It's too bad the school system is a mess!! (Raleigh: chapel, houses)

[eagle]

Raleigh seems like a great place overall to live except for the school situation. It's too bad that the school system issues a complete mess (overcrowding, redistricting, split schedules, year round vs traditional, etc, etc).

Did the county simply not plan properly? I know new schools are being built, but is that really going to solve the problems? Many other areas of the country grow rapidly but do not face all these issues that could have been avoided with proper planning.

[Bull City Rising]

Originally Posted by eagle

Did the county simply not plan properly? I know new schools are being built, but is that really going to solve the problems? Many other areas of the country grow rapidly but do not face all these issues that could have been avoided with proper planning.

The conventional wisdom as I understand it is that the Wake County Commission ignored the growth numbers in the 1990s. Wake voters also rejected a couple of bond/tax issues in the late 90s/early 00s that would have built schools.

One planning analysis showed that Wake was billions of dollars in the hole for school construction. In a cost-cutting move, the planner who raised the alarm was layed off.

Wake-ites, please correct me if I'm wrong... this is the story I've been hearing?

[urbywan]

Funny, they sure cannot blame the teacher unions for this mess!!

I would blame the state here. In addition the politicians in wake county.

Poor planning, just awful planning. Heck I have no kids in the schools, quite frankly at this point they need to put up basic modular buildings nothing fancy.

Then again, if the housing market in the northeast continues to sink, people will not be moving down here so fast anymore since they cannot sell their own houses.

There are NOT going to be an additional 8,000 students next year. Housing has slowed even here in wake county. Down almost 10%. In march 07.

[shaylahc]

I agree with you. We lived in Cary/Apex from 1998-2006. We would have stayed had it not been for the schooling situation.

[eagle]

I wonder how many people who were considering relocating to Raleigh/Cary then later decided not to go forward with it due to the disappointing school situation. The ironic thing on that is that might actually help the situation due to less people. Does anyone have any idea of how long this mess will take to correct itself? Is it truly going to improve in a 2-3 years or is it beyond that?

[viridari]

Sometimes it is good to be a homeschooler and not have to worry about this mess

[maryCh]

This is so typical NC! It seems where planning is concerned, one hand does not know what the other is doing. This is a statewide problem, not just Raleigh area.

[mtbgait]

Simple solution!! Fix your bussing issue. This would all go away. The district is trying to soak as much federal money as possible out of the Feds to as many schools as possible through Title 1 funds. This is why they are bussing kids all over the place. I am moving to Raleigh in two months, however, I currently live in Las Vegas and they did the same thing with their bussing to basically do the exact same thing, get as much money as possible from the Feds through Title 1, which is tied to free and reduced lunch counts. It didn't work here, 5th largest district in US. It's not going to work for WCPSS. Stop bussing kids all over Wake County and Zone kids to their neighborhood school and the problems will be fixed sooner then later. Yes there might be over crowding in some schools, but at least the district will know exactly where the problem is and start building new shcools in those areas. But I know the good ol' boys in charge won't have anything to do with it!! It seems like there is a lot of educated people on this board, start demanding more or run for school board or city council to fix this problem.

[luvmyguys]

I am copying a post I responded to on this forum below.I feel my response applies to this post also. One thing I wanted to bring to the forum. In the Northeast, the schools are having their own issues. Where I am from they have been CLOSING schools. In fact, they closed one of the two middle schools and crammed the entire city into one middle school that was about 100 years old. There is no ideal school situation. If there was, we would all move there! Here's my post:
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I agree. This WILL get resolved. Just think about how the parents felt when we all first heard back in September about the year round conversion. We felt exactly the way we feel now but then the dust settled and we all accepted it. I have always said I dont care "where" my kids learn or what type of building they learn "in"...I just want a quality education. Our kids are getting a better than quality education here in Wake County regardless of where and when they go to school. It occurred to me last night that perhaps the reason Wake County is having this population problem is because the education here has such a great reputation. Would we rather be in a district that has plenty of room in the schools because the education is below par?????

[MaimounaKande]

I'd rather be in an established area which has good schools. Less growth means fewer problems like this. The town I grew up in has had the same 5 elementary schools for 100 years. One middle, one high. They never overcrowd or need to close down b/c the population is stable. That would be ideal to me. But if you buy in a rapidly expanding area, this is going to happen every time. We just had this going on in our area of Tucson b/c it was growing so quickly. We applied to private school there b/c to me there is more than just the education to consider...there is how tough this is on the kids mentally--making, remaking friends, never knowing where they'll be next.
I live in a walk zone in Chapel Hill now, so I don't have to worry abotu redistricting...so the kids go public.