Banks Attempts to Rescind Calendar Vote

The school calendar issue won’t go away.

Again, the members of the community are voicing their opinions and thoughts on the school calendar to the Cobb County Board of Education at today’s 8:30 a.m. monthly work session at the Central Office boardroom.

School Board Member David Morgan, whose post covers and high schools, said on Tuesday that the calendar “still seems to be a very contentious issue,” and from the public comment portion of the meeting as well as the size of the crowd at today’s meeting, Morgan is right.

Members of the large crowd held signs that stated, “Restore the trust.”

They stated that they felt small interest groups are being put above the constituents’ interests, that people have taken time off from their jobs to make their voices heard and they haven’t been listened to, that the balanced calendar allows parents to spend more time with their children and that they don’t want any money to be spent on legal fees on this issue.

“You can still amend the mistake. We all make mistakes,” said Enrique Garza during public comment at today’s worksession. “We are right. You are wrong. We will win. You will lose. And I say this with total respect, you will be humiliated.”

The crowd cheered.

“Have the courage to change your vote and bring back the balanced calendar. You will be remembered for it,” said another public commenter.

On Feb. 17, the board voted 4-3 Feb. 17 to return to a traditional calendar for the next two school years, Post 5 board member David Banks has asked to scrap that decision with the first agenda item…

Banks, whose district covers Pope, and high schools, stated his case in his monthly “Grapevine” e-newsletter for a return to this year's balanced calendar, which roughly divides the school year in half around the Christmas break, offers more weeklong vacations and starts the first week of August.

The 2010-11 school year is Cobb County's first use of the balanced calendar, which the school board voted in 2009 to adopt for three years.

Board Chairwoman Alison Bartlett of Post 7 and new members Scott Sweeney of Post 6 , Tim Stultz of Post 2 ( and middle schools) and Kathleen Angelucci of Post 4 voted in favor of returning to the traditional calendar at the Feb. 17 board meeting. Banks, Lynnda Crowder-Eagle of Post 1 and Morgan of Post 3 voted against the traditional calendar.

The balanced calendar would have made Aug. 1 the first day of school; now the first day will be Aug. 15.

The meeting drew a , with shouts of “recall” after the final calendar vote.

A reversal of that vote appears unlikely because the three new board members all campaigned to return to a traditional calendar, and Bartlett reiterated her support for that calendar during a .

“People are very mad,” Banks said. “They changed the precedence so it can come up every month. It helps to know what you’re doing when you break precedence.

“One of our policies has a statement, I’m paraphrasing here, is that you’ll be responsive to the community. Well, I’m waiting for the response, or are they going violate that policy again? When you have over 70 percent of your constituents out there saying that they want the balanced calendar and you ignore it, that’s not being very accountable to your constituents.”

Morgan said that he receives an average of 60 e-mails a day about this issue, when he ordinarily only receives three to four school board-related e-mails a day overall. Most of the e-mails are from people who do not live within South Cobb, he said.

Bartlett noted that Banks or any board member can request to put any item on the agenda.

“We can vote as many times as we want on a subject,” said Bartlett, who voted against the balanced calendar when the previous board adopted it. “Typically when a person votes with the majority and discovers a new fact, they ask to put it on the agenda because the fact has changed their mind. But I’m not aware of any new fact at this time.”

During her town-hall meeting, Bartlett said a new fact could be on the way: She anticipates that the General Assembly will cut the number of mandatory school days to 170 or fewer, allowing the school district to add vacation days before Christmas and in February. The current mandate is 180 days, although the Cobb school district scheduled only 175 days this year because of budget problems and a state waiver involving time in the classroom instead of days.

In his newsletter, Banks wrote that he and other board members had “received over 2,000 e-mails with over 72 percent of those e-mails in favor of the ‘Balanced Calendar.’ ”

Banks told Patch he was able to determine the 2,000 figure because most of the e-mail messages were addressed to all board members.

Banks said the current balanced calendar will save the district $62,333 in utility costs, but Bartlett has said the district would save $500,000 in utility costs by starting two weeks later in August.

Banks also said more than $1 million in savings could be realized by the end of the school year because of reduced teacher absenteeism.

Bartlett questioned those savings on two grounds during her town-hall meeting. She said the district's savings are temporary because teachers accrue their sick leave and either use it or get paid for it in later years, and she said the experience of other school districts has been that teacher absenteeism returns to previous levels after the first year of the balanced calendar.

Because proponents of each calendar often provide contradictory figures, Crowder-Eagle asked district Chief Financial Officer Mike Addison after whether the balanced or traditional calendar actually saves money.   

“He said, ‘Lynnda, according to our data, there is no additional savings by going to a traditional calendar,’ ” Crowder-Eagle said.

Patch was unable to reach Sweeney, Stultz and Angelucci for comment.

The rest of the Wednesday agenda appears to be significantly less controversial. Besides discussing 14 SPLOST recommendations and a resolution, the board plans to discuss a memorandum of understanding between the district and Fulton County Schools regarding Cobb students attending charter schools in Fulton. The board voted 5-2 against the memorandum Feb. 17, with Stultz and Morgan dissenting.   

The board plans to take a two-hour break at 11:30 a.m. to attend the annual PTA luncheon.