Wake County School Board Meeting Tuesday - Learn All About It (Raleigh: home, neighborhood)

[RaleighLass]

For those of you who want to know about our school system, Wake County Public Schools, (WCPSS). I just saw this on WRAL TV, one of our local TV stations.

Live broadcast 3pm Tuesday (tomorrow) on www.wral.com the school board meeting. Area parents will attend the meeting and so hopefully you get to hear some of the concerns we are faced with here.

A primer - the new majority board would like to take us from school assignments based on economic diversity to neighborhood schools and possibly eliminate mandatory year round schools. Currently we have some traditional calendar schools that were converted to YR, and we have of course, traditional, and year round that are both neighborhood for some families and by application for others.

Many parents have been calling for this change for some time. It is a hot issue; many parents on the other side of the issue are concerned that the changes will cause schools to re-segregate by default.

I think you'll find the mtg an eye-opener!

[GarnerMama]

Thanks for sharing that. I'll be watching.

[guyatherton]

You said it, it could easily lead to segregation again by default. "Neighborhood schools" sounds so innocent. However most of the problems have been caused by the huge growth in Wake County and the time it takes to build schools. For example in Morrisville which has gone from 1,000 to 12,000 people in 10-15 years there are insufficient school places so children have no option but to be bussed. This school board will not change that until more schools are built.

[RaleighLass]

Originally Posted by guyatherton

You said it, it could easily lead to segregation again by default. "Neighborhood schools" sounds so innocent. However most of the problems have been caused by the huge growth in Wake County and the time it takes to build schools. For example in Morrisville which has gone from 1,000 to 12,000 people in 10-15 years there are insufficient school places so children have no option but to be bussed. This school board will not change that until more schools are built.

Excellent points! We have heard for yrs (decades) that our area would grow to the size of Atlanta.

[GarnerMama]

Here's a copy of the agenda if anyone's interested:

http://www.wcpss.net/Board/agendas_s...10-agenda.html

[RaleighLass]

Interesting, they are requesting that Carpenter Village school (Morrisville?) will continue to have attendance capped. Also for Durant Rd elementary in N. Raleigh, both are in hi growth areas. They are suggesting alternate schools for children who would normally go there. Drat, lost the signal - I missed most of the mtg!

The implications for parents who move to a neighborhood where a school has capped attendance is that their child will be assigned to another school - another TBD! I never thought of this when considering purchasing a home in a different node when the wcpss website states you are assigned to that particular school.

Talking of overcrowding - a web search shows that in '03 the $450M bond referendum was passed for building new schools. Was it '07 when they shot one down - anyone remember? Interesting that growth projections were adjusted downwards (most recently) http://www.newsobserver.com/news/cou...ry/184473.html

Our school situation should be listed as one of the "Wonders of the World"! Who can really tell you the whole picture...it takes so much time to keep up with!


Garnermama - thax for posting agenda!