By Rebecca Gaunt
Upon hearing that three Cobb schools were the target of a violent threat, a Campbell Middle School special education student accessed Google Chat in his first-period class on his school-issued laptop, and sent a message to his friend at his old school, warning him that there would be a shooting during lunch.
The student, identified here as G.D. because he is a minor, was suspended that same day, and a district-appointed discipline hearing officer upheld the school’s recommendation for expulsion on Oct. 18. The Cobb County school board rejected G.D.’s appeal Thursday.
The three schools included in the threat were G.D.’s school, his sister’s school, and his friend’s school, which was another Cobb middle school.
G.D.’s chat occurred on Sep. 6, only two days after four people died in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School, roughly an hour and a half away. Georgia schools would field hundreds of false threats in the days to come.
According to G.D.’s attorney Claire Sherburne, another student in first period showed him a video on their phone that contained the threat he was warning his friend about.
G.D. also sent screenshots of his chat to additional people to warn them. Screenshots of his chat quickly began to circulate beyond the intended audience, and parents began to call the school with concerns.
During the Oct.18 hearing, Principal LaEla Mitchell testified that students and parents began reporting the threat around 9:30 a.m. The school later received a similar threat from outside the school that required a code yellow lockdown. Parents came to check their children out and 300 students were absent the following Monday.
G.D. was accused of causing a school disruption, a charge that carries the possibility of expulsion. His use of Google Chat on the school’s laptop was also a violation of the rules.
According to Mitchell, after the school’s investigation, it was concluded that G.D.’s messages were the original source of the threat that caused the lockdown, a point that G.D.’s attorney pushed back on during the hearing.
“I don’t know that for a fact,” Mitchell said.
Sherburne also questioned how G.D.’s messages could be the original source of the threat since only about 11 minutes went by between him sending his first warning message and the school starting to get phone calls from the public.
The student alleged to have shown the video in class was never identified in the investigation.
“Just to be clear, [G.D] did not make a threat…He discussed a threat he heard in first period,” Sherburne said.
Mitchell agreed to those assertions in her testimony.
G.D. admitted to sending the messages when questioned.
During the Oct. 18 discipline hearing, Sherburne pushed back on the severity of the punishment, noting that the handbook allowed for a lesser punishment than expulsion.
Sherburne also argued against the appropriateness of the charge.
“An explicit element of the rule at issue here is that the student acted with intent or purpose to cause a school disruption,” she said. “There is absolutely no evidence on the record to indicate he intended to cause a disruption. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that his only purpose was to protect his friends.”
She pointed to the statement from the school resource officer, who wrote, “[G.D] was very forthcoming and volunteered to show me the conversation with [redacted] from the beginning. As I read the chat, I found there was no threat to the school district and that the conversation, although inappropriate for school, was not illegal.”
In his own statement, G.D. wrote, “Somebody in my 1st period had shown everyone in the class that someone was going to shoot up the school and my old middle school so I started to talk to my freind [sic] trying to protect him. I did not know that all of this was going to happen and im [sic] very sorry. And i [sic] took a screenshot and sent it to my other freinb [sic] to help.”
According to G.D.’s mother, he called her around 10:30 a.m. to tell her he was scared. Unable to leave work and pick him up, she advised him to go to the office and speak with a counselor. She said she also called the school personally.
G.D. was told none of the counselors had any open appointments that day, according to his attorney and parents, who spoke with the Courier last week.
“They don’t have enough counselors available, which is consistently a problem in Cobb County schools. The school counselor ratio is not what it should be per student and that’s because they continue to put more money into police and surveillance,” said Michael Tafelski, a senior supervising attorney for the SPLC.
This was G.D.’s first year in a regular classroom. He was previously taught in a self-contained autism bridge class, but the district eliminated those classes last year with little notice to parents.
He is now expected to enroll in an alternative school, an environment that his mom fears won’t meet his specialized academic needs related to his autism diagnosis. However, both parents need to work full time jobs.
“My son is not mentally ready to be unsupervised, so he can’t stay at home and do virtual school or anything because somebody has to be at home with him,” she said.
G.D. has, for the most part, been staying with his grandmother. But keeping up with academics is a challenge as she is also the caregiver for her own mother. Adding to the stress are transportation challenges that limit G.D.’s ability to go home to his immediate family very often.
“Our client was expelled for warning his friend about a potential threat because he was afraid. This is a critical moment for us to thoughtfully reimagine school safety, and expelling G.D. does not advance that goal. We can expect even more of these punitive, unlawful, and discriminatory decisions as the district pours tax dollars into its new student surveillance and profiling program, instead of resourcing meaningful and effective supports for students,” Tafelski said in a statement after Thursday’s appeal hearing.
His attorneys plan to appeal to the state board next.
The Cobb County School District has a policy of refusing to respond to questions from the Cobb County Courier.
Rebecca Gaunt earned a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree in education from Oglethorpe University. After teaching elementary school for several years, she returned to writing. She lives in Marietta with her husband, son, two cats, and a dog. In her spare time, she loves to read, binge Netflix and travel.
This is so disheartening. The kid meant no harm and did no real harm. The school is doing real harm. School systems need to care for the students, not look for ways to punish. Punishing kids unjustly is what causes frustration and increases risk of heightened violence. Administrators need to step up to make a positive learning environment.