Cobb County Superintendent Chris Ragsdale on Thursday defended the school district amid calls for him to be fired and end “censorship” after a recent decision to remove two books considered inappropriate for students.
Tension has been ratcheting up in the state’s second-largest school district since the school board voted along party lines last month to fire teacher Katie Rinderle for reading a book to fifth graders last school year that challenged gender norms. The removal of “Flamer” by Mike Curato and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews for “sexually explicit” content shortly after that fanned the flames. Rinderle’s attorneys announced Thursday they are appealing the firing to the Georgia Board of Education.
Ragsdale spoke for more than 20 minutes during Thursday’s school board meeting, mostly in defense of district’s decisions.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
“There are those who believe Cobb schools are nothing more than a convenient battle field for whatever their political cause, and that’s what we’re currently experiencing,” he said. “There is no room to flip-flop where you stand. You are either in favor of providing inappropriate material to children, or you are against it. And I assure you, I am against it and I will not be moved.”
While he spoke, protesters wearing red T-shirts that said “Replace Ragsdale” stood and turned their backs to the dais to reveal another message on the backs of their shirts: “Ragsdale is wrong.”
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
“We have no confidence in him, and this is why we demand new leadership,” said Micheal Garza, one of the leaders of the Cobb Community Care Coalition, which organized the “Remove Ragsdale Rally” ahead of the meeting. “Our educators deserve a leader who supports them, and our children deserve a leader who values them for who they are.”
The coalition brought a list of demands to the school board. Some stem from the book controversy, while others go back farther.
Under Ragsdale’s leadership, Cobb “has a well-documented history of failing to address racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination, even when brought to public attention,” the group said in a statement.
They want the board to replace Ragsdale and fire another top district official, implement an anti-bullying curriculum that was previously discontinued in the schools, withdraw a ban on teaching critical race theory and define terms in its policies such as “controversial issue” and “divisive concepts” to give clarity to educators they said are “enduring a hostile workplace.”
Ragsdale has been superintendent since 2015. He was recognized Thursday after the American Heart Association named him the National Superintendent of the Year after the district raised more for the organization than any other district in the country.
While about 20 people gathered for the protest against Ragsdale, another sizeable group held signs thanking him for his leadership and cheered when he asserted that Cobb schools would not provide lewd, obscene or pornographic content to children.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The Georgia Youth Justice Coalition also held a press conference ahead of Thursday’s meeting calling on the school district to better support students’ needs and to stop censorship.
“We should have the freedom to learn, just as teachers should have the freedom to teach,” said Maariya Sheikh, a senior at Campbell High.
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