School Board to Hold Budget Meeting

Today's session will include more details on addressing an estimated $86.4 million deficit for fiscal year 2014.

Cobb School Board to Hold Budget Meeting

Wednesday's session will include more details on addressing an estimated $86.4 million deficit for fiscal year 2014.

The Cobb Board of Education will hold a special meeting on Wednesday devoted to the proposed fiscal year 2014 budget. The meeting begins at 1 p.m. in the board room at the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover Street, Marietta. The meeting also will be streamed live on the CCSD website. Last month the school board heard initial recommendations to balance a deficit projected at $86.4 million, including five days of teacher and staff furloughs, cutting nearly 300 professional positions, mostly teachers through attrition, canceling employee cost-of-living increases, reductions in transportation services and borrowing from reserve funds. District Chief Financial Officer Brad Johnson also unveiled a conceptual plan for for an …

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Campbell Students Chosen for Governor's Honors

They are among the 86 participants selected from the Cobb County School District.

Students from Campbell High School have been chosen for the Georgia Governor's Honors Program this summer. They are among the 86 students selected from the Cobb County School District. Three students from Marietta City Schools also were chosen as part of a group of 690 finalists statewide, out of more than 3,000 applicants. The Governor's Honors Program, which is administered by the Georgia Department of Education, is a summer residential instructional program designed to provide intellectually gifted and artistically talented high school students challenging and enriching educational opportunities not usually available during the regular school year.  Activities are designed to provide each participant with opportunities to acquire the …

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Smyrna 8th Grade Writing Scores Hold Steady

Not much change at Campbell, Griffin and Smitha middle schools from 2012.

Eighty-seven percent of students in the Cobb County School District met or surpassed standards in the winter 2013 state Eighth Grade Writing Test, according to a figures released by the district Monday. Cobb has the highest percentage of students of any school district in the metro Atlanta area reaching or surpassing the state benchmark, and it is one point above 2012 Cobb results. Griffin Middle School had 80 percent of its students meet or go beyond the state standards, a 2-point boost from last year; Campbell Middle School had the same 75 percent rate as in 2012, and Smitha Middle School had a 71 percent rate, up from 70 percent. The metro figure is 86 percent, while across the state 82 percent of students reached or went beyond the …

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Cobb Kindergarten Registration Starts Wedesday

Georgia law requires that kindergarten students be five years old on or before Sept. 1.

With two months left in the 2012-13 school year, it's time for parents of new kindergarten students to register their children for the 2013-14 school year. Parents can go to any Cobb County elementary school from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 27 to complete the registration process. To find out what school your child will attend, check the Cobb County School District bus routes site. For more info about registration requirements, please visit the enrollment webpage.

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Furloughs Proposed for Cobb Schools

Teacher layoffs have not been recommended as the projected budget deficit for fiscal year 2014 has increased to $86.4 million.

The chief financial officer for the Cobb County School District is proposing five furlough days, hundreds of school-level staff reductions, borrowing from reserve funds and cancelling an employee cost-of-living increase to help balance a fiscal year 2014 budget deficit that has grown to an estimated $86.4 million. The proposed cuts do not include a recommendation for teacher layoffs, but reductions through attrition. In a special budget presentation to the Cobb County Board of Education, chief financial officer Brad Johnson said his estimates were revised up from nearly $80 million earlier this year, largely due to rising insurance costs for district employees. He is projecting $894 million in expenses against $807.6 million in anticipated…

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HeartDoc Andrew

7:50 am on Tuesday, April 16, 2013

shares that they "can balance this shortfall" if they address the reason for their "rising health insurance premiums" which their CFO has noted is the undertow pulling them under. The way to stem this increasing cost is for the teachers to lose their http://HeartMDPhD.com/VAT thereby becoming healthier and more capable.   more ›

Cobb School SPLOST Extension Passes

Cobb voters approved Tuesday's referendum to continue sales tax collections through 2018.

The Cobb Education SPLOST will continue through 2018. Cobb voters on Tuesday approved a referendum that would continue collecting the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for school construction and maintenance projects for another five-year period. With all 153 precincts reporting, a total of 23,248 votes were cast in favor of the SPLOST extension, or 57.3 percent. There were 17,317 votes against, or 42.7 percent, according to figures reported by the Georgia Secretary of State. The Cobb Ed SPLOST IV, as it has been called, would collect $717.8 million for the Cobb County School District and $55.4 for Marietta City Schools between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2018. "Schools win, kids win, economic development wins, property values win. It's…

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Brian

4:42 am on Sunday, March 31, 2013

A blanket statement about those who don't want to pay taxes but want to reap the rewards of land value increases is not a personal attack. It's quite the opposite. I'm really not angry :-) But if I seem annoyed lately, I'm really tired of hearing a few people make inane religious arguments because it's SPAM and borderline trolling. These comments add noise that sensible people have to sift …   more ›

Stop-Arm Citations Surpass 2K Mark

The Cobb Board of Education was updated this week on a new measure designed to protect school bus riders.

More than 2,000 citations have been issued to Cobb motorists who ignore stop-arm warnings around school buses, Cobb County Board of Education members were told this week. In a briefing at Wednesday's board work session, Chris Ragsdale, the Cobb County School District's deputy superintendent for operations, said a majority of the 2,200 citations issued thus far remain outstanding. He said 950 citations have been paid, resulting in an estimated income of $16,598 to the school district. Eighteen citations have gone to court and four have been thrown out, according to Ragsdale's figures, which were requested by Post 5 board member David Banks of Northeast Cobb. "We're not looking for revenue," Ragsdale said. "This project is about safety." The…

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Cobb Ed SPLOST Foes Hold Rally Today

The Cobb Taxpayers Association is organizing Sunday's event at the Marietta Square.

Pro-SPLOST Group Releases Video

The United 4 Kids Campaign also will produce commercials leading up to the March 19 education sales tax referendum.

Two Cobb County business owners are featured in a new video released this week in favor of the March 19 Cobb Education SPLOST IV referendum. The United 4 Kids Campaign is working on passing the sales tax extension, which would fund $772 million in construction and maintenance costs for the Cobb County School District and Marietta City Schools between 2014-2018. The speakers in the video are Jay Cunningham of Superior Plumbing and John Loud of Loud Security Systems, both based in Kennesaw. They repeat many of the points made by school district officials and others in support of the SPLOST referendum, especially the Cobb district's debt-free status and the county's property tax exemption for homeowners age 62 and over. "Vote yes for …

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