In public debate, the loudest voices often drown out the rest. In Columbia County schools, those voices aren’t always the parents of students who actually attend our schools.
While many are buzzing about the proposed data center in Appling, the Columbia County Board of Education has been facing its own drama over issues that directly affect students, including special needs classrooms, funding, building projects, and, of course, books. These are issues that affect students every single day, yet the conversation is often dominated by people who don’t even have kids in the system at all.
To be fair, some parents have been speaking out. Special Education families have been voicing serious concerns. At the Aug. 12 meeting, Cait Roman revealed that her child’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) had been changed over the summer without her knowledge, which is a violation of federal law. Another parent stated that she is now homeschooling her daughter with autism after she claims the district failed to follow her IEP or protect her from bullying. Yet another spoke about her student’s difficulty accessing online dual enrollment classes due to media center restrictions.
Cait Roman’s story illustrates the strain in changes to special education policies, and I was able to sit down with her for an interview. Her daughter had been receiving ABA therapy in school through private insurance, at no cost to the district. However, the district changed its practice to disallow third-party providers, arguing that if it’s necessary, the school should provide the service. However, they also claimed there was “no data” to support offering the therapy in the school setting, despite her showing tremendous growth in the previous school year with the IEP in place. Unfortunately, Cait’s daughter now spends long evenings in therapy, disrupting family life and cutting siblings off from extracurricular activities.
Other changes have parents worried as well. The district eliminated High-need and Emotional Behavior Disorder (EBD) classrooms in elementary schools, folding students into other self-contained classrooms.
Parents have raised serious concerns on social media that students with very different needs are being placed together in ways that can create safety issues. In some cases, children who had been in one type of self-contained setting were removed and placed in classrooms with students whose needs and behaviors require a very different kind of support. It appears the district is moving toward inclusion by placing more students in general education classrooms.
Many parents, including myself, support inclusion when it’s appropriate and well-supported. True inclusion requires more than a policy change, though, and additional staff training; it takes intentional support, adequate staffing, and a shift in school culture. Without those, students are at risk of being underserved.
Unfortunately, paraprofessional shortages have long plagued the district, and this is a problem nationwide.
Parents report one para sometimes being stretched across an inappropriately high number of students. Some children require one-on-one support, but it’s often unavailable. The district hired 10 additional special education staff members for this school year. At the same time, though, in board meetings, the district claims a “high fill rate” for staff positions, but that figure may mask reality. HR can’t report a shortage if schools aren’t even allowed to request the additional positions they need.
In theory, IEPs are supposed to drive services. In practice, and many parents of special needs students know this well, it’s often district resources dictating what support a student receives. (When the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) was first established into law, Congress promised to reimburse special education costs at 40%.)
Congress has never lived up to this promise, and the current reimbursement rate is 13% as of April 2025. In April, The IDEA Full Funding Act was introduced in Congress and would move the federal reimbursement rate to 40%. If you believe in this legislation, please reach out to your elected officials and express your support.)
Meanwhile, the ongoing book wars brought on primarily by non-parents have resurfaced in our school libraries. One of the county’s most prolific challengers, Priscilla Bence, who has been behind over 60% of book challenges at public libraries, led a group of residents, none of whom have children in our schools, to challenge 32 high school library books. They admitted they hadn’t read the books and instead relied on a website labeling titles like “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Poet X” as “porn.”
It’s my understanding that, because they don’t have children in the schools, the district is not considering their challenges as “official.” Although these folks may not always talk during public comment, their voices carry weight at board meetings. While many parents leave after the awards portion of board meetings, these folks stay for the business of the meeting and frequently lobby various district staff and board members.
At the Aug. 26 work session, attention shifted to budgets and bonds. District 4 representative Katie Allen raised concerns about taking on $190 million in new debt for the Harlem and Greenbrier High School renovations, despite voters approving the funding through ESPLOST in 2024. Both of these high schools are already over or nearly over capacity and in need of renovations.
It was noted during the meeting that the district lowered the amount of bonds due to feedback from the board. It was also stated that the passed resolution allows the district to start the process for underwriting the bonds, such as obtaining a bond rating from a rating agency, and that the district will come back to the board with more information and another vote later in the process.
However, Allen pressed for detailed financial hypotheticals that do not yet exist, since interest rates and terms for general obligation municipal bonds are determined later through the underwriting and competitive bidding process. District CFO Mr. Casado said after the meeting that those details may not be available until around November or December. Further, if the district does not take out bonds and instead waits for cash on hand to begin the projects, renovations on the two high schools would be postponed for another four to five years. Allen’s mind seemed to be made up ahead of time, though, so I’m not sure all the hypotheticals in the world would not change her mind.
In her comments, Allen asked the board to postpone voting on the resolution, but she never made a motion to postpone the vote to the next meeting. To me, it felt more like political theater for her supporters in the room than concerns about fiscal responsibility.
By contrast, Mr. Kent, who also ran as a fiscal conservative, had a more balanced response, acknowledging both his personal reservations and the will of the voters: “The public has spoken about this on many occasions, and this is how the building project was derived.” The proposed resolution passed 4-1, with Allen the only board member opposed.
That political theater matters because Columbia County prides itself on running a “lean district,” often in response to complaints about taxation. However, we have some of the lowest per-pupil spending in Georgia, yet the district still produces solid test scores compared to other districts. The district loves to tout that. But is doing more with less something to brag about, or does it mean we’re denying students the resources they need to truly thrive? Imagine what could be achieved if we stopped treating low spending as a badge of honor and instead invested more in support that would allow teachers, paras, and students to succeed at even higher levels. I guess I’m the only one in the room who would really like to hear that conversation.
At the end of the day, my concern is that Columbia County schools are being shaped less by the families they serve and more by the loudest voices in the room, often people with no students in the system at all. Some of these individuals are old enough to even qualify for an exemption from paying the school district’s portion of the property tax, so I’m not sure why they seem to have made it their mission to attack the school district unless it’s just part of this national trend of attacks on public education. Parents of actual students need to speak out and demand better. Because if we stay quiet, those with the loudest, most extreme agendas will continue to steer the conversation, and it won’t be our kids who win.
The next Board of Education Meeting is a regular meeting on Sept. 9, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. in the Board of Education Building, located at 4781 Hereford Farm Road. I hope to see you there.
