It's no mistake that the North Harrison Avenue families are slated to wait until 2010 to be reassigned to Cary High.
In the draft plan, those nodes were slated to be reassigned from Panther Creek High to Athens Drive High in 2009-10. Administrators said they'd recommend moving them to Cary HIgh instead, as urged by the parents, in the revised plan.
But what surprised those nodes when the plan came out last month is that they won't go to Cary High until 2010.
It's safe to say that overseeing student assignment in Wake isn't just a job for Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney.
As noted in today's article, Dulaney considers his role a "high calling." He believes his efforts in implementing Wake's reassignment policy is helping make the district academically successful.
Dulaney said he often hears from parents who accuse him of caring about numbers and not students. He strongly disagrees with that accusation.
If nothing else, the Cary families fighting reassignment from Apex High to Athens Drive High win recognition for being vocal and organized.
As noted in today's article by Bonnie Rochman, they've got a web site and done their own analysis of the plan to counter the rationale used by school administrators. Whether it will resonate with the school board is the big question.
School administrators say moving the students reduces crowding at Apex High and will "better utilize available space at Athens Drive High." Those Cary students are also assigned to Dillard Drive Middle, which feeds into Athens Drive.
Growth may be the "primary driver" in the new reassignment plan but it's not the only one.
As noted in today's article, Wake's use of multiple factors in student assignment means more kids are being moved than if proximity was the sole factor. Dealing with factors such as proximity, diversity, leaving enough seats open in magnet schools and streamlining feeder patterns adds more kids to the plan.
School administrators say none of the six factors has a higher priority so they balance them all to come up with the plan.
It's a go to register online at 10 a.m. tomorrow to speak at the public hearings on the reassignment plan.
Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said the full plan will be available tomorrow morning, along with the ability to provide comments and to register online to speak at the meetings. You'll only be able to speak at one meeting.
Click here for the list of the meetings.
Here are the recommended reassignment changes that Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney mentioned at the various CEM meetings.
First, here's the link to the changes Dulaney mentioned at the Cary High meeting. Now that the Broughton vote is over, he said he still expects to incorporate the ones mentioned at Cary into the revised plan.
As for the changes mentioned at the other meetings, Dulaney thinks he'll still be able to incorporate them independent of what took place on Wednesday.
It's clear that a lot of people are upset about the demagnetization of Broughton High School.
But as noted in today's article, there are probably going to be a number of people who are happy as well. Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said demagnetizing Broughton and magnetizing Millbrook High will have ripple effects.
First, Dulaney said someone is going to have to be sent to Broughton to help make up for the eventual loss of the 600+ magnet students. He said that group will now likely be the students from the Brier Creek area of the US 70 corridor in northwest Raleigh.
Here are a few odds and ends from Monday's CEM meeting on growth projections, the cost of reassignment and Wake's academic status.
A parent asked Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney if the current economic conditions have been factored into the growth projections used in the draft reassignment plan. Dulaney said no but that the municipalities may be updating the housing projections they provided the school system two years ago.
Another parent asked if the school district has done a formal cost benefit analysis of the reassignment proposal. Dulaney said no.
Here are a few general takeaways from Monday's CEM meeting at Broughton High School.
First, staff still plans on presenting a revised reassignment plan to the school board on Dec. 16. But it will be more of an overview with the plan probably not being posted online for the public to review until Dec. 20.
Second, Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney confirmed that staff will recommend keeping the grandfathering guidelines from last year. This will be welcome news to parents of rising 10th-graders who were worried about being reassigned to an existing high school.
