Walton, Wheeler Projects Lead SPLOST IV

Officials hope to put bids out for renovations at the East Cobb high schools by early next year.

Renovations at Walton High School and Wheeler High School will be among the first projects to get underway when the Cobb Education SPLOST IV collection period begins next year. Cobb County School District officials on Wednesday presented to the Board of Education a projected cashflow plan for some of the largest projects in the $717 million SPLOST IV, which was passed by voters in March. The largest projects in East Cobb are at Walton and Wheeler and a replacement for East Cobb Middle School. But all schools in Cobb will be included in the new sales tax collection period, which begins on Jan. 1, 2014 and continues through Dec. 31, 2018. The Walton project is the biggest of any school in Cobb, coming in at nearly $40 million. In addition to…

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East Cobb Middle School Evacuated

Students were safely assembled on school grounds as Cobb Fire Department crews responded to reports of "a slight smell of smoke in the gym."

Several engines and other vehicles from the Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services Department were on the scene late Tuesday morning at East Cobb Middle School, which was safely evacuated following reports of "a slight smell of smoke in the gym." Cobb Fire spokesman Lt. Daniel Dupree told East Cobb Patch that no smoke was seen, and that the cause may be "possibly a bad light ballast or air conditioning problem." Students were assembled safely in the school parking lot and elsewhere on school grounds as Cobb Fire crews responded. Patch will update this story as more information becomes available.

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Challenge Day Underway at ECMS

Volunteers are needed to help with the week-long event aimed at fostering understanding and acceptance of others.

More than 400 teens and 100 adults are participating in Challenge Day at East Cobb Middle School this week, and the program is need of volunteers to help with related activities. Facilitators are needed for Tuesday and Wednesday sessions, as well as door monitors throughout the week. Challenge Day is an award-winning program that the Holt Road school has been offering to students to foster understanding and acceptance of others. Presented by the ECMS Foundation since 2008, Challenge Day has 2,500 people — 2,000 students and 500 adult volunteers — who have been changed by the experience. ECMS has an enrollment of 1,282 students, 48 percent of whom are African-American, 24 percent are white and another 22 percent Hispanic. An estimated 65 …

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East Cobb Schools Get More SPLOST Funds

Parental lobbying from Walton and other schools has prompted major changes in the proposed SPLOST IV project list.

ECMS Foundation Wine Tasting and Silent Auction

The school's foundation fundraiser takes place Thursday at the Wild Wing Cafe.

The East Cobb Middle School Foundation is hosting a Wing Tasting & Silent Auction on Thursday to raise funds for our school projects.  This event is Thursday at 7 p.m. and will be held at Wild Wing Cafe on 2145 Roswell Road. Support East Cobb Middle School and bid on great auction items. The cost is $30 a person and includes a variety of wings, two beverage passes and entry to the silent auction.  Purchase tickets at www.ecmsfoundation.org/give or call 770-971-0644. 

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East Cobb Girls Win F1 National Crown

Three of the four students who earned the Formula One in Schools title in Michigan Saturday attend Wheeler High School.

Team Shift, four ninth-grade girls from Cobb County high schools, won the Formula One in Schools National Championship that wrapped up Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. The finish qualifies “Team Shift” to represent the United States at the F1 In Schools World Finals this fall at a country to be announced in the next few weeks. “This has been an incredible experience for our team. The opportunity to represent the USA at the world level is a dream come true. We have our sponsors, parents and teacher to thank for giving us this amazing opportunity. We are excited to continue to grow as female engineers,” stated Kelly Fitzgerald Team Shift’s team manager. Team Shift members have competed in F1 in Schools for the past three years …

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East Cobb POV: Rob Maynard

Spring Has Sprung

Bugs, pollen and flowers are among the harbingers, portents, warblers and baseball marking the change of season in East Cobb.

Springtime in Cobb County is here, we've made it one more time around the sun, and life is good. Old Man Winter didn’t stay long, never really settled in and froze our pipes and iced the roads. There was nothing to compare to last year’s deep freeze. The harbingers have all been springlike. Kudzu bugs and bumblebees arrived early, the leading edge of what experts warn will be a buggy summer. It doesn’t really matter who you choose to blame for climate change, but it sure seems to have changed in North Georgia this year. Record pollen levels and high temperatures came before the equinox this year, hot yellow clouds foreshadowing the green flowery spectacular to come. Some years we’ve dealt with March blizzards but not this time around. …

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Brumby, ECMS Named 'Focus' Schools

Both schools will receive additional state resources for three years to close performance gaps.

Brumby Elementary School and East Cobb Middle School were designated as "focus" schools by the Georgia Department of Education Tuesday and will receive additional state funding to boost student achievement.  The new designation, which applies to 156 schools around the state, was required as part of the state's recent waiver from certain No Child Left Behind mandates.  Focus schools, as Maureen Downey of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted, are those that have graduation rates of less than 60 percent and are not on the priority list, which was issued last week and is for the worst-performing schools (none in East Cobb).  According to the Georgia DOE, Brumby and East Cobb Middle were placed on the focus school list because they have large…

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Challenge Day Returns to East Cobb MS

Bridging the gap of understanding between students of different backgrounds and experiences is the purpose behind the week-long event.

Challenge Day is more than just a day for East Cobb Middle School students to step away from their studies and get to know one another better.  It's a week-long event that began and Tuesday and concludes on Friday, with the purpose of helping students understand each other in deeply profound ways.  More than 400 students and 100 teachers and staffers are involved in Challenge Day, an award-winning program that is designed to reduce instances of bullying, intimidation and violence.  But as East Cobb Patch reported at last year's Challenge Day, the ultimate desire is for students to feel "a real connection" with one another at a school with more than half of its students rerpresenting minority groups, including a variety of native languages …

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3 East Cobb Schools Make AYP

Brumby and Powers Ferry elementary schools and Wheeler High School reached benchmark student achievement goals after summer testing.

After barely missing out on Adequate Yearly Progress goals after the 2010-11 school year, three East Cobb schools have reached those targets based on results of summer testing.  Brumby Elementary School, Powers Ferry Elementary School and Wheeler High School were among the nine Cobb County School District schools that were added to the AYP list as approved by the Georgia Department of Education. Those three schools barely missed AYP status in the spring, but the state revises its lists based on retests of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test at the elementary and middle school levels and updated graduation rates at the high school level.  Wheeler missed the AYP by just one graduate, while Brumby and Powers Ferry met all but one of the …

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