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 

This is not an April Fool's Joke.

Forest Pines Elementary School will not be on an enrollment cap for the 2009-10 school year even though that's what staff had recommended last week. It seems they made a mistake.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney told school board members on Tuesday that he had used the wrong cap number for Forest Pines in basing his recommendation.

Staff is recommending keeping the enrollment caps at Cedar Fork and Forest Pines elementary schools for the upcoming school year.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney told the school board this week that the growth in the base at both schools will be too great for the caps are lifted. Once again, this means new people who move into either school's attendance area will be sent to a more distant school that has the space.

Leaving the caps in place will have repercussions for people who opt out of year-round schools.