Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm considering moving to Raleigh. I have 3 kids in grade school. My understanding is that the schools in the triangle are great. You have charter, magnet and great public schools. Most posts I read seem to be very concerned over busing and not being able to know where your child goes due to busing. Is that the only negative? I know, somebody is going to tell me to read old posts but I want recent advice. Can anyone chime in?
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
9,781 posts, read 15,805,907 times
Reputation: 10894
All the schools are created equal but some schools are more equal than others. Otherwise some schools wouldn't have waiting lists, while others have empty slots.
The only negative? Likely not -but it all depends on what you're looking for in a school. If you're looking for a Mongolian language immersion program, you might view it as a negative that the schools don't offer it.
The school assignment situation in Wake County has been a source of concern for many years, and it's been a more pressing concern in recent years due to turmoil on the Board of Education and big changes that they have implemented (which are as of yet unsettled). You can read all about that in this forum. It really is too much to answer in a single thread.
Keep in mind there are other school systems than Wake County in The Triangle as well. If you are looking for things in the schools for your children, you might consider those areas as well.
yes, the big problem is these people can't just make up their mind and go with it so you could get a really super great school or you could get a crap school. You can't move to where the really super great school is with thoughts of getting in because it doesn't work that way most of the time. My oldest is in grade school and we had a really bad base school and this last year for second grade we were in a magnet school and the difference was night and day. You have you to ask yourself Do you feel lucky?
I'm considering moving to Raleigh. I have 3 kids in grade school. My understanding is that the schools in the triangle are great.
Schools in the triangle are great? Hmmm? I've read that overall the Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools are pretty good, but have not read that about the Durham or Wake County schools.
From what I've been able to gather, some schools are better than others. As a previous poster pointed out, some have waiting lists and others empty desks. Another indicator of overall satisfaction with district schools is the number of private schools and homeschooling groups. The public schools work well for some. Not so much for others.
For years, the Wake County school district shuffled students around to avoid having schools with primarily low income students thus avoiding the problem of low performing schools that are typically associated with low income areas. Last election changed the make up of the school board and the assignment plan was changed to family choice. However, there has been a recent kerfuffle over this so I am not sure where this all stands.
I am unaware of any school district analysis of how busing kids this way and that affected academic performance but did run across a report that some group put out after analyzing what statistic they could gather from the district. As I recall, according to these stats, busing did not seem to improve academic performance or graduation rates for low-income students.
In 1973, the school district in Edmonton, Canada switched to parental/student choice. The schools that attracted students flourished and expanded. The ones that did not, closed. Principals were able to hire the teaching and support staff they thought best met the needs of their students. Last I read, academic performance was up and the number of private schools was way down. Several school districts in the US have implemented this Empowerment School model. Not sure where they are in the process or how successful they are.
The key ingredients seem to be choice, lots of information available on schools so that factors can be weighed in making a decision on schools, weighted funding following the student, and principals able to make budget was well as hiring and firing decisions.
If one or your reasons for making this move is finding great schools for your kids, you may want to check out school districts across the country who are implementing this Empowerment model. This seems to offer a better shot at great schools than this constant shuffling of students this way and that.
I grew up in chapel hill, but went to private school (my dad worked there) until 9th grade, then went to public high school. Chapel hill schools are very good, orange county schools are not quite as good.
I am now a parent and I have my kids in wake county public schools (elementary school). I have two girls in year round school, and we are just ending their 4th and 2nd grade year. My kids have been at the same school since they started and we love love love the school, the teachers, the staff, etc. Is there confusion in WCPSS right now? Oh yea there is. Unfortunately, the confusion is directly related to politics and it is hard to understand if you are not here in it (and also hard if you are here!). The bottom line is this:
School board originally supported the socioeconomic school plan. This plan was designated so that every school would have a certain percentage of free and reduced lunch students within their "base". This, in turn, caused longer bus routes for some students because the "node" of kids attending the school was oddly shaped in order to have socioeconomic diversity. Well, the population in the triangle exploded over the past 15 years......exploded! So, in some areas there was a MUCH higher density of population, and that in turn cause students to have to be reassigned to different schools in order to keep the socioeconomic numbers correct. In area where there were 6 new developments being built and the homes were in the 400-800k range, all of those kids may not go to the same school in order to support socioeconomic diversity.
Well, people did not like this, did not like reassignment, etc. So, over the years the school board was finally "changed" which ended in elections where more conservative people were elected. The difficulty with the school board is people can only vote for the people in their "area", so the entire board is never up for re election, so there was an election and the board went to a 5-4 republican advantage. A new superintendent came on board.......things started changing.
They voted to have a feeder pattern for the schools. Basically no base schools, but people can apply for a school and then once they are "in" a school they follow a specific feeder pattern. I think this is good if you are happy with your pattern! But the downside has been people who had to apply to a different school than their current school (if they were looking for a different feeder pattern for future schools) or new people relocating because they may get into their 4th choice of school because of the population levels at the schools where they are applying.
NOW, recently (last week) the school board, now in a democratic majority, voted to re-think and go back to the socioeconomic diversity plan in some way. The difficulty in this is that we have not even given the current plan a try yet! Parents are mad!
It is very very difficult, and hard to give newcomers good advice!
This should be stickied at the top of the forum...great explanation with no useless opinions thrown in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leighbhe
Okay here goes........
I grew up in chapel hill, but went to private school (my dad worked there) until 9th grade, then went to public high school. Chapel hill schools are very good, orange county schools are not quite as good.
I am now a parent and I have my kids in wake county public schools (elementary school). I have two girls in year round school, and we are just ending their 4th and 2nd grade year. My kids have been at the same school since they started and we love love love the school, the teachers, the staff, etc. Is there confusion in WCPSS right now? Oh yea there is. Unfortunately, the confusion is directly related to politics and it is hard to understand if you are not here in it (and also hard if you are here!). The bottom line is this:
School board originally supported the socioeconomic school plan. This plan was designated so that every school would have a certain percentage of free and reduced lunch students within their "base". This, in turn, caused longer bus routes for some students because the "node" of kids attending the school was oddly shaped in order to have socioeconomic diversity. Well, the population in the triangle exploded over the past 15 years......exploded! So, in some areas there was a MUCH higher density of population, and that in turn cause students to have to be reassigned to different schools in order to keep the socioeconomic numbers correct. In area where there were 6 new developments being built and the homes were in the 400-800k range, all of those kids may not go to the same school in order to support socioeconomic diversity.
Well, people did not like this, did not like reassignment, etc. So, over the years the school board was finally "changed" which ended in elections where more conservative people were elected. The difficulty with the school board is people can only vote for the people in their "area", so the entire board is never up for re election, so there was an election and the board went to a 5-4 republican advantage. A new superintendent came on board.......things started changing.
They voted to have a feeder pattern for the schools. Basically no base schools, but people can apply for a school and then once they are "in" a school they follow a specific feeder pattern. I think this is good if you are happy with your pattern! But the downside has been people who had to apply to a different school than their current school (if they were looking for a different feeder pattern for future schools) or new people relocating because they may get into their 4th choice of school because of the population levels at the schools where they are applying.
NOW, recently (last week) the school board, now in a democratic majority, voted to re-think and go back to the socioeconomic diversity plan in some way. The difficulty in this is that we have not even given the current plan a try yet! Parents are mad!
It is very very difficult, and hard to give newcomers good advice!
I agree twingles--Leigh's explanation is a good one and neutral.
Like somebody else said, Wake County is not the only place to live in the Triangle. In addition to the other suggestions of Durham, Chapel Hill-Carrboro & Orange County, Johnston County schools have been getting better and better in the past 10 years. Don't rule out any of those places.
I feel like there are a few inconsistencies in Leigh's assessment (and thank you Leigh, it is a good description). But, I think it was generally (and I say generally to encompass "most students" because there are always individual exceptions to what I am about to say) not the case of children from newer developments being reassigned long distances for socioeconomic diversity, most of those children were being reassigned due crowding. Although I did hear of isolated cases of non free and reduced lunch students being bused long distances, that was usually not the case.
It was generally the free and reduced kids being bused long distances and children in newer developments were being pulled voluntarily into magnets to maintain the balance. They took inner city kids and kids from eastern Wake County schools and bused them 20 miles into Wake Forest and Cary, but Cary and Wake Forest kids were generally NOT bused into inner city schools (that's what the magnet system is for and is mostly comprised of Wake Forest/Western Cary /Apex kids even now). But when the kids from the newer developments had to start being sent to schools further away than their closest school, all hell broke loose and the diversity policy was blamed. Most of the reassignments of kids from newer developments that occurred in the last few years were growth related and not diversity related.
That said, I am a graduate of WCPSS as will be my daughter next year (and another child currently in middle school) and no one has ever been ever reassigned. Their educations have been great, and we've been very happy with WCPSS. Not saying it's all perfect and I've had a few beefs myself, but overall, WCPSS has been a good education.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
