The Wake County school board approved tonight placing enrollment caps at 17 schools for the 2013-14 school year.

The elementary schools that are affected are Brooks, Cedar Fork, Fuller, Holly Grove, Farmington Woods, Hunter, Joyner, Lacy, Mills Park, Underwood, Walnut Creek and Wiley. Caps would also affect the elementary school grades at Hilburn Drive Academy, and Apex, Garner, Heritage and Holly Springs high schools.

Unless that school is already capped for this school year, newcomers who still move in after this late date can get in for the rest of the school year. But you've got a big problem, unless you already live in the school's attendance area, if you want to begin attending this fall.

Enrollment caps, school budgets and bell schedules are among the things the Wake County school board will deal with today.

During the work session, this handout shows that school administrators will recommend placing enrollment caps for the 2013-14 school year on 17 schools. This is based on how crowded those schools are after the declaration of base, magnet school and first transfer application periods.

Nine of the 17 schools already at the cap figure, meaning families who hadn't moved in by a set date can't attend this fall. The cap would go into effect at the other eight schools when they hit their cap figure.

UPDATE

A revised document presented today shows that 15 of the schools are already at their cap figure. Only Farmington Woods Elementary and Holly Springs High aren't there yet.

Nearly two-dozen Wake County students are facing the impact of the enrollment caps that were placed on some schools for the rest of the school year.

Laura Evans, senior director of student assignment, said that as of Wednesday 22 students have been capped out of their base school for the rest of the school year. The information was shared during Thursday's joint meeting of the school board and county commissioners.

“It’s not something like we do, but we also don’t like excessively crowded schools," Evans said.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata said today that he will ask the school board on Tuesday for permission to cap enrollment at the new Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh.

Instead of just 780 students as planned, Walnut Creek now has more than 930 students. This comes amid all the scrutiny about Walnut Creek, where concerns that it would open as a high-poverty school with many low-performing students led to a mass infusion of additional resources.

"We wanted to make it a high demand school and we did," Tata said at today's press conference.

Could the development of feeder patterns be more of a hold-up on the new Wake County student assignment plan than coming to an agreement on achievement-choice schools?

As noted in today's article, staff's update on the student assignment plan included discussion on achievement schools and a presentation on sample feeder patterns. During the meeting, board members said zilch on the achievement schools but went into detail on the feeder patterns.

"We know this is contentious," Superintendent Tony Tata said to board members in response to the feeder pattern concerns. "This is high stakes. We want your feedback to make this right."

The parents of the Breckenridge community of Morrisville have apparently won their victory with the Wake County school board.

The board preliminarily agreed today to drop the reassignment of the 220 Breckrenrdge students from Cedar Fork Elementary to Green Hope Elementary. Breckrenridge parents had heavily lobbied to stay at Cedar Fork.

The Breckenridge students have been at Cedar Fork since the school opened. When the students were reassigned to Alston Ridge Elementary, Cedar Fork was left as the traditional-calendar application school.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Here's a very abbreviated recap of tonight's public hearing at Cary High School, which drew 75 speakers.

Among the biggest contingents were those calling for Salem elementary and middle schools and Highcroft Drive Elementary to be converted back to a traditional calendar. You also had a smaller group from Highcroft urging that the school stay on the year-round calendar.

You also had a lot of people supporting reassigning Carpenter Village to Davis Drive Middle and Green Hope High. There were also several speakers who asked that Breckenridge be allowed to stay at Cedar Fork Elementary.

Next year's Wake County student reassignment plan is a work in progress with everything approved by the old school board under review with new suggestions coming in all the time.

During Tuesday's work session, Laura Evans, senior director of growth and planning, laid out to the board an explanation of the assignments being considered and the direction they're leaning toward. It will help to have your copy of the handout present.

The ensuing discussion showed how the thinking has changed to reflect the new student assignment policy. Multiple times, Evans talked about bringing students home, having them attend their neighborhood schools and moving the least number possible for stability.

Don't look for the Morrisville Town Council to back the new Wake County school board majority's move toward neighborhood schools.

As noted in Sunday's Cary News, the Morrisville Town Council voted 4-3 to remove from last week's meeting agenda a resolution supporting parental choice and neighborhood schools. Democrats account for five of the seven seats on the council with one Republican and one unaffiilated member.

"I don't feel that the council should be endorsing the actions of other government bodies," said Councilman Steve Diehl, who led the charge to remove the resolution from the agenda.

CORRECTION

CORRECTED TO REFLECT THAT THERE ARE FIVE DEMOCRATS, ONE REPUBLICAN AND ONE UNAFFILIATED ON THE TOWN COUNCIL

There's plenty of empty seats at today's Wake County school board meeting.

Only 35 of the 153 vouchers were handed out for today's meeting. That's far less than the crowds that backed up into the hallway at recent meetings.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST