Nearly 12,000 Sign Petition Protesting Cobb Schools' Early Start: ICYMI

MARIETTA, GA -- Nearly 12,000 people have signed a petition decrying the early start of the school year for Cobb students. School begins July 31 for students in the Cobb County Schools District. It's too hot for students to take part in outside activities required in schools and outdoor extra-curricular programs, the petition says.
The parents also challenge the notion that an earlier school year will help alleviate socioeconomic disparities among students. (To get notified of more local news like this, click here to sign up for the East Cobb Patch. Or find your Atlanta-area town here. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)
The parents want the school district to push the beginning of classes back to August, which the petition calls a "compromise measure."
The petition says the early start "crosses a symbolic line that both threatens the nature of the traditional summer vacation and the developmental promise a more traditional calendar affords our children and families."
A document provided to Patch by Cobb schools officials points out that several factors are considered when determining the school year schedule, such as providing a minimum of 180 school days for students, ending the first and second semesters before the winter and Memorial day holidays and keeping in compliance with law, State Board of Education policy, Cobb County Board of Education policy, and accreditation requirements.
"In developing the calendar we simply looked at the end of first semester in December, accounted for any Board-approved breaks (e.g. Thanksgiving, fall break, Labor Day, etc) and worked our way back. The resulting first day was Monday, July 31," Cobb Schools Director of Communications Donna Lowry told Patch in an email.
What worries many of the parents who signed the petition is that they fear the July start is part of a gradual plan that will lead to a year-round school year, "an option that we did not choose when we decided to invest in Cobb County," the petition says.
Here are some of the things that parents say they want, according to the petition:

• Either the September or February week-long holiday periods should be canceled. Because of the added time off, the need for additional child care presents a potential hardship for two working parents, the petition says.
• The halt of "government intervention" into school policy in order to address socioeconomic disparity.
• For the school district to consider how mandating that students go back to school during the hottest time of the year threatens their health as well as increases the fuel costs of Cobb County buses.

The school district is urged to take some of points listed in the petition and to serious consider them. If not, parents may protest by keeping their children out of school for a while.
"Some of us have considered holding our children back from the first few days of school as an act of resistance to what we see as unnecessary, if not hostile, encroachment into our families’ needs—resistance that we understand that our teachers cannot take with us," the petition says.
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