Ragsdale proposes increasing armed, non-police security at schools

Jul. 15—MARIETTA — Cobb County Schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale is asking the Board of Education to approve a new policy that would enable the district to hire additional armed security at schools in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

If approved, Ragsdale said the district could create a new type of employee — someone authorized to carry a gun on campus, but not a full police officer — to supplement the district's 67-officer police force.

Ragsdale presented the proposed policy to board members at a Thursday afternoon work session. The board will vote on the policy at its voting meeting Thursday at 7 p.m.

Ragsdale said hiring more security, even if they are not "POST-certified" (referring to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council) is needed to increase security coverage across the district's 114 schools.

"If the board gave me a blank check and said, 'Go hire a school resource officer for every single school in Cobb County,' I could not do that," Ragsdale said. "We could try. But we, just like every other law enforcement agency around us, even across the country, are having tremendous difficulty in hiring law enforcement officers."

The policy includes language requiring training in "judgment, pistol shooting, marksmanship, and a review of current laws relating to the use of force for the defense of self or others." It also states, however, that the superintendent can waive certain training requirements if the person has already received training from prior law enforcement or military experience.

If approved, the policy would also give the superintendent authority over the types and quantity of weapons and ammunition the employees can use.

The new security would be subject to background checks, the policy says. Ragsdale said they would also receive psychological screening. Training and screening, he said, will ensure that "when a balloon pops, you're not pulling your firearm."

Ragsdale has repeatedly said he is not in favor of arming teachers, and repeated that point Thursday. The proposed policy included a provision that teachers could carry weapons if the superintendent determines that a teacher has "unique qualifications" to do so — Ragsdale said at the work session that he was removing that language.

"I'm not in favor of arming teachers," he said. "Teachers have one job, and that's to teach. If we decide to arm teachers, there are two jobs."

When discussing school security in recent months, Ragsdale has emphasized the importance of keeping secret certain details of district procedures, to prevent a would-be attacker from accessing that information. To that end, he said of the new security, "we're not going to identify who these people are."

Reception

Board member Leroy Tre Hutchins asked Ragsdale about a hypothetical situation where a non-uniformed security officer pulls a gun out at a school, and other staff do not know that the person is authorized to do so. Ragsdale said the security, even if they are non-uniformed, would wear badges showing they are district staff.

The security will be paid at a rate similar to district police, "but not at the same level," Ragsdale said, and will be compensated on a salary step scale like other employees.

Hutchins also asked about oversight, and who these new security would report to.

"I will not be supervising any of these personnel that were identified here. ... Yes, they will report to Chief (Ron) Storey and public safety," Ragsdale said. "However, I'm not going to say they will solely report to them, because again, we're leaving all of our options open."

As the police response in Uvalde has come under increasing scrutiny for not acting quickly to enter the classroom and kill the shooter, the superintendent promised that such delay would not happen in Cobb.

"Our officers will never be in the situation that we have seen in other other tragedies, not just Uvalde, but other tragedies in the past, where the officer did not charge the shooter, and additional lives were lost because of that," Ragsdale said.

Board member Dr. Jaha Howard said he had serious concerns about the policy. He suggested it be delayed to give more time for research and public engagement.

"I have yet to see any data or evidence that more gun-carrying professionals means our kids and our staff will be safe," Howard said.

Howard was also concerned that the new security would not go through "the same level of rigor" as the district's uniformed police. He said the policy needed more language that gives the board oversight.

"The idea of creating a separate category of gun-carrying professionals in our schools, and only a specific group of people get to know who these folks are, there's just a lot of challenges there," Howard said.

Rich Pellegrino, a local activist and field director of the Cobb chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the SCLC and other groups were planning a protest of the new policy at the Thursday night voting meeting.

"A group of concerned community organizations and individuals will speak out to oppose the new proposed Cobb Board of Education policy giving the Superintendent the sole right and authority to arm non-law enforcement personnel on Cobb school campuses, opening the door to more guns and less regulation of who has them in Cobb schools, which some see as both a dangerous and possibly unconstitutional move," the announcement reads.

In other efforts to increase security, Ragsdale said last month that the district plans to have a new alert system, Centegix, up and running at all district schools by Aug. 1, ahead of the new school year. Employees wearing Centegix badges can press a button to trigger an alert in the event of an attack. The system allows police, administrators and 911 dispatchers to see which school is under threat, where in the school the alert was issued from and the type of incident that was reported.

Centegix is meant to replace Alertpoint, a previous security system used in Cobb schools. In February 2021, a false "code red" Alertpoint alarm led to lockdowns across the district, and was initially chalked up to a technical glitch. Weeks later, school district officials announced the alarm was intentionally triggered through a cyberattack.

Ragsdale said Thursday that while not all of the Centegix badges will be distributed by the first day of school, the goal is for the system to be up and running by then, and for all administrators to have a Centegix badge.