Board Education Meeting Highlights Safety, Student Support, and Innovation

Feb. 14, 2025

February 13, 2025 - The February Board of Education meeting highlighted key initiatives in Cobb Schools aimed at enhancing student safety and future opportunities.

Board members received an update on the introduction of Vapor Wake dogs, a new added layer of protection to keep students and staff safe. Additionally, the meeting featured an update on the cutting-edge career pathways that will be available to students who attend the Cobb Innovation and Technology Academy (CITA) at Allatoona, slated to open in 2026.

The Board of Education also voted to extend Superintendent Ragsdale's contract through 2028.

Following the Board's vote of support, Superintendent Ragsdale reaffirmed the District’s commitment to providing a safe, high-quality, and age-appropriate learning environment for each and every student. Addressing ongoing discussions about book selection in school media centers, he emphasized the district’s responsibility to ensure students do not have unrestricted access to inappropriate content—an approach recently validated by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Superintendent’s full remarks are included below the video.

“I want to take a moment to reaffirm our commitment to providing a safe and age-appropriate learning environment for all of our students.

Contrary to the false accusations of those who relentlessly criticize our district, team, students, and community, this has never been about removing particular viewpoints or experiences. As I have stated numerous times, our media centers have literally millions of resources representing the vast array of human experiences and cultures. Instead, our decisions over the last couple of years about books in our schools have been guided by a simple but critical principle: ensuring children do not have unrestricted access to age-inappropriate, lewd, vulgar, and sexually explicit content. Again, this should be no more controversial than declining to provide them with unrestricted access to "Rated R" movies at school. This has resulted in the surgical removal of a small number of books from general circulation that never should have been there while retaining more than a million others.

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) recently confirmed there is no federal mandate requiring schools to keep explicit content, reinforcing that this should be a local decision made in the best interest of children. As a direct quote from USED,'...effective Jan. 24, 2025, USED has rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district's removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws...on Jan. 20, 2025, incoming USED leadership initiated a review of alleged "book banning" cases pending at the department. Attorneys quickly confirmed that books are not being "banned," but that school districts, in consultation with parents and community stakeholders, have established commonsense processes by which to evaluate and remove age-inappropriate materials."

As we have mentioned multiple times, this is not about banning books or restricting ideas—it is about ensuring that the materials available in our schools are appropriate for children and honoring the expectations of Cobb's parents and community. Cobb parents trust us to create an educational environment that fosters academic growth while respecting the boundaries of appropriate content.

Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize the needs of our students and uphold our responsibility to Cobb parents. We thank the Federal government for affirming a decision we made two years ago and validating the trust and expectations of the vast majority of parents.

I also want to take a moment to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to serve every student who walks through our doors.

Our focus is, and always will be, on providing a high-quality education in a safe environment. More specifically, we follow state reporting guidelines. We do not collect information regarding the immigration status of our students.

Our job is to educate, not to investigate. Every child in our classrooms deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed, regardless of how they got there. In our schools, no matter who they are or where they come from, every child receives access to Cobb County's celebrated and nationally recognized educational experience.

As a public school district, we are also obligated to following the law. While we do not enforce immigration policies, we will comply with the legal directives of law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

We will continue to uphold the law while ensuring that our schools remain places of learning, growth, and opportunity for every child in our community.

Cobb County has a long-established expectation that our school district will be at the forefront of ensuring the safety of our students and team while they are in our schools.

We will continue to honor that expectation. As you heard earlier this afternoon, we are very excited to bring Vapor Wake dogs into our schools. Governor Kemp recently announced an additional, one-time $50 million dollars for school safety. That is actually one of our legislative priorities. When added to $109 million dollars, which Georgia schools, including Cobb's, already receive, the Governor's investment into school safety allows the proactive solutions you can find at www.cobbshield.com.

As we spend over $35 million dollars on safety per year, other than your home, Cobb's schools continue to be the safest environment in our county, and we are confident Vapor Wake dogs will make our schools even safer.”

Board Recognitions

2024 – 2025 GHSA 6A One Act Play Best Actress State Champion – Camryn Cade, Hillgrove High School

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2024 – 2025 Georgia Highway Contractors Association, Heavy Equipment Operator State Dozer Champion – Steven Bernal, Cobb Innovation & Technology Academy

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