Student driver magnet
Students and parents have made powerful demonstrations to stand up to racial discrimination, like organizing protests to advocate for appropriate punishments for students who harass others with racial slurs, or speaking out against antisemitic graffiti in one high school. Our representatives from majority-minority districts are blocked from addressing racial discrimination in schools and other issues we’ve advocated for. Even though people of color represent half of the county population, the school board is made up of four majority white districts.
Specifically, communities of color in Cobb County are “packed” into just three districts. Students and parents of color are ignored at school board meetings and forced to endure racial harassment because the Cobb County school board district map is drawn in a way that makes it easy for the white board members to sideline us. Worse still, when we bring these problems and concerns to the Cobb County school board, nothing is done.
When students reported it to the program director, he ignored it. A white student in our magnet program once uttered a deplorable racial slur. Students of color like me, who grew up in Cobb County, have endured racial slurs and discrimination from white students the whole time I’ve been in high school. Nothing can be further from the truth in the Cobb County School District: The discriminatory map of Cobb school board districts forces us to endure some of the same mistreatment today.