Marietta High School is grappling with more than just a failing traffic light and an absentee principal during this chaotic school year. Sarah Barbour, a white woman, has served as the Director of the Marietta Student Life Center since November 2021 and the center provides students with a safe space to receive counseling, mentoring, academic tutoring, and post-secondary planning.
Her predecessor, Dr. Rona Roberts, is a black woman who previously served as the director of the MSLC for four years before Mrs. Barbour took over. However, upon taking over Dr. Robert’s responsibilities, she discovered that one of the programs run by the MSLC was mismanaged by Dr. Roberts and she reported the situation to District Leadership, which resulted in an audit of practices that were allegedly in place under her leadership.
Following the MCS book ban, Mrs. Barbour claimed that her funding was cut by the Marietta Board of Education because they didn’t like her outspoken advocacy of the LGBTQ+ community. Barbour confronted the school’s interim Principal and current Human Resources officer, Dr. Marco Holland and he allegedly began using inflammatory and unfounded racial allegations, in addition to withholding her from opportunities that could’ve benefitted the Marietta Student Life Center and its students. Furthermore, much of the program’s funding was cut, including 90% of the therapeutic programming and 75% of the non-therapeutic programming were eliminated after these acquisitions. The center was consequently unable to meet the needs of the students directly following the complaint.
This isn’t to say that Dr. Holland, Dr. Roberts, and Ms. Barbour haven’t met to attempt to resolve these divulgence issues. However, the school and Ms. Barbour failed to come to terms with one another and she allegedly accused Dr. Holland of providing an abundance of support to Dr. Roberts, but he failed to do so when Ms. Barbour took over.
However, Dr. Holland isn’t the only one to disclose Ms. Barbour’s racially motivated remarks. Before this school year, Ms. Barbour reached out to Dr. Holland because she received a lower score on her year-end evaluation on a particular category based on a race-related complaint from a Black employee. For this reason, the Marietta Board of Education didn’t invite Ms. Barbour to participate in an end-of-year review of the Marietta Student Life Center, which Ms. Barbour argued that all other directors had been invited to in the past. Furthermore, the School Board gradually began eliminating her duties as the director of the MSLC and planned on eliminating her position by the end of the school year.
Nonetheless, this was deemed unfounded, as Ms. Barbour continues to hold her directorial position at the Marietta Student Life Center, despite her attempt to sue the school and file a lawsuit against Dr. Holland. However, he allegedly advised Ms. Barbour to begin seeking employment outside of the District. The school hasn’t spoken out about the issue and when Pitchfork asked Chris Fiore, the Chief Communications Officer for the District, he offered little insight into the issue at hand.
Schools are typically governmental entities and thus have certain protections from legal claims. Therefore, there are a variety of legal requirements and procedures that need to be followed to ensure that the employee who is suing the District (Ms. Barbour) is able to keep their job.
“The school has kept quiet about the lawsuit, but a lot of students speculated that it was in response to the library’s book ban,” Anna Kinscherf (10) said.
Earlier this school year, Marietta City Schools deemed nearly two dozen books “sexually explicit” and removed them from the shelves of the Marietta High School library. The moves were approved by a 6-1 vote, with one board member opposed to both. Several students from the high school, including Ms. Barbour, argued that the list of books banned from the library focused on themes and characters related to race and LGBTQ issues. Nonetheless, Superintendent Rivera and a marshal of others asserted that upon reviewing the books, they too were dumbfounded by their inappropriate and graphic content.
“I think that it could’ve been possible to resolve the dispute without resulting in a lawsuit and it definitely wouldn’t have drawn as much attention to the school.” Kinscherf (10) said.
Despite all that has occurred, Ms. Barbour continues to hold her position as the director of the Marietta Student Life Center and Dr. Holland is a well-respected member of the district.
It is, however, dumbfounding, that an employee would sue their employer and risk losing their job and credibility as a new hire. If an employee believes they have been discriminated against based on their race, gender, age, religion, disability, or other protected characteristic, they may choose to sue their employer. The district has maintained its muffled position and refuses to speak out about the lawsuit and how it has and will affect the following year concerning the MSLC and the students who rely on its services.
The Friday before spring break, Ms. Barbour assisted the Student Life Center in their annual “Come and Get It” event, where she and other staff members prepared baggies filled with snacks and other necessities that they didn’t have access to outside of the school day.
The school’s silence on the lawsuit raises questions about their and Ms. Barbour’s accountability and transparency in addressing legal matters.
