Wake County school officials are denying the assertion made in a Thursday letter to the editor that they included waitlisted students to puff up the figure that 75 percent of students got their first-choice school.

The figure came into question this week when Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler emailed a parent about the data from a March 6 handout showing all 91 rising sixth-graders who requested Daniels Middle School as a first choice got placed there. Peppler told the parent that "they had made an adjustment" so only 47 were placed with the rest put on the waiting list after talking with the principal about how many she could handle.

Peppler explained to me Thursday that Daniels was the only school from the March 6 handout that "changed significantly after we did our quality check on the numbers." Even with the changes, she said that the 75 percent figure  "hasn't changed at this point."

Peppler also said that the 75 percent figure does not include anyone on a proximity waiting list.

Wake County school administrators could present recommendations as soon as August on which schools to magnetize and demagnetize for the 2013-14 school year.

Staff will present to the school board on Tuesday this proposed timeline for the new Magnet School Review. Over the next several months, staff will make recommendations for revising magnet principles, which in turn would result in recommendations on changes to the current magnet school lineup.

Superintendent Tony Tata has talked about the need to preserve the magnet school program as an integration tool. But the role of the magnet program moving forward under the new choice-based assignment plan is still evolving.

Based on what happened after the last review, when Broughton High and Daniels Middle were demagnetized, the recommendations could generate a lot of debate.

Thursday night's community mass meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church dealt with the new Wake County student assignment plan, getting mediation for the school board protesters and assailing the conditions at Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, most the focus of the meeting led by the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition was on complaints about the assignment plan. The crowd of around 50 people, mainly supporters of the old diversity policy, were urged to contact school leaders to change the plan.

"If you let the plane fly in the air and you don’t make those course corrections that you feel need to be made in order to make it a more successful plan for all students so we have a fair and diverse and well-funded education for all students, then shame on us if we don’t advocate for the changes to make it happen," said Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

On the eve of Tuesday's election, Wake County Republican Party chairwoman Susan Bryant is railing against the "racist" News & Observer and saying that Daniels Middle School should be renamed,

In an issue of The Elephant Express this evening, Bryant explains that she's decided not to renew her subscription to the newspaper. But Bryant writes that's it not because "of the biased political reporting" of the Wake County school board runoff.

Bryant writes that the reason she's cancelling is that she learned "the other day" about the role of former N&O publisher Josephus Daniels in the 1898 Wilmington Race Riots. (I guess she didn't read the "Ghosts of 1898" series that ran in the N&O in 2006 about how Daniels worked with white supremacists to overthrow Wilmington's fusion government.)

Most of the 28 speakers at Thursday's public hearing wanted the Wake County school board to make changes and/or delay a vote on adoption of the new student assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, several speakers referenced Tuesday's election results that brought in three new school board members and could result in a new Democratic majority taking office Dec. 6. Speakers asked for a delay until November or December.

"If the board is willing to wait one month until after we see what the results of the next election are, Mr. Hill’s seat, I believe that the board will begin to come together in a much more dignified way and that the decision that is made will reflect the will of the entire community and not just a narrow majority," said the Rev. Tom Rhodes.

Wake County school administrators are dialing back their recommendations to have K-12 magnet feeders as part of the new student assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the revised draft feeder plan list posted on Monday includes a number of changes requested by parents. Those parents mounted aggressive campaigns to keep their existing feeder patterns as opposed to being put in new ones that would have them go to magnet secondary schools.

Some of the most vocal opposition came from families at Brooks, Douglas and Joyner elementary schools. They wanted to keep their historic feeder patterns that had them going to closer non-magnet secondary schools.

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."

There are some interesting facts when you look at which Wake County base schools lost applicants to magnet schools for the 2011-12 school year.

A lot of Walnut Creek Elementary families took the advice of supporters of the old diversity policy who urged them to consider applying out based on the high percentage of F&R students on campus. The data shows that 55 out of 141 magnet applicants from Walnut Creek got accepted.

At nearby Barwell Road Elementary, you apparently had a lot of families who didn't want to hang around and see how it would fare under the new Renaissance Schools Model. You had 80 out of 229 magnet applicants get accepted compared to 35 out of 149 last year.

The Wake County Democratic Party has officially kicked off the campaign season with the goal of reclaiming the majority on the school board.

As reported today in the Raleigh Public Record, "the message from party leaders and members [at Saturday's Wake County Democratic Party annual convention] was clear: This year’s election is about schools."

"The convention began with a two-hour training called Take Back Our Schools — a primer on how to lead a successful grassroots campaign to victory in October," according to the article.

The placement guidelines are staying the same but the training and explanation of the role of teacher judgment is changing for advanced middle school math classes in Wake County in the 2011-12 school year.

Ken Branch, senior director of middle school programs, explained today to the school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force that they don't have the data yet to make changes to the placement guidelines. But they are putting more details into the placement guidelines to make it clearer to teachers, parents and students.

But Branch also said that they're making it clear to teachers that professional judgment will only be used to place students into the courses who might not be considered ready by EVAAS. That could address concerns that some teachers have used their judgment even under the new guidelines to keep kids out who are considered by EVAAS to be ready.

UPDATE

Click here to view the 2011-12 placement guidelines. You'll see how much more detailed they are than the 2010-11 guidelines.