Parents accuse communications office of misprioritizing funds, question lack of summer meals

Several residents used the board’s public-comment period on June 12 to criticize the district’s priorities and to call attention to what they described as the communications office’s problematic conduct and spending.

Jennifer Susco asked directly, "What was the reason for leaving kids hungry this summer offering no meal program when so many Cobb students qualify for free and reduced lunch?" She also alleged the district had "handed $1,000,000 to your already bloated embarrassing communications team instead of using it toward aforementioned summer lunch and bus safety."

Melissa Martin, who said she attended because the communications department was being recognized on the agenda, told the board the department had "called us bad guys, accessed student data in an effort to intimidate them into not speaking at a board meeting," and asked why board members had not publicly defended constituents. Martin also pressed the board for a status update on bus-maintenance concerns raised two months earlier, asking for a public assurance that the issues were being addressed.

The speakers framed their remarks as accountability requests; the transcript records their statements in public comment but does not include a board response to these allegations or a corrective statement from administrators during the meeting.