Cobb Parents Start School Calendar Petition Drive

Cobb parents upset with the Cobb Board of Education's to revert to a "traditional" calendar starting in the fall have begun a petition drive to get the decision overturned. 

The signature-raising effort, which can be accessed here, is simply called the "Petition for the August 1 Calendar." That's the date Cobb schools would have begun the 2011-12 school year with a balanced calendar. The school board vote pushed back the first day of school to Aug. 15.

Opponents of the calendar change vowed immediately after the vote to mount a recall campaign against the four board members who pushed for the traditional calendar. 

One of them is newly elected Scott Sweeney of Post 6, which covers the Walton and Wheeler high school districts of East Cobb, and who campaigned on switching to the traditional calendar.

One school board member who voted against the calendar change is lashing out at those four colleagues. 

Post 5 representative David Banks, who represents the Pope, Lassiter and Sprayberry high school districts of East and Northeast Cobb, said in his online newsletter this week that the decision is a "disregard for the will of the majority." 

Banks, one of the four holdovers on the school board, said he received more than 1,200 e-mails prior to last week's vote, claiming that 72 percent were in favor of retaining the balanced calendar. 

"In politics, arrogance or vanity is very obvious when one fails to listen to a majority of their constituents or holds fast to a campaign position rather than admit that position is not supported," Banks wrote. "When a large segment of the public is telling you they do not want what you are espousing it’s time to reassess or suffer the political consequences. One truism in life is that all choices have consequences."