It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.

The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.

Wake County's three new magnet schools and two revamped magnet schools will look to make a splash with parents for the 2013-14 school year.

As noted in today's article, staff unveiled at Thursday's meeting of the school board's student achievement committee the magnet programs that will be offered at the five schools covered by the federal MSAP grant.

Click here for a handout on the themes at the schools and where they'd fit in the magnet program pathways.

More details to come later, but the new magnet school themes have been unveiled today for the Wake County schools in the magnet grant.

Of particular interest to a lot of parents will be an expansion of the Gifted and Talented/AG Basics program to now include Poe Elementary and Moore Square Middle as their current themes are revamped.

Poe would continue to offer Montessori for pre-K through third-grade until 2014-15 when they hope to start a new Montessori school elsewhere in Wake. Until then, GT/AG Basics would initially be offered only in grades 4 and 5.

Which Wake County magnet schools, if any, should be worrying about losing their magnet status?

During Tuesday's school board work session, Deputy Superintendent Cathy Moore said the determination on demagnetization is a longer more drawn out process that they weren't going to discuss yet. She wanted the board to focus on the adoption of the magnet principles and which schools to include in the magnet grant.

But this color-coded chart showing how the existing magnets fare under the magnet principles could give an indication of which schools might be at higher risk. Green indicates strongly aligned with the magnet principles, yellow is moderately aligned and red and white both mean not aligned.

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.

The trend of more Wake County families getting into magnet schools since the end of the old diversity policy is continuing.

School officials say 4,720 out of 8,476 applicants, or 55.7 percent, were accepted into magnet schools for the 2011-12 school year. Last year, 4,450 out of 8,732 applicants were accepted, or 51 percent.

A small part of this year's increase can be attributed to the opening of the new Wake NC State STEM Early College. But that's only 56 kids.

Should a Wake County student who gets into a fight at a school bus stop be subject to a long-term suspension?

As noted in today's article, Superior Court Judge Carl Fox ruled Monday that Wake did not have jurisdiction to issue a long-term suspension to a Millbrook High student who punched a student at a bus stop in September 2009.

Wake had insisted it could suspend students for behavior that takes place off campus, even when it's not part of a school-sponsored trip or activity.

UPDATE

Click here to view the court order.

Following intense lobbying from parents at Daniels Middle School, the Wake County school board has agreed to only reassign 73 out of 170 students into the school.

Citing crowding issues, the board agreed to move in 73 students from Leesville Middle to Daniels. But the board killed plans to move in 97 students from Centennial, East Millbrook and West Millbrook middle schools.

Staff had recommended bringing in those 170 Southeast Raleigh students both to relieve crowding at Leesville and to send kids closer to home.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The one figure that people kept repeating out of Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was 35 percent.

As noted in today's article, 35 percent is this year's gain in Algebra I enrollment under the new EVAAS placement guidelines compared to last year's total. There was a 26 percent increase in pre-Algebra enrollment. Overall, the gain for both courses was 30 percent.

"I know this is new for a lot of principals, but I want to really thank all of you for taking on the challenges," said school board member John Tedesco, chairman of the task force at Thursday's meeting. "Because of that we saw measurable gains. You can’t dispute that. A 35 percent increase is impressive."

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR THURSDAY'S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON MATH PLACEMENT UPDATE

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.