In July, President Donald Trump visited Wheeler High School in Cobb County purportedly “for an event highlighting education and student achievement” and to deliver remarks on the so-called “Trump Accounts,” investment accounts for children.
Instead, he delivered a full-blown MAGA rally at one of Cobb’s most diverse schools.
As a Cobb resident, parent, and high school world history teacher, I care deeply about details, context, and the cultivation of basic virtue in public life.
The details that have emerged about the event, its context as a stumping opportunity specifically for Georgia Republican candidates for political office, and the lack of decency on display from a convicted felon president, all add up to a shameful scene for Cobb County.
This is less a political opinion than an objective fact.
Trump did not ‘honor’ school system
Credit: Heather Carraway
Credit: Heather Carraway
To use a public school space for such purposes, as Cobb School Board member Becky Sayler pointed out in a public Facebook post, plainly violates Cobb policy of district employees “using their classroom instruction or their relationships with students to influence students, or through them, their parents/guardians, regarding any one political or partisan side of an issue.”
Cobb teachers have been fired for far less. In a high-profile case, Katie Rinderle was dismissed in 2023 for daring to read a book to her students that promoted inclusion. If only President Trump was held remotely to the same standards as our public schoolteachers, the July 22 fiasco may have taken a different shape. Instead, Cobb taxpayers will presumably foot the bill – and there has been an utter lack of transparency on how the event was funded – for an overtly political rally with a deeply corrupt president.
What Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale insisted was “an honor” for the district was in reality an opportunity for President Trump and his supporters to score political points. Lieutenant governor candidate Greg Dolezal twice insisted hyperbolically that the upcoming midterms were “a fight to save western civilization,” whatever that means. (It’s worth mentioning that Dolezal’s campaign has doubled down on sharing AI-generated fearmongering videos about “Sharia law in Georgia” featuring robe-clad men preventing people, among other things, from enjoying a “Happy Easter” cake.)
Attorney general candidate Brian Strickland sought to alienate the majority of Cobb voters by claiming that “129 people move to Georgia from other states every day [from] insane states … blue states … they are not checking their policies at the door.”
And in his typically rambling way, President Trump railed against “Dumocrats, D-U-M [sic],” our vulnerable transgender neighbors (“they voted in favor of the transgender mutilization [sic] of your children and in favor of men playing in women’s sports”), the “fake news media,” and to continue to spread lies about the 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere before finally meandering back to the alleged purpose of the visit, to tout “Trump Accounts.”
Rally made a mockery of educators and empathy
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Very little of this had to do with the “achievements” of Cobb students. Despite this, Superintendent Ragsdale revised reality during his remarks at the following evening’s school board meeting, which was well-attended by those who opposed the presidential visit, many of whom were among the over 100 protesters who lined the streets around Wheeler in the heat the previous day.
Instead of engaging with the pushback, Superintendent Ragsdale engaged in sneering both-sidesism, claiming that “anyone who opposes our district being honored needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are supporting students or waving their own political flag” as if the previous day’s rally was somehow free of politics.
Instead of engaging with his constituents in good faith, Mr. Ragsdale deployed unbothered condescension, often scoffing and scrolling on his phone during public comments.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
As a teacher, I’d never tolerate this sort of behavior in my classroom, but as superintendent, Mr. Ragsdale not only tolerates and deploys it, but actively cultivates it with his open support of President Trump, a man who mocks disabled people, sexual assault survivors, immigrants, and everyone else he despises. We have to do better for our community.
On a personal level, he also makes a mockery of my career in teaching and the sort of curiosity, kindness, and empathy I seek to cultivate in my students as future citizens of this country. As a teacher I am constantly undercut by the behavior of people in power who send a clear message to my students that success can only be achieved by lying loudly and arrogantly, by abandoning virtue and union in favor of bigotry and blunt-force political domination. Our students deserve better.
John Terry, Ph.D., is a Cobb County resident, parent, world history teacher and department chair at the Paideia School in Atlanta.
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