The Cobb County School District will be given a year to take action on any findings issued by a special review team before its accreditation is put in jeopardy.
That’s according to the CEO of Cognia, the nonprofit organization that serves as the accrediting body for the district.
Cognia’s special review of the district began last month after a request from Democratic board of education members Charisse Davis, Jaha Howard and Leroy “Tre” Hutchins. They said in a January letter that their attempts to put items on meeting agendas were ignored: employee safety and morale during the COVID-19 pandemic, early literacy and governance training for board members.
Mark Elgart, who has overseen Cognia for nearly 20 years, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the typical timeline for a special review could last between three and six months.
“We’re already in motion right now getting ready for that actual onsite visit,” he said.
Elgart said Cognia received more than 50 complaints from community members about Cobb schools. Most center on board and district leadership and governance concerns, he said. One complaint focuses on the board’s response to students’ request to rename Joseph Wheeler High School because it honors a Confederate general.
Elgart said the review team will explore, among other things, whether the Cobb school board is being responsive to community concerns or if they are “shutting off constituent groups.”
“We don’t make a determination just based on somebody indicating they might be in violation of standard,” Elgart said. “We can only make that determination if we go in.”
Other districts
Last month, the Cobb County School District said in a news release that determinations made from the special review can negatively affect college acceptance rates, enrollment, scholarship awards, teacher recruitment and retention, funding, county property values and bond credit ratings, “as occurred in Clayton and DeKalb counties.”
Elgart warned against making those comparisons and drawing conclusions since each district’s situation is unique.
“People should not be panicking,” Elgart said. “The threat of accreditation isn’t even on the table right now.”
Clayton County lost its accreditation in 2008 because of a dysfunctional school board that undermined administrators, impeded efforts to curriculum improvements and failed to follow open meetings laws, among other issues. It regained full accreditation status in 2016.
DeKalb schools were placed on probation in 2012 after a review found district officials engaged in bickering and nepotism while letting district finances wither and academic achievement dwindle.
Michael Thurmond was hired as DeKalb’s interim superintendent to address the accreditation and the district’s $14 million deficit. He came in just before former Gov. Nathan Deal ousted six school board members for fiscal irresponsibility and the board “being at war with itself.” The district earned full accreditation status in 2016.
A school district east of Atlanta has not seen any negative affects of a special review that began in January 2020, its spokesman said.
The 12,000-student Clarke County School District has been operating with an “accredited under review status” in April 2020 after a special review found that it was not meeting several performance standards outlined by the organization, Donald Porter told the AJC.
Despite the downgraded status, Porter said “no serious consequences to students are incurred as the result of the review.”
Former Clarke County schools superintendent Demond Means in August 2019 asked Cognia for a special review, alleging school board members interfered with day-to-day school district operations and failed to govern effectively. Community complaints to Cognia also said board members were unaware of their own policies, did not understand their roles and were influenced by special interest groups that were satisfied with low academic performance of some students.
Cognia’s findings resulted in the downgraded status for the district, and it was required to make several improvements, including creating a professional development plan for board members and a stronger code of ethics.
Cognia’s next on-site visit to the district is scheduled for December, and Porter said the district is confident it will soon earn back its full accredited status.
“Our objective throughout this process has been to simply follow these directives and make the needed and sustainable improvements,” he said.
The next steps
Cobb schools is coordinating when the special review team, made up of volunteers who are educational leaders in and outside of Georgia, will make its site visit. That visit could take two to three days and the report compiled by the team will be done 30 to 60 days after the visit, Elgart said.
The report will be supplied to Cobb schools, which will release the findings to the public. Cognia will follow up with the district within three to six months following the report’s release to see how the district is progressing on correcting any problems identified by the review team. The timeline to make those changes is usually about a year, Elgart said.
If no improvements are made, Cognia could decide to increase its expectations and timeline on when Cobb schools has to make the necessary changes.
Robert Harris, a former Cobb County School District teacher, told the AJC he didn’t think Cognia will recommend any punitive actions against the system that would threaten its accreditation. He did say he was disappointed that Davis, Howard and Hutchins requested the review.
“It just stirs up too many problems,” he said of the review.
Stronger Together, which wants school district officials to acknowledge and tackle racism in the classroom, said in a letter written May 3 to Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and Elgart that since 2018, their reporting of racist incidents faced by students to Cobb board members have been ignored.
Jillian Ford, a member of the organization, said Stronger Together supports the review because the four Republican members on the school board are “using their numeric majority to squelch democracy and the democratic process that is set up so that members of the school board can represent their communities.”
“If Cobb County Schools meet all the standards as assessed by the accreditation agency, as the leadership continuously says they do, then they should have nothing to worry about,” she said.
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