The Cobb County Board of Education has committed itself and the Cobb County School District to the following three strategic goals: increasing student achievement, making more efficient and effective use of resources, and improving stakeholder satisfaction. The report presented on the following pages describes how we go about accomplishing those goals for our community. This report itself is a part of improving stakeholder satisfaction by providing the citizens of Cobb County with significant, relevant information regarding the operation of their local schools along with comparative data from other systems.

We are fortunate in Cobb County to have a community that supports our schools in many ways: property taxes that support our school operations, sales taxes that fund our construction and maintenance needs, more than 600 business partners that fill the special needs of specific schools, volunteers who enrich the educational experiences of our students, PTAs that advocate for children at the local, state and national levels, and parents who take an active interest and play a vital role in the education of their children. We have more than 13,000 dedicated employees who come to work every day and give their best in the effort to provide a world-class education for our students. It is a school system that is widely admired and looked to for leadership by many others in the Southeast.

Public education is under attack on many fronts and in many places around the nation, but public education in Cobb County continues to grow and prosper. With more than 100,000 students in 103 schools, we are among the 30th largest school systems in the United States, and we continue to grow by more than 2,000 students per year. It is a considerable challenge to provide both teachers and classroom space to accommodate our annual increases, but thanks to our sales tax proceeds, we have been able to add more than 1,000 classrooms in the last four years. Due to the triple pressures of retirement, student growth, and reduced class sizes, we have hired more than 1,000 teachers in each of the last three years. Again we are fortunate that the reputation of Cobb County Schools allows us to attract the best and brightest teachers for our students.

From all of us on the Cobb County Board of Education, we thank you for your support of our schools and our students in whatever capacity you may serve. Our children are 100 percent of our future, and the investment we make in them today will determine the success of our great nation for many years to come.

Curt Johnston
Chairman, Cobb County Board of Education
Post 2

 
Betty Gray
Post 3

 
Laura Searcy
Post 4

Johnny Johnson
Post 5

Gordon O'Neill
Post 6
(through 2002)

Kathie Johnstone
Post 6
(as of Jan. 2003)

Teresa Plenge
Post 7