The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday adopted a set of legislative priorities for the 2019 session, and the contentious issue of school calendars tops the list.
The board voted 6-0 to endorse Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s recommendation that the Cobb County School District determine when school years should begin an end.
The issue came up this year with the creation of a special State Senate study committee.
Some within the Georgia tourism industry have indicated that starting school in early August has had a detrimental effect on their business.
The study committee has held hearings around the state and is meeting now during a special session. Among the bills being considered would call for a statewide school start after Labor Day.
As far as Cobb schools are concerned, that should be a matter of local control.
“Whether it is giving Cobb the flexibility to test a new assessment system that has the potential to benefit all students in Georgia or allowing local communities, like Cobb, to approve school calendars that best serve the needs of their students and staff, local control is a must,” Ragsdale said in a statement.
Earlier this decade members of the Cobb school board sparred over setting the calendar. In recent years, however, it’s adopted what’s called a “balanced” calendar, with an early August start date and more breaks than a calendar with a later start time.
The balanced calendar also is strongly supported by the Cobb County Association of Educators.
In October the school board voted 6-1 to adopt balanced calendars through 2020 that have Aug. 1 start dates.
The board also included in its legislative priorities proposed changes to the “Local Fair Share” component of the Georgia Quality Basic Education Act.
In this provision, school districts are levied five mills of their local property tax rate, with the funding going to the state.
East Cobb board member Scott Sweeney noted at a work session earlier Thursday that Cobb sends $144 million annually to the state, and advocates capping the Local Fair Share amount at $100 million.
Cobb schools said that getting $44 million in return would enable it to hire 488 teachers or build two new schools.
Other priorities include changing graduation rate calculations “that more accurately reflect schools’ academic process” and pushing for a return to local control of K-12 dual enrollment programs.
Current graduation rate guidelines require school districts to count all students enrolled in a four-year period, regardless of how long they attended classes in that time.
In 2018, Cobb reported a countywide graduation rate of 85.18 percent. While that’s a record, district officials said the graduation rate would be 97.1 percent if only students who attended high school in Cobb all four years were counted.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
