r/CobbCounty

Can anyone help me with learning more about how the school districts work in Cobb? I’ve been house shopping and schools are a deal breaker for my wife and I. However, it’s tempting to see some of the houses we’re passing up on because of the schools. I’ve seen that Cobb can be flexible as long as there are openings? We would both have no problem dropping them off and picking up if it means going to a better school.

Cobb Police Chief Dan Ferrell will be holding several town hall meetings over the next month in response to concerns over how law enforcement is using Flock surveillance cameras and other new technology.
Cobb Police Chief J.D. Ferrell
One of those town halls will be in East Cobb, on Aug. 31 at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center.

Cobb County government on Wednesday announced the town halls as “community conversation about License Plate Readers (LPRs), Flock Safety technology, and FUSUS.”

The latter is a a cloud-based real-time crime center and public safety intelligence platform and is among the tools that Cobb Police have been using to track criminal activity.

“These meetings are an opportunity to learn how these public safety tools are used by the Cobb County Police Department, what information they provide to law enforcement, and how they support criminal investigations and public safety,” the Cobb government announcement said.

“Most importantly, we want to hear from you. Residents will have an opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from Chief Ferrell and department leadership.”
A number of incidents in Georgia and around the country have taken place alleging or involving law enforcement misuse of some of that technology.

In Paulding County, the former 911 director in Dallas is facing charges of accessing the Flock surveillance system for non-police reasons.
And in Macon, three Bibb County Sheriff’s Deputies have been arrested for using the Flock system for matters involving individuals with whom they were having personal relationships. All three have resigned from their positions.

Cobb Police have not been facing any similar situations, and have on occasion touted how Flock and other technology has helped to solve serious crimes or at least led to arrests.
That includes a mass shooting near Cumberland Mall in 2023 in which an arrest was made after Cobb DOT traffic cameras pinpointed the whereabouts of the suspect, and Flock cameras identified a vehicle in Midtown Atlanta that allegedly belonged to him.
In June, Cobb Police tracked down a suspect in a road rage incident in Northeast Cobb after reviewing real-time camera footage to identify his vehicle as it headed to Cherokee County, where he was arrested.

On Thursday, Flock announced it will be making some changes to address concerns over privacy and law enforcement excess.
The Cobb Police announcement about the town halls on its Facebook pagehas generated more than 600 comments, many of them critical of having Flock and other technology at all.
“Are you actual going to listen to residents, or just tell them why you’re going to keep flock cameras against the communities wishes and continue to use them even though they violate our rights?” asked one commenter.
“It’s a violation of privacy and you need a warrant. Stand up against this. Constitution protects us against this in the 4th amendment,” wrote another.

Another commenter who said he toured the Cobb Police Real Time Crime Information Center was told that department leaders had given a similar tour to the American Civil Liberties Association, and that “the ACLU reps asked for a copy of the Center’s policies as they felt it would make a great example for all agencies, nationwide, to use. Cobb citizens should be very proud of what CCPD is doing to protect and serve the community.”

The Cobb Police town hall sessions are scheduled as follows, with all taking place between 6:30-8 p.m.:
Thursday, Aug. 27, at Milford Recreation Center, 675 Smyrna Powder Springs Road, Marietta
Monday, Aug. 31, at Sewell Mill Library, 2051 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta
Tuesday, Sept. 1, at West Cobb Senior Center, 4915 Dallas Highway, Powder Springs
Tuesday, Sept. 15, at North Cobb Senior Center, 3900 S. Main Street, Acworth (in Kenworth Park)

CCSD released the full District Teacher Kickoff video this year, so I watched the whole thing 🫠

Ragsdale has some interesting opinions. He also makes quite a few statements that sound like facts but are... maybe worth checking.

A few parts that caught my attention:

The book removal/trafficking section -36:53

This one is WILD. He says “Every two minutes, a child is sold into trafficking in the United States of America. Let that sink in. Every two minutes. Now, folks, the sexually inappropriate materials we removed from this school district have one intended action. To condition kids at a young age to accept this whole deal around trafficking is normal some way, shape, or form. And either you agree with protecting kids or you don't. There's no politics involved." This is an alarming number and I couldn't find any credibility to any of this claim. Apparently, CCSD has a human trafficking awareness component in its health curriculum for grades 6-12. Purely anecdotal, but my child has never received this awareness education. Why doesn't he discuss this aspect of prevention instead of repeated justification for book removal? He follows that up with the whole good vs. evil, no gray area, if you disagree you have no business in education argument.

The Trump/Wheeler section -34:44

He spends a pretty significant chunk of the speech defending the presidential visit, including suggesting that people who opposed it were essentially bringing their own politics into it. I am just leaving this to speak for itself. No politics in schools, yet repeatedly bringing politics into schools.

“Using data to make decisions” -11:16

Every decision? That's a pretty broad statement. I'd genuinely love to know what that means in practice. Quite a few parents and groups have asked for specific data and not much has been verified.

Safety -15:40

$35 million is spent on safety annually. He goes on to describe the Vapor Wake program. “48,000 people scanned” sounds impressive, but what does that actually tell us about effectiveness in the school setting? There are currently 16 dogs, one at each high school. A gun was just brought into Campbell Middle School. Where's the data on Vapor Wake prevention?

53,000 applications for 450 positions -51:12ish

This one sounds very impressive until you remember that applications aren't necessarily applicants. Multiple factors can come into play here. What positions? Were those positions actually filled? Still an interesting number, but what exactly is being measured? "It truly is better in Cobb, right? It's always always better in Cobb."

“Best education at the lowest cost in metro Atlanta” -23:08

This one is just begging for someone to define “best” and “lowest cost.” I'm sure a lot of parents who have to advocate relentlessly for their child with special needs would beg to differ (for example).

There are plenty of things in the speech that are factual too, which honestly makes the other stuff more interesting. It's the blending of facts, anecdotes, opinions, and huge assertions without much distinction between them that makes it difficult to understand where Cobb actually stands.

There's a LOT packed into this speech. I only highlighted a few because ugghhh, I can't do anymore. I'm curious what anyone else thinks about what he says. As well as why Cobb decided to make the video in its entirety public this year? Historically it's been a very edited PR version of a few highlights. Enjoy!

The Flock Town Hall will be held at the Milford Recreation Center on August 27th at 6:30pm.

Show up in numbers! Bring your friends! Tell everyone! They must know that Cobb wants to get rid of Flock!!!

Want to bring up recent cases of Flock misuse? Here are some articles that can help you out.

Bibb County Arrests - Posted yesterday - https://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/3-georgia-deputies-charged-after-allegedly-using-flock-camera-system-personal-reasons/ADVPE32Z4NCZFK6I6QCBVSJWMQ/

Dekalb County Suspensions - Posted 4 days ago - https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/dekalb-county/flock-misuse-8-metro-atlanta-officers-suspended-over-policy-violations/GNWFLJLWSJGM7MGDWBMD3VJJIM/

Polk County - Posted 3 days ago - https://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/ex-georgia-drug-task-force-agent-charged-with-misusing-license-plate-reader-database/SZUB2BHNWVBTBFBKDL6HSGZQ2I/

Savannah - Posted on August 3rd - https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/6-georgia-officers-under-investigation-misusing-flock-system-popular-tourist-destination/IVSL3XMLBRGRRLSN75MXHH6HI4/

Very sad and scary. The parents need to be arrested as well.

Cobb County School Board meetings no longer livestream the public comment portion, so if you want to hear what parents, teachers and community members actually say, you generally have to be there in person.

There's currently an older gentleman who has been doing the incredibly helpful work of recording public comment himself and uploading it, but he's doing it entirely on his own time. And honestly, we need to make sure this doesn't depend on one person being willing and able to keep doing it.

Anyone in Cobb who might be willing to volunteer a little time to take this on more consistently?

Nothing fancy is required. Ideally someone who:

knows their way around a camera or decent phone setup

can get reasonably good audio

has basic video-editing skills

can upload to YouTube/Facebook/anywhere

doesn't mind sitting through a school board meeting every month

understands that the goal is simply making public comment accessible to the public

The idea would be to record the public-comment portions, clean them up enough that people can actually hear them, and create a consistent place where Cobb residents know they can go to watch them afterward.

If you're a videographer, journalism/media student, YouTube person, retired media person, local government nerd, or just someone who thinks “people should actually be able to hear what their neighbors are saying to their elected school board”, we NEED you!!

And if you know someone who might be perfect for this, please send them this post.

Since the vote passed yesterday, I’m curious to hear from locals that support it and why. What positives does it bring you, marietta, etc.

Single woman.
Concerned about the phone calls I have been receiving lately from men who are acting as if they have a package to deliver.
I’m going to ask my son to stay with me for the weekend but I don’t want to put him in harms way

EDIT: of course I did not provide any information. I am just so sick and tired of this happening; even got an email on my COBB k12.org email address.

Does anyone have any experience working with someone for mold remediation? Have gotten one quote from a company that was referred to us, but would like to get a couple more before deciding

Went out for dinner at Gianni and Mac’s last night and encountered a man seated right in the middle of the dining room wearing a white T-shirt with "White Pride" on the front and the Aryan Nation symbol on the back.

To be clear, what disturbed me wasn't just the shirt, if you have lived in Georgia long enough, you unfortunately learn to expect this kind of bigotry, both overt and covert. What was genuinely infuriating was management's complete lack of response.

If I had walked in wearing baggy jeans, a durag and Timberlands, I guarantee I would have been immediately reminded of the dress code and turned away at the door. But when management allows patrons wearing explicit hate symbols to sit openly in the main dining room while strictly enforcing arbitrary rules on others, it sends a loud and clear message about who they are and the kind of environment they condone.

Needless to say, I won't be returning. If an establishment is going to look the other way on white supremacy while policing what everyone else wears, patrons deserve to know before choosing to spend their money there.

Oh and the chicken parm tomato sauce was watery and the chicken undercooked.

Wtf is happening in Cobb schools? Apparently they hired this company called Servius to conduct military style surveillance on its students to try and identify threats- school shootings, gang related activity, human trafficking, before they happen.

This article from GovTech is from 2024 and the AJC has done some reporting since then as well (paywall articles), but other than that this is weirdly not really being discussed much online. The company is made of former military and intelligence personnel, and they have never done any type of work with students before. Their original purpose was travel security for the ultra wealthy. CCSD is the only school district in the US or anywhere it has ever worked with.

The superintendent, Ragsdale, contracted with the company after State Representative Devan Seabaugh introduced them. He bypassed a school board vote and a couple of the board members raised questions that he wouldn't answer. Parents, journalists, lawyers, watch dog groups, and privacy advocates have all tried to get answers from Ragsdale and everyone is shut down. Getting public records has even turned into having to pay $1,000s+ to get a document that has been mostly redacted.

Anyway, I found out about this and went down a major rabbit hole about how fucked up it seems. Parents have no clue what data about their kids this company actually has, what exactly they're tracking-they call it online "digital dust" but what does that even mean? How their AI identifies concerning behaviors. When they do flag students, do parents get notified? Who sees their data? What happens to the kids who get flagged? What happens if they incorrectly flag someone? I mean holy crap the list of questions is so long. Parents keep trying to get answers, but even after almost 2 years and a new school year, they're left with a vague PR version of info from Ragsdale. He's spent over $3.5mil on this company so far.

Why are they being so hush hush about it? Like the company wouldn't even identify it's name at the original school board meeting. The AJC had to investigate to figure it out. Then North Dakota used the company to figure out why a Chinese agribusiness company attempted to buy 370 acres of agricultural land. ND then posted the names and backgrounds of some of its employees, which Servius wanted to remain anonymous.

Does anyone know about this? I've looked into some watch dog groups that have been consistently trying to fight this, but the loopholes being used to bypass privacy laws are shocking. Parents have to be pissed/concerned? Especially after the Trump visit that happened there and that whole controversy. Man, Cobb has some shady stuff happening. I'm not even sure I explained enough to get into all the crazy details of this, but man, I feel bad for those kids.

I get that Reddit is a 75/25 leftist echo chamber but the discourse around data centers is to the point that it has to be pushed by foreign actors.

There are obvious misleading facts around water and power usage. And even then, with rapidly improving efficiencies, the per capita usage is and will continue to decrease.

I could understand if ABC Steel Company was putting in massive plants around Marietta, but you’re not dealing with massive smoke stacks with data centers.

Ultimately, it seems like a large number of the anti-data centers do not believe in creating jobs in the community. The only “job” that cohort of people believe in are social workers occupied by H1B visas.

I’d like to ask the moderators to keep this post up in the interest of fairness. Yes, this will be downvoted heavily, but there are dozens of posts from an anti-data center position. It’s only fair to the debate to have the other side present.