Cobb schools consider later start date

By Aug. 10, the summer will be over for most metro area students. But some Cobb school board members say parents want a longer summer break.

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Cobb school board chairman John Abraham plans to ask school superintendent Fred Sanderson for additional calendar options at Thursday night’s board meeting.

Abraham and at least two other board members want school to begin on Aug. 17 instead of Aug. 10. But changing the 2009-10 school calendar, approved in 2007, isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“Where are the five days going to come from?” said Cobb board member Alison Bartlett.

Creating a school calendar is no small task, according to metro school officials.

Time for standardized tests has to be factored in, along with time for state high school graduation tests. Teacher work days, Advanced Placement exams and block scheduling also must be considered.

The state mandates at least 180 days of instruction. State school Superintendent Kathy Cox has said calendars are a local decision. A bill to require a later start date for all public schools failed in the state Legislature in 2005.

Many districts are now off the week of Thanksgiving. In the past, schools had high rates of absenteeism on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. Absentee rates are monitored and used with test scores to determine if public schools comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Georgians Need Summers, a Cobb-based parent group, wants students to start after Labor Day. But pushing the start date back to Aug. 17 would be a small victory, said Lane Holt, an East Cobb parent and one of the group’s founders.

“If Cobb would move it a week, then hopefully the surrounding counties would do the same thing,” Holt said. The district could save on cooling costs by starting later, she said.

In addition to the later start date, Cobb school board member John Crooks wants the school year to end before Memorial Day. And many, including Crooks, contend the first semester should be completed before the winter holidays.

“I think it’s fair to students, especially high school students, that they have a winter break. A clean break,” said Sanderson, Cobb’s superintendent.

Paulding County plans to start on Aug. 17, but the first semester won’t be completed until January, according to district spokesperson Sharon Roper.

Cobb school board member Holli Cash said the district has already approved its calendar, and there’s no need to discuss it further.

“We need more time to prepare to get our kids ready for [Criterion Referenced Competency Tests],” Cash told board members in a work session. “Are we going to start kids later and give our kids less time to learn what they need to know?”

School dates
While many metro districts will start the 2009-10 school year on the same day, the last day of school varies, based on such factors as the number of student holidays and teacher planning days. Some districts have a week off for Thanksgiving, and some have a week-long break in mid-February.

District	First day	Last day
Atlanta	Aug. 10	May 25
Cherokee	Aug. 3	May 28
Clayton	Aug. 10	May 28
Cobb	Aug. 10	May 21
DeKalb	Aug. 10	May 21
Fayette	Aug. 10	May 28
Forsyth	Aug. 10	May 28
Fulton	Aug. 10	May 21
Gwinnett	Aug. 10	May 26
Marietta	Aug. 10	May 21
Paulding	Aug. 17	June 4

Decatur and Douglas County schools have not yet approved calendars.
Source: School system Web sites and district officials.