School District Operations
Working to Provide Excellence in Education

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At the Cobb County School District, Technology Services strives to provide an infrastructure and tool set rivaling many of America's top institutions of learning. Currently, students in Cobb County have access to more than 40,000 computing devices, including PCs, Macintosh Workstations, Palm PDAs, and Pocket PC devices; 97.5 percent of which are capable of connecting to Internet media. This technology allows students to create and learn at an advanced pace.

Technology Services provides storage for the most creative and innovative ideas in the form of over 400 multi-platform, accessible, servers with in excess of 10 terabytes (10,000,000,000,000 bytes) of usable storage. To transfer such a large amount of information, the Cobb County School District's facilities are equipped with the latest and most stable network hardware; on par with that used to power many of the corporate world's largest and leading companies. The network that connects each of the schools to the central office continues to improve through the introduction of a BellSouth product - NMLI (Native Mode LAN Interconnect). This solution allows data to travel at speeds approaching 1,000,000,000 gigabits per second, enabling the instant, secure access to feature rich Internet and intranet media.

To support the District's Educational and Administrative Environment, Titan Technology Services employs a staff of 106 permanent employees supported by additional surge staff as needed. The Field Services Organization is comprised of 66 technical support staff, who work directly to support the local schools and administrative sites. An additional 21 Network and 14 Application Development support staff are responsible for enterprise servers and services including the Student Information System, Wide Area Network, Databases, Data Warehouse, Email, Payroll, Human Resources, Help Desk, Media Services. The remaining staff of five works in the Program Management Office, providing program level oversight and project management, quality assurance, and contract deliverable reports.

Highlights of Titan's accomplishments for 2003-04 school year include:

• Transition of services from the CCSD to Titan
• Development of service level agreements
• Implementation of the Change Control Board
• Completion of the Remedy helpdesk software upgrade
• Increased security measures
• Email client upgrade
• Upgrades to the Student Information System (SIS)

Through continued staff training, and Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) initiatives, technology will become more integrated into the classroom, creating the opportunities and experiences that will generate excitement for our students. CCSD and Titan are working together to make this educational environment a reality.

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. To handle the high volume of candidates interested in employment, an online application system was implemented. STAR, Strategic Application Recruitment System, will enhance the recruitment of certified, classified, administrative, and substitute teacher applicants.

Human Resources strives to establish a friendly, welcome environment and maintain high standards of quality customer service. This improved when the Employment and Employee Relations, Compensation, and Benefits departments relocated to additional office space, which is better equipped to handle new employee processing sessions, meetings, personnel records, and day-to-day operations. Human Resources believes large organizations do not 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, students, and the community. The division opened an office focused on diversity awareness and equal employment opportunity as well as attracted highly qualified international faculty to Cobb County Schools. Human Resources also introduced new evaluation instruments for administrators and media specialists, updated its Web site, and produced two new principal/supervisor handbooks on interviewing tips and techniques, and documenting employee performance.

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 nearly 13,000 students during the 2002-03 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

• 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
- 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.

• School Health Program - Comprehensive nursing services are provided to both special needs and mainstream students in all schools. Services include:

-  Assistance with administration of medication and provision of skilled nursing procedures
- First aid for injuries
- Identification and management of students with suspected or actual communicable diseases. Prevention of transmission of communicable diseases through communication, education, and exclusion.
- Collaboration with parents, teachers, administrators and health care professionals to develop a plan of care for students with chronic illnesses.
- Participation in health screenings, including: hearing, vision, scoliosis and B/P
- Assessment and referral of students to appropriate personnel/agencies as necessary.