With 351 new COVID-19 cases added to the Cobb County School District’s cumulative tally in three weeks, the system has changed how it reports cases and rejected rumors that the health department advised Superintendent Chris Ragsdale to cancel in-person learning.
As of Jan. 8, the district has 1,921 cases that have been reported in the system since July 1. That’s up from 1,570 cases reported as of Dec. 18, the last day of the district’s first semester. The district, which finished the first semester with remote learning due to the uptick in cases in the community, updates its website each Friday.
Cobb schools’ website now breaks down how many active and cumulative cases are at each of its schools, even if they are less than 10. That’s a change from the district’s previous policy that didn’t provide case numbers if they were less than 10, which it said was done to protect the privacy of anyone who was sick or quarantined.
Cobb still does not break out cases by student or staff members, however. Schools that currently have more than 10 active cases are Awtrey and McCleskey middle schools and Kell, Lassiter, North Cobb and Walton high schools.
Schools with the greatest number of cumulative cases are Walton at 51; North Cobb High at 46; Kell High at 42; Lassiter, McEachern and Pope high schools at 40; Harrison High at 39; Kennesaw Mountain High at 37; Kemp Elementary at 34; South Cobb High at 32; Hillgrove High at 31; and Allatoona High at 30.
The spike in COVID-19 cases around Cobb has renewed calls for the district to cancel in-person learning. A petition created last week asking Ragsdale to close classrooms has received more than 5,800 signatures.
Cobb school board member Brad Wheeler said he supports keeping the face-to-face option open for parents and students, and that Ragsdale’s decision to offer that choice was based on guidance from the Cobb & Douglas Public Health Department.
“As long as we can safely do that, I’m good with it,” he said.
An email sent Saturday to the school board and members of the media by someone claiming to be a teacher alleged the local health department has advised Ragsdale to close classrooms to face-to-face learning and that it has left all contact tracing operations in the hands of the school system.
School district spokeswoman Nan Kiel said the “wildly inaccurate and irresponsible rumors being spread as part of a social media and traditional media pressure campaign for a return to full remote classrooms will not deter the district’s commitment to our students, staff and families.” She also said the district is thankful for the health department’s work.
“We’ll continue to lean on them as we make decisions concerning our district’s response to the pandemic,” she said.
Cobb & Douglas Public Health spokeswoman Valerie Crow said the agency has not advised Ragsdale to close classrooms and that contact tracing was never the sole responsibility of the department. Cobb schools staff have access to school records, so they carry out any internal contact tracing for its COVID-19 cases. Once they are done, the district sends that information to the health department as part of its external contact tracing protocols, Crow said.
“It is a team effort between CCSD and CDPH, with the goal of keeping schools open as safely as possible,” Crow said.
Cobb County Board of Education member Charisse Davis said the petition and rumors are in response to the lack of information provided by the school district. Davis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she regularly gets questions from parents about what metrics the school district uses to decide if it should close classrooms. She has told residents that when she asked the superintendent this same question in November, he said the district did not have specific metrics and made decisions on a case-by-case basis.
She also said the school district should try to understand the frustration of parents who feel they aren’t getting information and teachers and staff who may feel like they have been forgotten.
“When you don’t address people’s fears and concerns, it makes it seem as if you don’t care,” she added.
About the Author
