Petition for a Balanced Calendar in Cobb Schools

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#15: Drop the issue - Look at Tax Revenue in Sept and Feb

The so called "balanced calendar" is a disaster for students who have difficulty with focus or are trying to improve grade deficits. The choppiness of the calendar is not conducive to steady cumulative learning.  It is nice when families have second homes or the ability to spend large amounts of money to take off for a vacation during the break.....of course that is fun for the kids and the parents...but does that help learning?  What about the families where both parents work or particularly in the case of single parents?  Children not able to go on extra vacations are at home with no activities while parents are working.  How anyone can see this as a positive environment for learning is beyond comprehension.

As for keeping August as part of the summer should there be any problem with that. Of course it is not all about 6 flags!  It is about students who have jobs or have special academic or sports activities which take place on a normal summer schedule. Camps are valuable for a child's overall education.  Summer should be long enough for these experiences. Some students need the income during the summer.  Internships and the work experience can enhance learning. The so-called balanced calendars prevents students from participating in programs and work that other students from other counties and states can freely be involved with.

Rather than turn the academic year into a series of choppy weeks rarely having a 5 day full day week of study....lets keep a reasonable calendar that promotes education.

This years calendar has had a much better flow than last years, however, the holiday break should begin earlier and end at the beginning of January rather than yet another week where our students are the only ones out and the wealthier families can take a vacation while single moms go back to work with their students sitting around that first week of the new year.

Single mom in Cobb, M.Ed. School Psychology

#4: - consider this

It's not about tax money... it's about "bribes" aka Campaign Donations from Six Flags/other summer venues to get these idiots on the school board re-elected. It has nothing to do with your kids, your family, the county or anything except greed.

#24: MomO3 - Re: Tax revenues from small breaks?

I would, but I have two kids in kindergarten, a full-time student wife, and I work full time already!  I doubt I could find the time... ;-)

#25: Mom03 - MomO3

I'm concerned less with "getting kids out of my hair" (e.g. long breaks) than I am with less time being spent in the classroom.  When I was a kid, we didn't get nearly this much time out of school (and we walked uphill in the snow both ways, etc etc).  The problem with the current calendar is that there is too. much. time. off.  We are just getting off of a two week+ break, and now there is ANOTHER day off?  After being back 4 days?   Where is the sense in this?

... is just wrong.  The amount of taxes collected at sumer venues in 2 weeks would be a small amount.  Additionally, those taxes would not go towards schools as we fund schools with property taxes.  Only a small portion of the taxes collected in those two weeks would go to the county anyway.  Most winds up in the states coffers.

Now, I wouldn't put it past those venues to pressure the board to alter the calendar so that they have those 2 additional weeks of revenue coming in.  Some of these places only open 3-4 months so those 2 weeks make a big dent in their revenues.  But no one has shown me any evidence this occurred.

The fact of the matter is that WE elected 3 new board members who pledged to implement the traditioanal calendar.  Regardless of their motives, it is WE who selected them to serve and they've done exactly what they pledged.  A pitifully low turnout lets these kinds of shenanigans happen:

http://elections.cobbcountyga.gov/pdf/OfficialResults/2010/2010Nov2ndOfficialReport.pdf

So all 3 of these board members came in with less than 20,000 citizens of Cobb voting on the matter.

Signing petitions is great and all..... but how about some of you show up at the polls next time!  Educate yourself on when these elections are and exercise your civic duty EVERY TIME.

#1: -  

 We all have our own opinions about the calendar. I know what I want. Can we at least agree that a decision has to be made and stuck to for 3-5 years to give it a try? It is changing the calendar every year that is anoying. I want to look at the school calendar the spring before so I can start planning my days off from work, vacations, and child care and not have it change

#15: Drop the issue - Look at Tax Revenue in Sept and Feb

First and foremost, the majority of Cobb students are not Boy Scouts, or baseball players or Six Flags attendees.   The calendar needs to address what is academically best for ALL of its students, not just the ones who need time off in August to participate in a Boy Scout Jamboree, baseball tourney or hit a struggling theme park.   If that is a priority for you, then by all means, take your kids out of school the time they need.   Additionally, not every resident of Cobb County went to FL or skiing during the breaks.   Where is your actual data to prove that those 2 weeks of break during this economy were the cause of a loss of tax revenue?   We support the balanced calendar for more than the timing of vacations.  The more frequent breaks allows students and teachers to rest and regroup during the year.  School is considerably more stressful and rigorous than back in the days when most of us went to school.  Students are stressed out.  Teachers, who are in the classrooms EVERYDAY with our kids tell us that students performed better during the year of the balanced calendar.  Why is this being ignored?  Shouldn't we be trying to provide the best possible environment for them to learn and excel?  Bring back the balanced calendar.

#15: Drop the issue - Look at Tax Revenue in Sept and Feb

Should it be about the National Boy Scout Jamboree or should it be about what is best for your child's EDUCATION?  Give me a break--it's not about summer activites--it's about EDUCATION!!!!

#44: - Re: Look at Tax Revenue in Sept and Feb

You cannot go to school from Labor Day to Memorial Day--there is not enough time to fit in the necessary days unless we have no breaks.  Check other states calendars.  If you begin school after Labor Day, then you go to school well into the month of June.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too! And, by the way the reason summer vacation ever existed was so the children could work in the fields.  The last time I checked, we were no longer an agricultural society!!!!