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Technology Services — Facilitating Learning

Perhaps no development has impacted education as much as the evolution of technology. The Technology Services division is directly responsible for implementing technology throughout the school system to ensure that classrooms are state-of-the-art and that Cobb County students and teachers have the most current tools and resources at their disposal. The district currently enjoys data connectivity for more than 100 locations as part of its wide area network (WAN). This connected environment enables students and staff to be productive and knowledgeable with ready access to the right information, at the right time and place, and in the right form. It allows students to explore beyond the walls of the traditional classroom and to share their work with an ever-widening audience. Schools and departments are dependent upon stable, reliable networks and other infrastructure components to conduct their day-to-day business.

The district’s technology infrastructure is designed to provide students with adequate bandwidth and connectivity to realize the full educational potential of technology. Media Services, student information services, e-mail, distance learning, and other district applications require a robust WAN. As video and audio are integrated into these applications, bandwidth requirements will rise exponentially. To ensure that students and staff have the tools that foster teaching and learning, the district is committed to providing crucial network upgrades to support the increasing usage of the network. With the implementation of an updated district-wide network, classrooms connected to the World Wide Web and global resources provide teachers and students unprecedented opportunities for learning.

Human Resources — The Face of Cobb Schools

With more than 14,000 employees in the Cobb County School District, the goal of the Human Resources department is to professionally serve these “everyday heroes” at every opportunity. District employees are called “everyday heroes” because they have chosen to make children their top priority. Whether they keep the schools clean and safe, drive the buses that take children to and from school, serve them meals in the cafeteria, or teach them the lessons they’ll need to be successful members of society, each of our employees is an important member of the Cobb County School District family. Each of them is helping to save the lives and futures of our children — heroes every day.

Human Resources is responsible for recruiting, retaining, developing, and properly assigning a highly skilled workforce to more than 100 sites throughout Cobb County. Human Resources strives to establish a friendly, welcome environment and maintain high standards of quality customer service. Guiding those efforts is a belief that large organizations don’t have to be cold and impersonal, and each customer contact is an opportunity to reinforce employee value and retain their service with the district.

In the past year, Human Resources has made several improvements in how it serves employees, including the introduction of a new evaluation instrument for teachers. For the first time, the district now has established career paths to Principal and Master Teacher for those who wish to pursue those goals. New and improved employee benefits, including legal assistance and long-term care insurance, were secured, and the department opened an office to provide focus on leadership management and succession planning. Finally, Human Resources has updated its Web site to provide new, more pertinent information.

Each member of the Human Resources staff takes his or her job responsibility very seriously, knowing that providing professional service, prompt, accurate information and efficient, effective value to the taxpayers of Cobb County is of critical importance.

Special Student Services — Assisting Students with Special Needs

The Special Student Services division strives to meet the unique educational needs of students who may require specialized programs and services in order to learn, to succeed, and to grow educationally in a safe and productive school environment. The Department of Special Education provided services to more than 12,000 students during the 2001-02 school year through a variety of educational delivery models ranging from regular class placements to full-day programs in highly specialized environments. These unique programs and services are developed for each special student and outlined in Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) — a plan devised jointly by parents, teachers, administrators and, when appropriate, the students themselves. Some of the components of the Special Student Services division include:

The H.A.V.E.N. Academy – One of the 24 programs of the Georgia Psychoeducational Network, the academy serves severely emotionally and behaviorally disordered (SEBD) students and is a part of the special education services provided by the Cobb, Douglas and Marietta school systems. Services include behavior management strategies, individual and group counseling, and interagency coordination.

Psychological Services — Cobb County has a school psychologist assigned to every school. The goal of Psychological Services is to provide comprehensive psychological services to all students. Services might include the following:

• Consultation with parents
• Consultation with teachers
• Psychoeducational assessments of students
• Academic or behavioral screening assessments of students
• Student and family counseling
• Teacher training
• Evidence-based classroom strategies to improve student achievement

Psychological Services offers an accredited training program for graduate students. The Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) supports the high quality training.

School Social Workers — Every school in Cobb County is served by one of 25 school social workers, who assist both the at-risk and mainstream population to achieve maximum academic success. Services include:

• Provide counseling and crisis intervention to students and families
• Assist parents and school staff in better understanding students’ social and emotional needs
• Assist families with basic needs such as referrals for eyeglasses, health, dental care, food and clothing
• Serve as a liaison between student/family and community resources
• Facilitate groups with students dealing with such issues as grief and loss, peer pressure, alcohol and drugs, problematic behavior
• Initiate student/parent conferences and make home visits to assess environmental factors impacting students’ achievement
• Encourage and monitor regular attendance and punctuality of students

The Prevention Intervention Center — The Prevention Intervention Center, Federal Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Program (Title IV), was awarded a National Program of Excellence award in 2002 by the National Association of Student Assistance Programs. The following services and programs are available to all Cobb County Schools:

• Crisis response to schools when deaths, natural disasters, or accidents occur.
• Prevention programs designed to address high-risk behaviors and encourage healthy life-style decisions.
• Research-based Drug and Violence Prevention Curriculum
  o Botvin Life Skills Curriculum
  o Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum
  o Bully Prevention Program
• Student Leadership Programs
  o Natural Helpers — A peer-to-peer approach to helping fellow students.
  o Covey Seven Habits for Teens — Helps teens prioritize and plan.
  o Team Building workshops for leadership groups.
• Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation — Teaching students how to resolve conflicts without the use of violence.
• Confidential consultation with specialists trained in drug use prevention and intervention for students exhibiting high-risk behaviors for drug use and suicide.