Seven candidates are running for four seats on the Cobb County School District school board in Georgia on Nov. 5, 2024.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the seven-member board. Democratic incumbent Leroy Tre Hutchins (D) is running unopposed in District 3. The other three districts up for election each have Republican incumbents, one of whom is not running for re-election. A win for Democrats in at least one of those elections would change majority control of the school board, while a win for Republicans in all three would maintain the current 4-3 majority. The candidates running have differing views on the district’s budgeting process, school safety, and approach to book selection.
Incumbent Randy Scamihorn (R) and Vickie Benson (D) are running in District 1. Benson ran against Scamihorn in the 2020 election and lost 56.7%-43.3%. Scamihorn, first elected in 2012, says his background as a veteran of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force and as a former teacher and administrator in the county makes him the more qualified candidate. Benson, a science teacher, says she will make improving the relationship between the board and families in the district a priority.
Laura Judge (D) and John Cristadoro (R) are running in District 5. Both Judge and Cristadoro are veterans and parents of students in the district. Judge is a scientist who says she will make financial transparency, literacy, and school safety priorities. Cristadoro is the owner of a marketing firm who says he will make school safety and academic quality priorities.
Incumbent Brad Wheeler (R) and Andrew Cole (D) are running in District 7. First elected in 2012, Wheeler is a former teacher and administrator in the district. Wheeler says he will make school safety and supporting vocational training programs priorities. Cole is a medical device manager and parent of children in the district. Cole says he is running to break the Republican board majority, which he says is not delivering results.
In interviews with the Cobb County Courier, all three Democrats running in contested races said they opposed the district’s current budgetary process, saying it did not provide enough room for public comment. All three Republicans said they supported the current budgeting process.
School safety is also an issue in the campaign. Two shootings took place in Cobb County schools in 2024 – one on Feb. 1 and one on Sept. 21. A Cobb County elementary school was shot at twice in 2023. Cristadoro says he will “ALWAYS make your child’s safety my number one priority,” while Wheeler says school safety is his top priority: “I will never support any suggestion we should defund our CCSD police officers and I will continue to vote to hire well-qualified School resource officers.” A satellite group ad described Judge as “a leader on gun violence prevention in our community…she’s running for Cobb County School Board to keep our kids safe.” Cole says he is running because of the board’s approach to school safety: “I got involved in the first place because of school safety. The part-time armed mercenary safety policy that was proposed two years ago and rubber stamped caused me a lot of alarm and it still does.”
Democrats and Republicans differ on the district’s approach to book selection. District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale has ordered the removal of 20 books from school libraries he says contain inappropriate content. Hutchins, Judge, and Cole say they oppose the process Ragsdale followed, with Judge saying: “I truly think that he’s trying to protect children, but what I worry about is the unilateral decision-making that can be a slippery slope.” In a statement following a round of book removals, Scamihorn said, “Let me say simply: We have not ‘banned’ a single book. We have removed age-inappropriate, sexually explicit content for minors.”
Located immediately northwest of Atlanta, Cobb County is Georgia’s third-largest county by population. The Cobb County School District oversees most of the county’s public schools with the exception of some schools in the city of Marietta. The Cobb County School District is the second-largest in Georgia by enrollment and the 23rd-largest nationwide.