The school poverty gap between Wake and Charlotte now stands at 20 percent.

As noted in today's Charlotte Observer, Charlotte-Mecklenburg's percentage of students receiving federally subsidized lunches this school year is at an all-time high of 51 percent. In Wake, the percentage of 31.2 percent is also an all-time high.

Supporters of Wake's diversity policy warn that abandoning it could hasten white flight and produce Charlotte-like poverty numbers at more schools. But critics of the diversity policy note how Charlotte is outperforming Wake among low-income students on state tests.

There's some good news for families today.

Don Haydon, chief facilities and operations officer, said today that Wake will not raise school meal prices for the upcoming school year. In December, staff had warned that increases would be likely for the 2009-10 school year.

“[Marilyn Moody, senior director for nutrition] thought this would not be the time to tax people with another meal increase," Haydon told the school board.

Haydon said that child nutrition will dip into its reserves again to make up for the deficit at the end of this fiscal year. 

If you missed last week's article, Wake may have to raise school breakfast and lunch prices.

Food and labor costs are going up, according to Marilyn Moody, senior director for child nutrition. She said there's also been a big drop in sales of a la carte items, the things that balance the budget.

But the reason that drew the most questions at a school board committee meeting earlier this month is that more families are applying for federally subsidized lunches.

So what do you guys think of the new reassignment plan?

Click here to view the plan. Click here to download the 740-page PDF of the plan, sans map.

As some of you have already noticed, the LI (low income) percentages at high schools are way higher than what's normally reported.