Readers give their opinions pro and con on the ongoing saga of the Cobb school calendar — “balanced,” or early start, versus traditional, or later start.

Jim Stoll: Our school board members have been fighting over the school calendar for the past five years, with David Banks and his screaming, sign waving motley crew leading the charge. In the meantime, our school board and our wondrous superintendent have yet to come up with an effective “strategy” for how they will go about teaching the 100,000 or so of the students in our schools. That should give parents some idea of the importance they place on the education of our children. Their attitude is why the average SAT scores of our children keeps going down.

Forest or trees: What Don fails to reveal is that this would not be the issue it is if newly elected board members plus Bartlett had not interrupted a 2 year calendar in mid stream. Had they let that calendar adoption run its course and then instituted a later start date it would have cut down on the controversy. By doing it the way they did it, they alienated many who voted to put them into office. Also, it is very noticeable that the MCSD is immune to Don’s criticism as to what a school calendar ought to look like. Why the double standard?

(To) Mr. McKee: You never say why you think the current calendar is the best one ... the balanced calendar never got a fair chance, it should have been allowed to run the 3 year cycle as originally proposed. I personally hope school starts Aug. 1st, with the fall and winter breaks, because I believe it is the best choice. I will vote against any board member that is for the “traditional” (sentimental) calendar. I will also vote against SPLOST if the balanced calendar doesn’t return. It is appalling that the committee, just like the survey, is being completely ignored!

Later: The 1st week of August is way too early. Move it back to the third or fourth week in August. We’ve already booted out some board members because of the early start date. Do politicians ever listen to the voters?

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In reply to the comment about the Marietta school district, your columnist must point out that the city school board settled on start dates of Aug. 11 last year and Aug. 9 this year by unanimous vote. Those dates are later than the Cobb committee calendar or the superintendent’s proposal (start dates ranging from Aug. 1, Aug. 4 and Aug. 7). In my opinion, a later start date is better because it allows more traditional vacation time for families. But the bottom line in the last column was that it’s time for the Cobb board to stop moving the start date up earlier every year and just leave it as is. Enough with this constant changing of the start date. As for why, there’s no solid evidence that the early start helps students academically.

dmckee9613@aol.com