initiative is enabling a wide range of upgrades, expansions, and beautification projects across the district.
Thanks to Ed-SPLOST and the district's strong financial stewardship—once again confirmed by the annual independent audit and three Triple-A credit ratings—Cobb Schools continue to fund critical renovations and improvements without relying on costly bond financing. By avoiding long-term debt and its associated interest, Ed-SPLOST’s one-penny sales tax ensures taxpayers' dollars go further while addressing the aging infrastructure and facility needs across the district.
"The continued support for Ed-SPLOST allows us to maintain our high-quality schools with projects like these," said Cobb Schools Board Chair David Chastain. "With over one billion dollars in needs for our school buildings, these investments are essential to ensuring Cobb remains the best place for students and educators to succeed.”
Investing in Bells Ferry’s Next Chapter
The Bells Ferry Elementary School community is excited about the upgrades, expansion, and beautification coming to their school over the next two years. When completed, here's what school families can expect to see.
Renovations and Replacements Planned for Pope
As a result of the community’s investment in SPLOST VI, Pope High School is slated for a series of facility upgrades designed to benefit students, staff, and the broader school community. Renovations include front entry improvements, new flooring for high-traffic areas like the media center and band room, and the removal of corridor lockers. The athletic facilities will also see substantial enhancements, including renovated locker rooms, a new baseball restroom and concessions building, and improvements to the baseball field. The school community is expected to see the project's substantial completion by November 2025.
Grand Improvements Coming to South Cobb and Sprayberry
The taxpayer-supported Ed-SPLOST VI is also scheduled to deliver lasting benefits to students and the community at Sprayberry High School and South Cobb High School. Both schools will receive upgraded grandstands and ADA-compliant stadium improvements by May 2025. At Sprayberry High, these upgrades add to the significant rebuild already underway, modernizing a campus that has served the community for over five decades and ensuring it remains a source of pride for future generations.
More Ed-SPLOST projects are planned for schools across the District.
Superintendent Updates Board on Board Review Process
As part of the January meeting, Superintendent Ragsdale informed the Board that two additional books had been removed for including sexually explicit content. The prior update to the Board, which included a complete list of books, is available here. The Superintendent’s full remarks are included below the video.
“Today, I am bringing forward an additional two books which are being removed from general circulation for containing pictures, drawings, or descriptions that are inappropriate for a public school library for minors because of their lewd, obscene, or graphically sexual nature. Again, our process is not a reflection on the author, the subject, or the literary merit of the book. It is analogous to not giving children unrestricted access to rated-R movies while they are at school.
The books are “Triangles” by Ellen Hopkins and “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard.
A Stolen Life is Jaycee Dugard's memoir. You may remember MS. Dugard was the eleven-year-old girl kidnapped in California and held against her will for eighteen years. During that time, she was repeatedly sexually abused by her captors, including multiple rapes resulting in her being twice impregnated against her will - including once at 13 years old.
Ms. Dugard stated one of her intentions for writing the book was to provide a clear and very descriptive account of what captive child victims of sexual abuse endure - which she did, and it is as horrific as it is graphic. Her journey was terrifying and traumatic. It is extremely difficult to imagine a human being treating another human being, especially a child, in such a tragic manner.
The reason "A Stolen Life" is being removed from general circulation is those very graphic descriptions of the rapes and other sexual abuse she endured, as well as the language used throughout the book. Because of this, the Cobb County School District recognizes it is inappropriate to provide children with unrestricted access to the book. We also recognize it is the decision of a parent when or if their child has access to this material.
One of the tragedies Ms. Dugard's memoir describes are missed opportunities for someone to intervene, but who did not. It is sometimes easier for some people to simply look away instead of engaging in order to help resolve a terrible situation.
It is difficult for us to believe, but human trafficking is a real problem. It is not just a ‘real problem’ nationally or someplace ‘far away,’ but right here in Cobb County. As the MDJ identified in their 2024 article entitled ‘Hidden Victims - Sex Trafficking Pipeline Runs Through Cobb.’
In something truly jarring to me when I learned it, Georgia Cares - a non-profit entity established by the State of Georgia to combat child trafficking in Georgia, approximately 91% of children involved in human trafficking attended public school DURING their exploitation. That should shock us all.
As I have said before, we cannot allow the sexualization of children to become normalized. That is why we are doing everything we can to ensure a safe environment for our students. Our practice is to identify issues before they become problems and problems before they become tragedies. Moving forward, our partnership with Servius will allow us to identify indicators suggesting human and child trafficking occurring in Cobb County, which then will allow us to focus intervention efforts to make human trafficking in Cobb a difficult crime to achieve.”
Cobb Protecting Funding for High-Quality Schools
After carefully weighing the potential impacts on Cobb students, educators, and our county, the Cobb County School District is taking steps to opt out of Georgia House Bill 581, which would limit school funding and reduce the high quality of our schools. This choice aims to ensure our students continue to receive the same high-quality education Cobb families expect and deserve. Cobb joins districts across the state and metropolitan area in this decision.
As required by the HB 581 process, the District will conduct three public hearings, which will be posted and held according to the requirements of HB 581. Additional details on why we’re protecting school funding are available on the District website.
Board Recognitions
2024 – 2025 GHSA 6A One Act Play Best Actress State Champion – Mia DeMartino, Allatoona High School
2024 – 2025 JROTC Raider Competition Boys State Champions – Osborne High School
2024 – 2025 GHSA 5A Girls Flag Football State Champions – Pope High School
2024 – 2025 GHSA 6A Girls Flag Football State Champions – McEachern High School