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Politics & Government

Another Try to Alter School Calendar

David Banks' proposal to start school Aug. 8 goes before the Cobb Board of Education tonight.

It’s the issue that won’t go away.

The Cobb County Board of Education is due to discuss and vote on another option for the 2011-12 school calendar during today's 7 p.m. meeting at the on Glover Street.

Post 5 board member David Banks, who represents East and Northeast Cobb, has proposed a calendar that starts Aug. 8 as a compromise between the traditional calendar with the Aug. 15 start, , or the balanced calendar with an Aug. 1 start, originally adopted for the 2010-11 school year and the two years to follow.

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Banks June 8 over the objections of Chairwoman Alison Bartlett. Post 1 member Lynnda Crowder-Eagle of West Cobb and Post 3 member David Morgan of South Cobb gave Banks the votes he needed to make the agenda.

His proposal would mimic much of this year’s balanced calendar, including weeklong breaks in September and February and a Christmas break from Dec. 22 to Jan. 3. The calendar would have 86 days in the first semester and 92 in the second.

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Bartlett, who represents Post 7 south and west Marietta, Vice Chairman Scott Sweeney of East Cobb’s Post 6, Tim Stultz of Smyrna’s Post 2 and Feb. 17. Banks, Crowder-Eagle and Morgan voted for the balanced calendar.

Sweeney questioned Banks at the June 8 work session about the timing of the proposed change only 46 days before the start of school as of Thursday. Banks blamed Bartlett for the short notice.

“If the chair had put the item on the agenda in May as I had asked her, we would’ve had more time,” Banks told Patch on Tuesday night. “We had the same problem last year (when the balanced calendar began). People already had plans, and we worked it out, and we’d do the same this year.”

Stultz, Sweeney, Bartlett and Angelucci have given no indication that they are reconsidering their calendar votes.

“The issue to me is we’re less than six weeks from their start date (Aug. 8), and a lot of people have vacation plans,” Bartlett said. “The very first time I voted on the calendar it was a spring vote (2009). I did not vote to change the calendar then because I didn’t think there was enough notice, and this time there’s even less. But we have three board members who voted to put it on the agenda, and I’m assuming they have the fourth vote.”

Banks said he hasn’t polled the other board members on how they plan to vote.

“The vast majority of students, teachers and the school community favor and want the balanced calendar, so my constituents and I don’t have a conflict,” Banks said. “Rather than being held hostage by a special interest group, I think it’s called Georgians Need Summers, you need to remove the conflict they have with themselves and they have with their constituents.

“This is an opportunity to reconcile with the community. It’s between those four board members and the community. The conflict is not with those four board members and me or David Morgan or Lynnda, it’s with the community.”

If he loses Thursday, Banks expects the calendar issue to linger with school board elections in 2012 and discussions starting on SPLOST IV.

Also on the agenda Thursday are three proposed charter schools: Turning Point Charter Leadership Academy School of Excellence and STEAM Academy of Cobb, both on the discussion agenda, and Foundation Charter School’s Cobb Charter Academy, on the consent agenda. The school system administration has recommended the board reject all three.

Items on the consent agenda for approval include power line easements with Georgia Power at and and modifications and renovations at . Atlanta’s CABLIK Enterprises beat out three other bidders for the project with a recommended award amount of $334,250.  

The school board also will honor two state AAAAA champions, girls tennis team and girls soccer team, and will acknowledge the Jessye Coleman PTA Council.

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