Cognia's Elgart grilled over CCSD special review conduct

ATLANTA — Months after his about-face over the findings of the Cobb County School District’s 2021 “special review,” the CEO of accrediting giant Cognia received a tongue-lashing downtown.

Mark Elgart, in nearly an hour of testimony before a special House committee on accrediting practices, was grilled Tuesday over his organization’s handling of the inquiry which honed in on the operations of the Cobb School District.

Leading the charge was state Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, R-west Cobb. The lawmaker has made no secret of her displeasure with Elgart and her opinion that the special review was a political ploy by the school board’s three Democratic members.

“You’ve got a serious image problem in Cobb County,” Ehrhart told Elgart.

Ehrhart and state Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-west Cobb, both introduced legislation this year that would revise the way companies accredit public school districts in Georgia. Neither bill became law, but the committee was pitched by Ehrhart as a means to further examine the issue before the next session.

Announced in 2021, the Cobb School District said the review was kick-started after the three Democrats on the school board — Dr. Jaha Howard, Charisse Davis, and Leroy “Tre” Hutchins — wrote to Elgart requesting an investigation amid intense partisan infighting on the board.

Cobb schools officials said Cognia informed the school district they’d also received complaints from “groups and individuals alleging the same or very similar violations of Cognia standards.”

Cognia initially returned a report which outlined a number of recommendations on board governance, closing the student achievement gap, and fiscal responsibility. The district kept its accreditation, which Elgart has insisted was never in jeopardy, and was given a year to make progress.

Months later, Elgart appeared before the school board to announce there had been a mistake. The volunteers who’d conducted the Cognia review had failed to consider all of the evidence, he said. Elgart formally voided the previous review, keeping only the criticisms about “board governance.”

“Unfortunately, the situation in Cobb County was not handled well by all parties involved,” Elgart said Tuesday.

The ‘sealed box’

Much of the House committee’s questioning honed in on the substance of those complaints, which have never been made public through official means (a summary of the complaints was obtained by the media last summer).

Cognia refused requests to make those complaints public, despite Georgia Press Association attorney David Hudson stating the company was in violation of Georgia’s Open Records Act. District officials maintain they have never seen the complaints.

Elgart and John Floresta, the school district’s chief strategy & accountability officer, provided radically different accounts to the committee of what happened to those documents. Neither man was under oath.

The figure initially given was 50 complaints; Elgart said Cognia continued to receive complaints throughout the investigation totaling “150, 200 complaints, or more.”

Besides, he argued, the complaints were not the focus of the investigation.

“We never investigated the complaints,” he said. “One of the reasons why at the beginning we kept trying to discourage the (district) — don’t focus on the complaints. Focus on the standards.”

More explosive was Elgart’s assertion that the complaints had, in fact, been provided in a “sealed box” to Superintendent Chris Ragsdale — and were promptly returned.

“Within 24 hours, they gave them back to us, because when we give them those concerns, they become available for public record. They’re open records,” Elgart said.

After the hearing, Floresta told the MDJ that to his knowledge, that never happened.

Hostile witness

After some general questions from other committee members, Elgart and Ehrhart went head-to-head in a heated exchange. Ehrhart reminded Elgart he’d had to recant much of the initial review, and questioned the figure Elgart provided of 150 to 200 complaints (Elgart called them “concerns”) submitted to Cognia.

She further referred to social media posts from “educational activist organizations” calling on their members to petition Cognia, which Elgart said he had no knowledge of.

Ehrhart then brandished an email exchange she said was between Elgart and Cobb school board member Charisse Davis (Elgart did not dispute its authenticity), which Ehrhart said contradicted Elgart’s assertion that he typically does not involve himself in the review process.

“She was reaching out to you and emailing you about concerns she had about what she deemed to be behavior on the board that she wasn’t happy about. You wished her well. You thanked her for sharing, and you expressed your disappointment to this board member,” Ehrhart said.

The email in question refers to a district-produced interview with then-Board Chairman Randy Scamihorn, which Davis wrote contained “flat out inflammatory comments about me, Dr. Howard, and Mr. Hutchins.” Elgart responded that he was forwarding the email to Cognia’s “investigative team,” adding, “Although disappointed, I am not surprised at the approach and content in the video.”

The email is dated Feb. 25, 2021, about two months before the review was formally announced, but after Cognia sent its first inquiries to the district.

Elgart protested he’s interacted with Cobb school board members socially, having known the district for decades, and had “discontinued any communication” once the inquiry began.

“Do you normally make it a practice to sympathize, or express your disappointment in the behavior of board members to another board member that’s lobbying that complaint?” Ehrhart continued.

“That (email to Davis) was a private conversation. It was not official at all … I’ve had— I’ve golfed with members of the Cobb County board. You’re mixing personal and professional,” Elgart replied.

Shot back Ehrhart, “I would contend that you’re the one that’s mixing personal and professional.”

Strategy and accountability

Floresta, who said his office was tasked with preparing the district for the special review, offered a rather different assessment of what transpired. He stated the review had not come at the invitation of the district.

“It was certainly an additional element that made running our school district more complicated, (and) certainly was an additional element that made working with our board more difficult,” he said.

Cognia’s alleged failure to disclose the substance of the dozens of complaints filed against the district, he added, made it all the harder to prepare for the inquiry. Floresta estimated the special review cost the district some $200,000 in man-hours to assemble thousands of pieces of evidence.

“There was an initial letter from Cognia that mentioned standards, and specifically citing complaints. But we didn’t understand the specifics,” he told the committee.

“So it appears in this case,” said Ehrhart, “perhaps that transparency did not extend to the school district in terms of providing you the documentation that you needed to adequately prepare for this unscheduled review.”

After the hearing adjourned, Ehrhart told the MDJ, “Mr. Elgart lied to this committee today. There was no question about that.”

As to Elgart’s insistence the review had focused on “board governance,” Ehrhart argued it came from political beef between Cognia and the board’s Republican majority.

Elgart declined to answer questions by the Journal after the hearing.

Regarding next steps, state Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, said the committee would meet at least once more before the legislature reconvenes in January. But speculation on any specific policy prescriptions that could come out of that session, said Ehrhart, would be “premature.”