Is it a higher value for Wake County students to attend their neighborhood school or for students from low-performing nodes to be able to get into a high-performing school?

That issue is at the heart of changes being proposed to bump up the importance of student achievement in the selection process for the new student assignment plan. If implemented, the changes could result in students from low-performing nodes taking away openings at the high-performing schools from the families who live near them.

“We want to make sure that low-performing students and minority students get a good shot at some of these schools,” Democratic board vice chairman Keith Sutton said last week. “We want to make sure the plan is successful. We don’t want to create more high-poverty schools.”

Look for a protest outside outside today's Wake County school board meeting over the new student assignment plan.

Parents from Carpenter Elementary have secured a permit from Cary Police to picket on the sidewalk in front of the Central Services Building. They're coming with signs and bullhorns for the demonstration.

Several parents will also speak during public comment at the board meeting. They're objecting how the new plan has Carpenter feeding into East Cary Middle.

The feeder is supposed to provide calendar continuity for the year-round students. But the Carpenter parents say they want to go to a closer middle school. A number of families now go to Davis Drive Middle.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata has determined that school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman did not violate board policy when she got a paperwork-free transfer for her daughter.

As noted in today's article, Tata also said the investigation into Goldman's case and 14 other students who received administrative transfers shows that some changes are needed. In particular, Tata says Wake should have required Goldman to file paperwork and not just make a verbal request.

Going forward, Tata said he will require that all similar requests for administrative transfers, which bypass the normal transfer process, come with complete documentation. Tata said the onus is on the school system and not the parent, even when it’s a school board member, to make sure that paperwork is filed.

Did you know that you could bypass the normal paperwork and procedure for getting a student transfer in Wake County by appealing directly to the superintendent?

As noted in today's article, that's evidently what school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman's family did to get their daughter transferred, with bus service provided. She's one of only 15 students in all of Wake County who are attending their current school based on an "administrative transfer" approved by the superintendent.

Michael Evans, Wake's chief communications officer, said that then-interim Superintendent Donna Hargens had approved in January a verbal request from the parent at Goldman's address in Cary to transfer to Davis Drive Middle School. (He worded it that way without saying Goldman's name due to privacy rules.)

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.

I'll get into more detail later, but the Wake County school board has sharply increased the number of students under consideration for reassignment for the 2011-12 school year.

The biggest clump of additions to the plan come from agreeing to put into consideration these moves that staff said they wanted to recommend but didn't do so because it would have involved moving students who've already recently been reassigned. They're mostly involving cleaning up feeder patterns caused by the staff changing from the original three-year plan the nodes going to Walnut Creek Elementary.

Throw in a whole bunch of nodes, mostly agreed to from the Dec. 14 meeting,  that the board said they wanted to hear parents comment on. They're saying they're not necessarily going to move them.

The Wake County school board expanded the potential scope of the 2011-12 student reassignment plan but still have a lot more to discuss.

As noted in today's article, the board agreed to add for consideration a number of moves not recommended for staff for next year. These are among a list of deferred moves that were brought up in the spring.

That includes the Middle Creek to Garner High moves advocated by board member John Tedesco. Board members took the approach that they'd rather send notice to parents they're considering the moves so as to get input over the next month.

UPDATE

Wake will send notices to parents if they're in the nodes added for consideration on Tuesday. But if you want to check now, click here to find out your node number to see if you're affected.

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.

It looks like Wake County teachers want to work in more affluent schools.

The most requested schools for teacher transfers are typically those in more affluent parts of the county. Wake schools with higher poverty levels tend to see far fewer requests from teachers to work there. (The requests are made by current teachers who want to work elsewhere in Wake.)

Excluding the new schools opening this summer, the five most requested schools this year are Davis Drive Middle, Holly Springs Elementary, Salem Middle, Brier Creek Elementary and Holly Ridge Elementary.

Based on the response I got last time, I'll begin posting principal changes on the blog as well.

The school board has just announced that Karen Summers will be the new principal of Davis Drive Midle School in Cary. Summers had been slated to be an assistant principal at the new Mills Park Elementary School opening in July.

From 2006 to 2008, Summers was a senior administrator for growth and planning. Before that, she was an assistant principal at West Lake Middle School from 1999 to 2006.

Summers replaces Tina Hoots, who was recently named principal of Wake Forest-Rolesville High School.