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Cobb County, Marietta Schools superintendents discuss state of education in their respective districts

The superintendents down how their districts are doing regarding recruitment, school safety, and student performance in the classroom.

ATLANTA — Cobb County's superintendents discussed the current state of education in each district at the Coca Cola Roxy Monday afternoon.

They broke down how their districts are doing regarding recruitment, school safety, and student performance in the classroom.

Literacy levels on the rise

Marietta Schools Superintendent Grant Rivera expressed how literacy levels have increased in his district.

"We outpaced the state by five times this past year on our gains in third grade reading," he said. "For us, what does that mean? We’re setting kids up for success to go into this Cobb community down the road and have great opportunities."

Cobb County Superintendent Chris Ragsdale added that State School Superintendent Richard Woods just presented literacy leader awards to 155 schools in Georgia. Ten of those, Ragsdale said, were in Cobb County.

"We had eight schools that had 90% or above proficiency in reading but more importantly to me, we have two schools that surpassed 15% growth in one year. We had one school that had over 18% growth on literacy in one year," he said.

School safety in Cobb County

When discussing school safety, Rivera mentioned that a big focus should be on technology and social media.

"The chances of there being an active shooter in any one of our schools is low but you know what keeps me up at night? What you’re holding in your hand right now – that’s a cellphone," he said. "We talk about the wellbeing of children; it’s not just about an active shooter, it’s also about their social and emotional wellbeing."

Ragsdale added that the focus for Cobb County Schools is on code red drills, which alert that there's a potential threat within a school's campus.

"While we have fire drills and have had fire drills since we were in school, its been 60 years since somebody has passed away due to a fire in school. On the front end there was a lot of concern about the emotion and distress. Quite honestly, I want code red drills to become just like fire drills – its muscle memory," Ragsdale said. "There’s not a lot of emotion that goes into it yet if something does happen, muscle memory kicks in and you know exactly what you have to do."

Teacher retention, recruitment

Both superintendents complimented Gov. Brian Kemp on the pay raises the state approved for teachers, in turn, helping with recruitment.

"The first week of school we had less than 14 openings for teachers while other counties surrounding us (were in the) 400s. It does matter," Ragsdale stated.

Cobb County Schools also announced a new partnership with WellStar, with the goal of helping lead students to employment upon graduation.

"They come out of the Cobb Innovation and Technology Academy (CITA) with certification and they can go straight to work with that," Ragsdale said.

Cobb and Marietta School's district-level teachers of the year were also celebrated during the event, and were given a free one-year car lease.

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