MARIETTA - Despite months of community protest, the Cobb school board voted 6-0 Thursday, with David Morgan absent, to grant the county's Department of Transportation permission Thursday to run a new four-lane highway right by Milford Elementary on Austell Road.

And board member Alison Bartlett, who represents the school, and who has been a vocal critic of the proposal, is the one who made the motion for approval.

"I can understand that surprise," Bartlett said after the meeting.

Milford residents have denounced the new road - called the Windy Hill/Macland Road Connector - as a safety hazard to the elementary students. The connector is intended to provide west Cobb motorists a more direct route to Interstate 75 by connecting Macland Road at Powder Springs Road to Windy Hill Road at Austell Road. The two-mile highway, which would pass just 100 feet north of the school building, is scheduled to open May 2011.

John Williams, a member of the Osborne Community Coalition, addressed the board during the public comment portion of the meeting to denounce the proposal.

"There can be no doubt that the students of Milford deserve a learning environment free of landfills, shooting range and dangerous highways," Williams said, referring to the county dump known as "Mt. Trashmore" behind the school and the nearby police firing range.

"Think about our children. Is it going to take one of our kids to be killed to say what we should have done?" he asked.

Williams advocates moving the school to another location. He urged the board before voting to give the community a timeline of when new property will be purchased to move the school. Yet the board did not provide that timeline.

Williams also criticized board member David Banks' comment about how other schools in Cobb have similar road situations as Milford's will have.

"So if you made a mistake before, are you really now gonna make a mistake again to put kids in harm's way?" Williams asked.

Bartlett said because Milford has a student population made up mostly of poor minorities, it is getting "the shaft" unlike wealthier, white areas of the county.

Cobb Board of Commissioners Chairman Sam Olens gave the board a deadline of Sept. 30 to approve the easement. If the board failed to, he would redesign the road to avoid the school property, thereby eliminating the improvements to Milford the county offered to make. Those $1.2 million in improvements include land for a larger playground, a safer parking lot and the shared cost of school guards. Additionally, Olens has offered to fund a $1 million lighted tunnel for students to use; however, the board rejected that offer for liability reasons. The county will acquire a 0.65 acre of right of way and exchange 0.85 acre to the school board. In addition, the county will give the district an acre behind the school to be used for a future playground - by "Mt. Trashmore."

Bartlett said she didn't have much choice in voting for the proposal given the "threat" from Olens that he would take away the improvements.

"I felt comfortable doing that because in the past few days and in the past few weeks, I have a serious commitment from board members to be relocating that school, and they felt like this would be the best advantage to that property - what Cobb was going to do for improvements to help with whatever we do in the future for that school. And they did not want to jeopardize that because they felt like Commissioner Olens would move the road 30 feet away from the school and leave us with nothing," Bartlett said.

Bartlett said all but one board member supports her in moving the school, but she wouldn't say who that opponent was.

In other business, in a vote of 5-0-1, the board promoted Sprayberry High School teacher Michelle Luckett to Allison Toller's old job as executive assistant to the superintendent/community relations at a salary of $64,304, which is less than Toller's salary of $71,924.

A graduate of Georgia State University, Luckett was on the staff of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga). She has taught at Sprayberry since 2008, before which she was a teacher at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Bartlett explained why she abstained on the vote to hire her.

"I think she's highly qualified for the job, but my concern in the past few months, and I've learned a lesson here, we are moving teachers and promoting them and it is impacting the instructional time going on in the classroom, and I don't know what the right answer is," Bartlett said.

In other action, the board voted 6-0 to renew Kennesaw Charter School's charter petition for five years. Located off Lockhart Drive, south of the Pinetree Country Club near McCollum Parkway in Kennesaw, the school has about 410 students in grades kindergarten through five. It was founded in 2003.

Charter schools receive state funding, but have more autonomy than mainstream public schools. But it is up to the Cobb school board to ensure the school is fiscally and academically sound.