Newton County, south of metro Atlanta’s primary school systems, has announced its school calendar for the upcoming year, with classes beginning there this summer.
If COVID-19 is under control and all goes as planned, Newton County School System students will return to school on Aug. 3 under the 2020-2021 school calendar, according to a Rockdale Newton Citizen report. Samantha Fuhrey, superintendent for the system that serves more than 20,000 preK to 12th grade students, said the plans are subject to change.
“We are working on three different calendar versions,” Fuhrey told the newspaper.
“School starts on Aug. 3 ... that is the plan we would like to go with,” said Fuhrey. “However, we also recognize there are circumstances beyond our control. And so I’d like to have a plan and not need it, rather than not have a plan and need one. So we are proposing and working on additional calendar recommendations. ... I wish and hope that we will go back to school on Aug. 3rd as planned.”
In metro Atlanta, Gwinnett County Public Schools is the only other system to announce possible start dates for the 2020-2021 school year. School officials recently announced that three options for a new school year calendar and the year’s start date were being considered by the system’s school board. The most popular start date was Aug. 5, according to a previous Atlanta Journal-Constitution report.
The district crafted a calendar for just one year and will return to the two-year cycle next year.
“Surprisingly almost every school agreed on the same schedule,” said Steve Flynt, associate superintendent for school improvement and operations. “That almost never happens.”
School systems in DeKalb, Cobb and Douglas counties have announced that this school year would end early in the throes of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. With those announcements just arriving in the last few weeks, the calendars for the upcoming school year have not yet been announced.
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