Marietta DJ: New Marietta School Board member talks about issues and her own experiences
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New Marietta school board member talks priorities, future challenges
- By Isabelle Manders iman...@mdjonline.com
- 13 hrs ago
- 6 min to read
- Isabelle Manders
Marietta Board of Education member Christina Rogers, elected in November, poses for a photo with her dog Charlie in her Marietta home on Dec. 15.
MARIETTA — Marietta’s newest Ward 6 school board member, Christina Rogers, is OK with being put in a box.
“I feel like I am in a box. I am me. I’ve never strayed from who I am,” Rogers said. “I’m very progressive — I always have been — but I’m also very logical and straightforward. I’m not trying to sell anything.”
Staying true to herself, combined with knocking on doors and getting out into the community, is what Rogers believes helped carry her to victory in the Nov. 4 election.
Rogers won the nonpartisan race with 56.8% of the vote, earning 843 votes to realtor Tony Viola’s 642 votes. Come January, she will fill the seat of Kerry Minervini, who stepped down after eight years on the board.
This was Rogers’ first time running for office — a decision she said was driven not by political ambition, but out of concern for her community and her children’s schools.
“I just wanted to make sure that somebody competent was in that position, (who) had the best interest of our kids in mind … and the best interest of the neighborhood,” she said.
From Army bases to Marietta
Rogers described herself as coming from “a solid working-class family.” Her father and grandfathers served in the military, while her mother worked for more than 30 years as a civil servant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Her sister works for the Navy and her brother recently took his vows to become a Buddhist monk.
Born in Arkansas, she spent her childhood moving from base to base, also living in Alaska, North Carolina and Germany before her father retired in Georgia. She attended three different high schools, ultimately graduating from Fayette County High School.
“I understand what it is like to come into a new school and have to constantly find your place,” she said.
Rogers moved to Cobb 13 years ago to be closer to family as she finished nursing school. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry, an associate’s in nursing and is currently completing another bachelor’s degree in nursing.
She worked as a wildlife biologist at Zoo Atlanta for 11 years, then spent five years in labor and delivery before moving into the neonatal intensive care unit at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, where she has worked for six years.
“I’m around families at their most stressful moments, their scariest moments, and their happiest moments,” Rogers said.
A belief in public education
Rogers has long considered civic engagement a responsibility.
“(I believe) you have two important jobs as an American,” she said. “One is to vote, and one is to donate blood.”
Her deeper involvement with Marietta City Schools came after choosing the district for her children, Emerson, 15, and Evan, 13.
“When looking for a place to live, I wanted my kids to have the opportunities I did not,” she said. “I wanted them to feel at home and have a sense of belonging. They are still friends with kids they have known since preschool, and I love that for them.”
She chose Marietta for its diverse student population, how the district is run and her strong belief in public education.
“I believe very strongly in lifting everybody up — not just the select few, not just the wealthy, not just the privileged kids,” she said. “I believe in supporting the community through the schools.”
She said a wave of national and local debates around book bans several years ago pushed her to pay closer attention to school board decisions.
“(I wanted) to see what really was going on at a system level,” she said.
In September 2023, the Marietta school board directed Superintendent Grant Rivera to remove “sexually explicit material” defined as “obscene, pornographic, not age appropriate and without substantive historical or academic value.” Rivera formed a committee of library specialists and district leaders to review more than 20,000 books as part of that process.
While Rogers believes students should have access to a wide range of literature, she acknowledges some books are appropriate for certain ages and others are not. She said she trusts educators and librarians — not political or religious groups — to make those decisions.
“I understand where both sides come from, but I also don’t think … that we should be able to dictate or censor what our kids or what anybody is able to access,” she said.
Rogers noted that nationwide, many book challenges focused on high school materials and disproportionately affected books centered on LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color and nontraditional families.
“It just felt very targeted,” she said, noting that other districts — not Marietta — were influenced by groups like Moms for Liberty, a conservative nonprofit that seeks to keep topics like gender, sexuality and critical race theory out of classrooms.
Those removal requests, she said, cost schools “a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of strife.”
Rogers added she was cautious about even amplifying the debate, stating the issue had become a “red herring” that could distract from students’ needs.
“I don’t want to put any more pain or any more initiative to bully LGBTQ kids, who struggle as it is enough, without having adults come in and telling them that how they are is wrong, or we can’t put it in the school because it’s wrong,” she said.
Instead, she believes the focus should be on the kids, their education and supporting them “in any way that we can, however that may be.”
As a parent, Rogers believes Marietta educators “have the kids’ backs,” but noted there is always room to do more — particularly for at-risk students.
Evidence-based education
Rogers said her background in science shapes her philosophy on education.
“I value scientific rigor in education,” she said. “I like to practice evidence-based (approaches), be it lessons, education, science, medicine.”
That belief extends to literacy. In the NICU, Rogers participates in the Small TALK program that encourages parents to read, talk and narrate activities to their babies to build early brain pathways.
“It’s going really well at the NICU, and I’m learning it’s going really well at Marietta schools as well,” she said, adding she hoped to “keep that ball rolling” and continue to expand the district’s Literacy and Justice for All program.
Priorities and challenges
Rogers said her top concerns include potential federal Department of Education funding cuts and protecting programs for students with disabilities, Title I students and English language learners.
“I feel like we’re in a good place right now,... but if those cuts do trickle down, if we do have to change the way that we budget, I want to make sure that (those programs) don’t get cut,” she said.
She emphasized the need for strong support for multilingual students entering the district later in their education.
“Imagine trying to learn science at a high school level in a language that you don’t understand,” Rogers said. “You could be the smartest kid in the world, but that’s not going to show up on paper.”
In addition, Rogers wants to continue strengthening career and technical pathways alongside college preparation — while still valuing education for its own sake.
“Not as education just to create a worker and a workforce,” she said. “I value education as a whole in creating a well-rounded student.”
Technology in schools
Rogers sees artificial intelligence as another emerging challenge.
“I know enough to know that I don’t know enough,” she said. “I can see the benefits, … but I can also see the harm. It’s uncharted territory.”
Rather than outright bans, she believes schools should focus on teaching discernment.
“We need to teach kids… how to be grounded in themselves, so they can know what is artificial intelligence and what is reality,” she said. “That they still learn the basic skills and don’t end up depending on AI, but also learn how to work with AI.”
She also sees AI as an opportunity to further invest in fine arts programs.
“These skills are going to be even more important, because it teaches creativity and thought, which you can’t necessarily teach to a robot,” she said. “Critical thinking comes from learning music, it comes from performing fine arts, it comes from analyzing performances or artwork or theater.”
As for cell phones, Rogers said she supports the district’s decision to implement Yondr pouches to restrict cellphone use in the middle grades, noting her children were right on the cusp of that transition.
“I think it was the right decision. Their frontal cortex is not developed. … They don’t have the processing to really think about the repercussions,” she said.
Rogers acknowledged that high school students present a different challenge and said she was comfortable with the district’s current policy, which allows phones but restricts their use during class.
“These kids are older,” she said. “Some of them have jobs and need to be able to contact their family, need to have a phone for their jobs, need to learn how to be responsible.”
Safety, transparency and trust
Rogers said Marietta schools are in a strong position regarding safety, citing school resource officers and weapons detectors, but believes broader gun safety laws play a major role.
“I’m not saying ban guns,” she said. “I’m saying there needs to be more accountability.”
While acknowledging that such issues extend beyond the school board’s authority, Rogers said she would support efforts to provide safety education for families.
She also plans to push for live streaming or recording school board meetings.
“The more transparent we can be with families and include them in decision-making, the better,” she said. “Parents are overwhelmed. I know, as a parent, I am. There’s information coming at me from all different directions.”
Being able to watch a meeting later at home would really help, she said.
‘Door is open’
Looking back, Rogers said running for office was far more work than she expected, especially without a formal campaign team. Still, she found the experience rewarding.
“I really liked it,” she said. “I really enjoyed meeting people, and I made a lot of new friends,”
As she prepares to take office, Rogers said her message to voters — whether they supported her or not — is the same.
“I am here to represent our ward,” she said. “...The person who ran against me — our kids are in school together. I’ve known him... since they were in kindergarten… We all run in the same circles, and my door is open. I’m not going to turn my back on anybody.”
“My main focus is the kids, and making sure they’re taken care of,” she added.