Home Care in Clarkdale, GA

A new principal will be seen around the Clarkdale Elementary campus beginning in July. With Dr. Liss Maynard’s retirement, the Cardinals needed a new leader and found just the right one in Principal Dwan Jones.

Principal Jones is a long-time education veteran with 23 years of experience. She has been with Cobb Schools for the last 18 years. She began as a teacher at Birney Elementary and currently serves as an assistant principal at Eastvalley ES in Marietta. Principal Jones is looking forward to her new role and is anxious to get started.

“As Clarkdale’s principal, I am dedicated to continuing and amplifying its reputation for celebrating student successes, building robust community partnerships, and utilizing engaging educational strategies to reach all learners,” she said. “All students learn best in a positive, supportive, and engaging environment.”

In the following Q&A, Principal Jones further describes her leadership philosophy and her educational goals for Clarkdale Elementary.

Question: Why are you excited about joining the Clarkdale Elementary community?

Answer: I am truly honored to serve as principal at Clarkdale Elementary School! It has the reputation of being equipped with extraordinary teachers who serve exemplary students and an engaged community. I look forward to working with the Cardinal family as we continuously provide excellent educational experiences for our students.

Q: What impresses you most about the Clarkdale ES students, and what can the school community expect to see under your leadership?

A: I was privileged to visit Clarkdale’s campus and meet with a few students and teachers. The high-yield instructional strategies and student-focused learning were a joy to witness. Additionally, I am impressed to learn that Clarkdale is working diligently to earn its STEAM certification. I am eager to join the team and help to accomplish this goal for our learning community!

The school community can expect to see a leader who is passionate about student learning and understands the power of collaboration! Within a collaborative leadership model, it is vital to consider the voices of all stakeholders when making decisions that promote student success.

Q: What does student success look like to you?

A: As educators, we are responsible for creating an environment where students feel supported so they can reach their maximum potential. Forming strong partnerships is essential in our learning community to increase student success. These collaborative relationships are necessary to equip students to grow academically, socially, and emotionally.

Each student is unique; therefore, success is different for each student. When students track and monitor progress toward their goals, it helps them to recognize their accomplishments and build self-confidence. Ultimately, students succeed when we develop a foundation to promote curious, lifelong learners.

Q: What do you like most about being an educator/principal, and what is your favorite memory as an educator?

A: It is a rewarding experience to serve in a profession that carries a legacy of encouragement, motivation, and engagement to sharpen young minds! The ability to witness students excel in their talents and achieve their personal goals defines why I am passionate and dedicated to making a positive difference for students and their families.

I have numerous fond memories as an educator. One year that resonates with me was when I taught students displaced from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I vividly recall how families were concerned about their students taking Georgia’s End-of-Year Standardized Assessment (CRCT) due to the trauma they endured. I remember speaking to a mother on the phone to share the great news of her son’s passing scores. She immediately screamed and cried (tears of joy) over the phone. After school, the mother came to the front office with a bouquet of flowers and said, “Mrs. Jones, my son now loves school because of you. He believes in himself because of you!” At that moment, I realized the value of an educator’s influence on the lives of students and families.

Q: Outside school, where might students, parents, or staff members run into you?

A: I enjoy spending time with my husband, three sons, daughter-in-law, and new grandson! We LOVE attending sporting events, traveling, playing board games, and trying new restaurants. Recently, we have been spending lots of time bowling. You may run into us at a local bowling center!

Welcome to Clarkdale, Principal Jones. We look forward to what lies ahead and your leadership of the school. We know the Cardinals and the entire Clarkdale community are in great hands!

These are the facilities and trails that will be available to residents

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Cobb County will reopen trails and passive parks in the county on Saturday, government officials announced.

Passive parks are those without amenities like playgrounds, ballparks, soccer fields, or tennis centers. The passive parks allow for more social distancing under public health guidelines.

Based on public health guidance, those who use these facilities and trails will be required to adhere to social distancing guidelines and wear masks, they said.

TRAILS:

Silver Comet Trail

Noonday Creek Trail

Bob Callen Trail

PASSIVE PARKS:

Allatoona Creek Park, 5690 Old Stilesboro Road, Acworth

Camp McDonald, 2726 Watts Drive, Kennesaw

Ebenezer Downs Park, 4057 Ebenezer Road, Marietta

Furr Family Park, Old Westside Road, Austell

Green Meadows Preserve, 3780 Dallas Highway, Marietta

Heritage Park, 60 Fontaine Road, Mableton

Hyde Farm, 721 Hyde Road, Marietta

Kemp Family Park, 4331 Burnt Hickory Road, Acworth

Old Clarkdale Park, 5195 Clark Street, Austell

Price Park, 4715 Stilesboro Road, Acworth

Schmidt Park, 451 Anderson Road, Marietta

Shoupade property, 4770 Oakdale Road, Smyrna

Stout Park, 5315 Brownsville Road, Powder Springs

Trolley Line Park, 4700 North Church Lane, Smyrna

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We will track the most important coronavirus elements relating to Georgia on this page. Refresh often for new information.

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If you are looking for Ray Stevens to divulge all in his brand new book, Ray Stevens’ Nashville, he tells Billboard that you might be in for a little bit of a letdown.

“It’s a selected memoir,” says the legendary comedian. “There’s a lot I left out. I wasn’t trying to cover everything. Sometimes, you get too technical when you try to remember every detail of everything, but the details I did remember are actually what happened.”

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The book focuses on his career, and how his growing up years helped to shape him. He says that some of his musical prowess he owes to his mother, who encouraged him to continue practicing piano when he would much rather be outside playing baseball with his friends in Clarkdale, Ga.

“That was my mom’s idea,” he recalled. “She talked my dad into buying an old second-hand piano. She enrolled me in piano lessons when I was six, and made me practice every day. I wanted to be out playing ball with the guys, but I had to practice for an hour before. Thank God she made me practice the piano before I went out and played baseball,” he reflects. “I would have been a bad baseball player after I grew up, but you don’t have to be that big to play the piano.”

From there, the family would move to Albany, N.Y. and then to Atlanta, which was a musical hotbed in the late 1950s. “I graduated high school in 1957, and during that year, I met Bill Lowery, who was a music publisher and radio personality in Atlanta. He encouraged all the kids around Atlanta to write songs because he had just started a publishing company. Through him, I met people like Jerry Reed, Joe South, Buddy Kalb and Tommy Roe. Anybody who has aspirations of being in the music business that lived around Atlanta were drawn to Bill Lowery.”

Even then, Stevens knew there was something special about his contemporaries, especially Reed. “I thought Jerry was one of the best guitarists I have ever heard in my life. He and Chet [Atkins] were two of my best friends. I can’t even hold a guitar, but thankfully I didn’t have to because I had buddies like that.”

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His path would take him north to Nashville, where he would move in early 1962. Not too long after that, Stevens was creating his classic string of hits like “Ahab The Arab,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100 later that year. He says the song was a last-minute addition to the recording session. I had my songs, but I didn’t really like any of them. So, the night before, I wrote it. I brought it in to Shelby Singleton that day and told him I was going to depart from what we had said we were going to record. He said ‘Ok, man, whatever you want to do.’ We recorded the song at 10 a.m. that morning.”

As it turned out, it was quite the profitable day on Music Row. “I was part of the Mercury Records team at that time. I remember that at 2 p.m. we recorded Leroy Van Dyke’s “Walk On By,” then at 6 p.m., we cut “Wooden Heart” by Joe Dowell. We cut three hit records on the same day.”

Later in the decade, he would find himself producing such acts as a teenage Dolly Parton, and playing on such hit records as the 1968 Waylon Jennings classic “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line,” on which he sang the high harmony part. Though he played on many songs that became classics during that period, he stresses he didn’t know he was in the process of making history.

“Back in those days, the artists and the songs weren’t classics – yet. We were just all trying to do the best we could. It was a lot of fun. It turned out that a lot of the records turned out to be hits.”

He tells the stories of such monster hits as “Everything Is Beautiful” and “The Streak,” and also how he originally recorded “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” a year before Johnny Cash.

Stevens is still creating music and videos today, and has jus released a brand new Gospel collection, titled Ray Stevens Gospel Collection, Volume One, which brings back many of pleasant memories. “In the mid 1970s, I had a hit with ‘Turn Your Radio On.’ We put an album out, which was successful. Since then, I’ve always wanted to do another Gospel album. I cut twenty-four songs, and this is just twelve of them. If this one does well, we’ll put out Volume Two.”

MARIETTA, Ga. — The Cobb County School District is set to wrap up construction on a number of major projects throughout the district. Seventeen schools are on track to open by the time school begins on August 13, with the exceptions of Garrett and McCleskey middle schools.

Contracts for the two middle schools went to Hensler and Beavers General Contractors of Doraville in Georgia, with McCleskey Middle School projected to cost $8.5 million and Garrett Middle School projected at $7.8 million. Both schools have come in under budget from the original anticipated cost, though the reason behind is unclear, according to the Communications Department for Cobb County School District.

McCleskey Middle School should finish renovations before school begins this fall, and Garrett Middle School is scheduled for completion in the fall, according to Chris Ragsdale, deputy superintendent of operations for Cobb County School District.

“We aren’t saying (McCleskey and Garrett) won’t be finished, but we are concerned with the schedule completion date,” said Ragsdale in a statement.

For McCleskey Middle School, renovations include a fine arts building with a band room, a new cafeteria and kitchen, three new science classrooms, an orchestra and choral room, new HVAC equipment, a new parking lot, instrument locker, an emergency generator, bathrooms and updated flooring.

The two largest projects for the county are Mableton and Clarkdale Elementary. Mableton Elementary School is costing the district almost $18 million, while Clarkdale Elementary School is costing nearly $15 million. Both schools have been under construction for just over a year.

The original Clarkdale Elementary was destroyed in 2009, by what is known to locals as the 100-year flood. Massive flooding from the nearby Noses Creek brought water levels to the ceiling of the school and wrought irreversible damage.

The original Mableton, an elementary, or general school, was built in the late 1800s and grew from a small private school to a high school before it burned to the ground in 1948. A new Mableton High School was established in 1952, with other buildings added on in 1956, 1965 and 1967. With the population increasing in Cobb County, a decision was made to build a brand new, much larger elementary school to accommodate the needs of students.

Mableton Elementary School will feature 61 classrooms, a gymnasium and a cafeteria with a stage. It will also be the only elementary school to have a courtyard with theatre-type seating. Clarkdale Elementary School will house 53 classrooms and is expected to double enrollment from its previous location.

Due to the size enlargement for the new Mableton Elementary School, the community received a redistricting of the school system.

“It (redistricting) allowed the district to redistrict its attendance zones, and more efficiently spread our student population throughout that area,” said Doug Goodwin, communications specialist for Cobb County School District.

Funding for all the projects come from the special purchase local options sales tax, with a small portion coming from a limited amount of general funds.

“The overwhelming sentiment is that everyone is excited about these new learning environments. They’re state-of-the-art and will present a brand new, fresh environment for everyone to come into in August,” said Goodwin.

Clarkdale Elementary was completely destroyed by the flood in September 2009. Now, the future of its replacement school is uncertain.

Patch Staff

|Updated Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:19 pm ET

The city of Austell is still picking itself up after the flood of September 2009. The students and staff of Clarkdale Elementary, which was completely ruined by the flood, have been temporarily divided into Austell Intermediate and Compton Elementary schools until the school is rebuilt. However, if the school is to be rebuilt, it may not be able to use available SPLOST funds if the school board follows the recommendation of its Facilities & Technology Committee at its Thursday regular meeting.

According to this story about the committee’s last meeting reported by the Marietta Daily Journal, the Cobb County Facilities & Technology committee voted 10-3, with Earl Stine, Don Hill and Beth Pollard dissenting, to have the school board again revisit rebuilding Clarkdale and consider redistricting the area.

The F & T committee is a citizens’ oversight committee created to oversee that SPLOST expenditures are being used appropriately. The committee can make recommendations, but the school board has the ultimate vote.

In May 2010, the committee asked the board to look into the amount of external insurance on CCSD facilities and expressed concern that facility underinsurance could adversely affect SPLOST resources, according to the 2010 F & T annual report.

This report also states that the new Clarkdale school was “planned to relieve overcrowding at Hollydale ES, Sanders ES, & other nearby elementary schools.”

Find out what's happening in South Cobbwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The SPLOST III plan was adopted in September 2010, a year after the school flooded.

As reported in the MDJ, John Williams, appointed by School Board Chairwoman Alison Bartlett, said the $6 million from insurance could be used to add on to other schools, eliminating the need to spend $19.2 million for a new school.

However, according to the agenda for this week’s regular board meeting, the budget for the replacement school is $12.4 million, but the lowest bid for construction of the school from Carroll Daniel Construction Co. of Gainesville is $14.6 million, not $19.2 million. Update 7:15 p.m. 3/22: Williams was referring to the $19.2 million figure from February 2010, which includes the costs for demolition and land purchase that have already been paid as well as architect fees, furniture and additional fees.

The school board members voted at their last work session to move the vote on the construction bid for the new Clarkdale school from the consent agenda to the discussion portion of the regular meeting, just like all items that had a dollar amount of more than $5,000.

School Board Member David Morgan, who represents Clarkdale Elementary and other South Cobb area schools, told South Cobb Patch on Wednesday, “There are a lot of people really looking forward to that school being built, and I’m in agreement with them.”

However, some members of the F&T committee believe that the school may not necessarily need to be rebuilt.

Raymond Scott, an F & T committee member appointed by Bartlett, said, “I’m going to work to make sure it doesn’t get built … I don’t see them (school board members) as caring about our taxpayer’s dollars. That’s what I’m trying to do, restore some sanity to the school system and their spending of money. I hope the school doesn’t get built.”

Some committee members do think the school should be rebuilt, but using insurance and FEMA funds, not SPLOST dollars.

“The SPLOST isn’t designed to cover unforeseeable events, but very defined capital projects,” said Allen Massey, appointed by north Cobb School Board Member Kathleen Angelucci. “I’m not opposed to rebuilding the school. I think it’s horrible what happened there. They need a school … I just don’t think SPLOST is the appropriate way of paying for it.”

For Scott, even the insurance money should be spared and not used for a new Clarkdale school.

“So what? We can use that insurance money for something else,” Scott said, adding that not only would a new school cost the county money, but the maintenance and staff salaries would bring what he estimated to be a $2 million annual cost for county taxpayers. “Let’s just move those people or lay them off and close the school. Private industry wouldn’t put up with this.”

Massey also said that the No. 1 priority for SPLOST dollars should be elimination of temporary classrooms and overcrowding.

Beth Pollard, appointed by Mableton and Smyrna School Board Member Tim Stultz, cast one of the three dissenting votes because she, too, does not want children in temporary classrooms or trailers and does not want the board to need redistricting every year to account for the area's future growth.

“If you just look at today, you’re going to be behind the eight-ball. You have to look at growth in your areas,” Pollard said. “That’s a significant hole in the community. We need to have the appropriated facilities in the appropriate locations to serve the children of this community.”

The 2010 annual report stated that the replacement school for Clarkdale would help eliminate overcrowding at nearby elementary schools, including Hollydale and Sanders elementary schools.

However, Scott said that the committee members specifically asked Doug Shepard, chief administrative officer for SPLOST, if these schools were overcrowded, and he told them that they were not.

Scott also said he was not opposed to the new Smyrna elementary school because “it’s needed.”

Pollard said the board already showed its intention to rebuild the school by purchasing the land for the school.

Mableton Elementary is also receiving a replacement school that is SPLOST-funded and will have a capacity to hold twice its current student population of about 450 students.

Despite the recently released U.S. Census figures which show that the southern part of the county had nearly 25 percent growth, where areas like Marietta saw its population decline nearly 4 percent, F&T Committee Member Leslie Rowbottom said “the rate of growth is slowing down.”

“We have two new schools of a fairly large size to be built in this area,” Rowbottom said, alluding to the new Smyrna and Mableton elementary schools. “That’s a lot of excess classroom space.”

The members of the community just want their school back. It provided not just a sense of cohesion, but also a sense of family and stability to the employees, students and parents of the school.

Kathryn Ray works as a clerk at Clarkdale. Two of her children went there, and her third, Tekoa, is currently a student in the separated school.

Ray and her family live on the back of the site of the old elementary school and she vividly remembers the flood.

“That day was very traumatic … To not have a school to go to, it would be kind of hard to not have something to show for it,” Ray said. “I think it would have an effect on Tekoa having to lose the family side of her school. It’s just like having to move to another state almost, having to start over.”

Although the community members said losing Clarkdale would be losing a large part of their neighborhood, Scott said it’s more important to monitor taxpayers’ dollars.

“Alison’s only words when she put me on the board were ‘treat it like it’s your money,’” Scott said. “It may not be a popular opinion, but I’m looking after the taxpayers’ money.”

The school board will hold its regular meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Cobb Central Office at 514 Glover Street in Marietta.

Update 2:47 p.m. March 22: Doug Shepard's title has been added to this article.