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Superintendent postpones Cobb County safety town halls, cites risk of violent disruption; district partners with Servius Group and rehired two Campbell coaches
Summary
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district will postpone scheduled town halls about school safety after concerns that public meetings could be disrupted; the district is partnering with the Servius Group for threat identification and has offered contracts to two coaches whose nonrenewal was investigated.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told the Cobb County School District board on April 24 that the district will postpone a series of in‑person town halls about school safety because of concerns that political activists could disrupt events and create unsafe conditions for students and families.
Ragsdale said the district had planned town halls beginning April 28 to explain its proactive approach to safety, which pairs response measures with efforts to identify threats before they materialize. The superintendent said the district is partnering with the Servius Group to improve threat identification and intervention. Ragsdale said the content from the first scheduled session will be made available digitally to families.
“We obviously had the first of these scheduled for this coming Monday, April 28,” Ragsdale said. “... I simply could not risk having meetings with students and community members disrupted by people having to be tasered because they welcome a chance to engage in political theater.”
The superintendent framed the district's safety work as proactive: identifying social media postings and gang activity that can correlate with later incidents and intervening early. He said the district's aim is prevention, not punishment, and that the district had sought to balance physical hardening with early threat detection.
During public comment, community members raised related concerns about bias, harassment and student safety. Michael Barco warned that bias and bullying — not books or “gender ideology” — are the primary threats to student safety and urged the board to listen to students and families. Andrew Cole reminded the board of the local history of racial violence and questioned whether the district engages enough with community members.
Ragsdale also announced the outcome of an administrative review into two nonrenewals at Campbell High School: he recommended and the district offered contracts for rehire to coaches McClure and Gwynn for the 2025–26 school year, and both coaches accepted and signed contracts. Ragsdale said the process that led to their initial nonrenewal had been examined and he expected it would not recur.
No formal change in policy was announced. The district will post the town‑hall materials online and pursue alternative formats for community engagement; administrators said they will continue planning additional outreach while protecting safety.
