by Rebecca Gaunt
More than 700 documents returned as part of an open records request have revealed disturbing messages exchanged by Cobb County School District staff in the central office.
The Microsoft Teams messages show that staff pressured media outlets regarding coverage of the district. They also accessed a student’s personal information as part of an effort to prevent her from speaking at a board meeting.
John Floresta, the chief of strategy and accountability, and members of his department were involved in the exchanges.
The Courier previously reported on the messages obtained in which staff members coordinated to prevent people from speaking critically of the superintendent at the September meeting.
Read here: Cobb schools staff acted to silence critics, Teams messages show
Jennifer Susko, a former employee and co-founder of Cobb Community Care Coalition, filed the request. The documents were shared in full with the Courier.
The request was an expansion of the one that was fulfilled in November, which first revealed district staff discussing high school student Lily Mosbacher. She published an editorial criticizing the district for removing books in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The following messages were exchanged Tuesday Sep. 12., and referenced Ehsan Kattoula, assistant superintendent of accountability.
Julian Onan Coca (director of marketing) to Nan Kiel (district spokesperson) and Eric Rauch (digital content specialist), Sep. 12 10:38 a.m.:
Ehsan figured out that the person who wrote Maureen’s [Downey, AJC] article is the daughter of one of the Board of Elections members! lol. Can you email the same editor that Ty sent us to and ask him to add an editorial note to the article explaining that? “In Full transparency, this guest editorial was written by the daughter of a democrat politician in Cobb County who is also being sued by the SPLC.”
Kiel to Coca and Rauch, 11:56 a.m.
Do we want to…
Read the full article here
