Cobb school calendar petition (Atlanta, Ideal: transplants, spring break, school district)

[aries4118]

Y'all should take a look at this...


While we debated Cobb’s new school calendar, we overlooked Fulton’s changes | Get Schooled

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Y'all should take a look at this...


While we debated Cobb’s new school calendar, we overlooked Fulton’s changes | Get Schooled

Wow, thanks aries, that's a very articulate and informative message.

My personal Cobb calendar preference (which I emailed to my school board representative, David Banks) was actually for the option that started a week later than the "balanced" calendar, and omitted the one-week break in September. That was my preference because it would have allowed more vacation flexibility with family in Canada, who have July/August vacations, and I thought September is pretty early to take a week off. So although I'm defending the Cobb board's choice, it wasn't actually my top pick.

The comments from the Fulton educator/parent touch on a subject that bothers me about the school year here. It's so short in number of days, and Fulton has just cut it back by three more days. Having moved from a jurisdiction where the school year has more days, but less hours per day, I notice how very compressed the school year seems, here. My child and her peers in high school honors and AP courses get a lot of homework, most days. It's exceptionally hard to fit in any extra-curricular activities such as sports, whatsoever. I really don't know how marching band and sports team members keep their grades up ... or perhaps they don't so much.

Chopping three days off the calendar and adding 10 minutes of class time per day means that the Fulton students will now get 10 minutes less time on every school night, in which to cram in 1.7% more homework per day. (1.7% = 3/177). These numbers may seem small, but I suspect that what they mean for typical high-schoolers is 13 minutes less sleep on school nights. Lots of them already don't sleep enough. 13 minutes less per night is not trivial. I'm really glad to be living in Cobb rather than Fulton.

On the other hand, those two additional one-week breaks in the Cobb school calendar will provide overloaded students and teachers (I bet the teachers find their preparation and grading load heavy as well) with a chance to catch up and get some rest. If Georgia taxpayers won't pay for more days in the school year, moving some of the excessively long summer vacation time to mid-year breaks may be the next best thing.

[RainyRainyDay]

Oh man, I just read some more of the AJC blog and belatedly realized that Fulton's new calendar includes unequal semesters. Students are not going to do as well in those abbreviated first-term courses. Now I'm much more grateful not to be living there.

When I went to high school in Canada, the semester break was (and still is, I believe) in late January. First-semester courses really suffered from being interrupted by the two-week winter holiday, and in high school one often ended up working on a project or paper over Christmas. When we moved here and discovered that schools start in August so the semester break can fall at the winter holiday break, I thought that was brilliant, and I still do.

[neil0311]

I contacted the entire School Board to convey my disappointment at the change and also to ask why the change was necessary and why so little information was provided to parents.

This change does not increase the number of days our children are in school, and it does nothing to improve education. This is not year round learning or an increase in instruction. All it does is require school to start in the middle of summer, and inserts a week of "vacation" just a few weeks later in September. This is ridiculous and I've not be informed of any reasons to justify this stupidity.

I grew up, as did my own kids before moving to GA, with a traditional school calendar. The school year started around Labor Day and ended in late June. Summer was July and August. I was a bit dumbfounded that school began in the middle of August when we first moved here, and now this is just lunacy. Can someone please tell me the value of starting at the beginning of August and inserting a week in September and February?

[lastminutemom]

Let me tell you about those one week breaks -- most likely, secondary students (and some older elementary students) will have projects due and tests immediately after the break. I know one or two teachers, in another school system, who when studying calendar options felt like they would have no choice to assign the projects. School starts back in January, for example, takes a couple of weeks to get going, it is time to get into the meat of the class and boom assign that term paper, book report, etc. But you are going to do a couple of those a semester... you do the math.

One of the reasons (about a dozen years ago or so) that many school systems moved to the finals before winter break calendar was because so many teachers assigned projects during that time that parents really began to resent it. That is why the pushed back start date (in the beginning at least) didn't face so much resistance.

Finally, I don't know if many of you have ever tried to vacation during February. It is one of the most expensive times of the year. Both Florida and ski destinations are outrageous and it is very cold in most of the rest of the country.

In the northeast, while they don't have uneven semesters, the AP exams are given at least 6 weeks before school is over. Whereas, in the south, the AP exams are given nearly at the end of the school year. (The date is standardized -- everyone takes the same exam on the same day.) However, kids in the NE seem to do better that kids in the SE. I think Fulton County will be fine.

[kaday]

I find the weeks in April/May post CRCT to be a waste. I hear many parents complaining about the same issue. So I feel like the added week in May will be another week of the same.

But again the calendar is just a calendar and like I mentioned earlier there are so many other areas that need our attention.

[roxyrn]

When we lived in Minnesota, we started after Labor Day and ended sometime during the first week of June (so most academics ended before Memorial Day). It gave us a full summer to enjoy the weather before the long winter.

I moved to the Northeast (Connecticut and New York) where we start after Labor Day, with multiple one day breaks in the fall (Yom Kippur, Rosh Hishona (sorry about the spelling), Columbus Day, Election Day and Veterans Day) and end the school year the third week of June, depending on how many snow days we have. Last year, my son's last day was June 26. Some years our Spring vacations were cut short because of excessive snow days.

I am thrilled with the new Fulton calendar (early August is just too early for me to think back-to-school) except that there are three fewer educational days. AP students will have the advantage over NE students (having more class time to prepare) and they also will still have the advantage of being able to apply for (and in some rolling admission cases accepted) earlier than their counterparts in the NE who do not have grades done and transcripts ready until much later in the summer.

If people really want to improve education, more time needs to be spent in the classroom, but that is not going to happen.

[dminiutti]

I am also looking for this petition. please send me a link or email, thank you. Would love to see the summer break from June 15 to the end of August, but certainly hate to see it go in the opposit direction.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Well, most schools (if not all) need to have 180 days of school...I don't know how Minnesota does it...

I think the general suburban culture up there is more uniformly supportive of their public schools, and I suspect that high level of support at the family level makes a rather large difference. It does here, too, but such attitudes seem to be concentrated in a few areas like East Cobb, some parts of Gwinett and Fulton, etc.

Otherwise, like in southern or SE Cobb, people seem to use private schools if they can afford it. That attitude is rather uncommon up there.

The same type of attitude also results in higher rates of giving to charity and higher voter turnouts during elections amongst other things ... MN is almost always amongst the highest percentage-wise in both categories.

Not bragging or anything ... MN and WI have always scored high in such areas when compared to much of the rest of the country, and the reason IMO is cultural.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

I think the general suburban culture up there is more uniformly supportive of their public schools, and I suspect that high level of support at the family level makes a rather large difference. It does here, too, but such attitudes seem to be concentrated in a few areas like East Cobb, some parts of Gwinett and Fulton, etc.

Otherwise, like in southern or SE Cobb, people seem to use private schools if they can afford it. That attitude is rather uncommon up there.

The same type of attitude also results in higher rates of giving to charity and higher voter turnouts during elections amongst other things ... MN is almost always amongst the highest percentage-wise in both categories.

Not bragging or anything ... MN and WI have always scored high in such areas when compared to much of the rest of the country, and the reason IMO is cultural.

I was referring to how they effectively fit a 180-day school between Labor Day and Memorial Day.


But, you are so right about the upper-midwest and their view of public schools, civic responsibility, etc. I think it's great...and should be emulated.