Here's hoping that kids remember to wash their hands and sneeze into tissues.

As noted in today's article, school officials are urging parents to stress good hygiene to their kids to reduce the possibility of an H1N1 outbreak in school.

To help things along, Wake is among the school systems who are partnering up with health officials to offer free seasonal flu shots to students.

A not so cheerful year for traditional-calendar schools will start tomorrow.

As noted in today's article, students are returning to schools where class sizes will be up and some elective courses have been dropped. Some teachers are still out of a job and supply budgets have been sliced.

"Our parents understand where we are with this economy," said Chip Mack, the new principal of Davis Drive Elementary School.

It looks like Wake was trying to steer more people into eight magnet schools this year via the second-chance letters.

For those who might not recall, this year was the first time that people whose magnet applications were rejected were sent a letter giving them a second chance to apply to another school.

You only got the offer if staff thought your departure wouldn't have a negative impact on your base school.

More than 13,000 families filed applications for magnet schools, year-round schools or traditional-calendar schools last month, according to data released today.

School officials said 8,722 applicants requested magnet schools, with 3,848 asking for spots in year-round schools and 2,860 wanting to be in traditional-calendar schools. The numbers include those who asked for multiple categories, such as both magnet schools and year-round schools.

School administrators said they’d begin placing applicants on Wednesday.

We'll see Tuesday just how far the school board is willing to go to make it harder for some families to make it into magnet schools, year-round schools or traditional-calendar schools.

During Tuesday's work session, staff will ask the board "to identify any revisions or additional guidelines" to the magnet/select criteria. Click here for the guidelines that were used last year.

As noted in a previous post, there's been growing complaints from board members that the current magnet selection guidelines aren't strict enough.

One of the questions that parents and some school board members are asking is what's changed in the past month for Broughton High to be in danger of losing its magnet program.

After all, the school board had unanimously agreed on Oct. 21 that Broughton should keep its International Baccalaureate Program. But now a majority of board members are supportive of removing the magnet program.

School board member Beverley Clark, who is leading the charge to demagnetize Broughton, gave an explanation on Tuesday.

Some current magnet students might want to check the mail to see if they're being sent to a different magnet school next year.

Wake is revising the magnet draw areas for the International Baccalaureate elementary, middle and high schools, Academically Gifted middle schools, Gifted & Talented middle schools and Creative Arts elementary schools.

Letters are supposed to go out today to current magnet students whose schools have shifted. Everyone else will eventually be able to see their magnet options online.