Some Wake County schools are seeing noticeable changes in their percentages of low-income students because of the student assignment changes adopted by the school board in February.

For instance, Davis Drive Elementary's percentage of students receiving federally subsidized lunches fell from 18.9 percent last year to 6.6 percenet this year. For Reedy Creek Elementary, it rose from 41.4 percent last year to 53.3 percent this year.

This came after the board moved what was projected to be 175 students from Davis Drive to to Reedy Creek, Combs and Smith elementary schools. The moves were supposed to to be proximity related so students would attend a closer school.

The parents of the Breckenridge community of Morrisville have apparently won their victory with the Wake County school board.

The board preliminarily agreed today to drop the reassignment of the 220 Breckrenrdge students from Cedar Fork Elementary to Green Hope Elementary. Breckrenridge parents had heavily lobbied to stay at Cedar Fork.

The Breckenridge students have been at Cedar Fork since the school opened. When the students were reassigned to Alston Ridge Elementary, Cedar Fork was left as the traditional-calendar application school.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

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.

Poverty levels are up across the Wake County school system this year with additional schools having more than half of the students receiving federally subsidized lunches.

In this week's issue of In Context, the e-newsletter of the Wake Education Partnership, the WEP reports that the districtwide F&R percentage this school year is 32.4 percent. That's up from 31.2 percent the prior year.

The WEP, using these figures from the school system, also notes that 31 of Wake's 163 schools now have more than half of the students receiving subsidized lunches. That compares to 25 schools the prior year.

Today marks the start of a new calendar era for several Wake County schools.

Leesville Road elementary and middle schools will open back on a traditional calendar after having operated as year-round schools. Mills Park Elementary will make the switch to the traditional calendar after opening as a year-round school in 2009.

Today's opening of Mills Park Middle School reflects the first break with the prior board's policy of opening all new middle schools and elementary schools on a year-round calendar.

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.

The issue of calendar conversions for the 2010-11 school year could be decided as soon as Tuesday.

As noted in today's article, members of the new Wake County school board majority say they plan to vote Tuesday after they get the recommendations from staff earlier in the day on which schools to convert. They're not planning to wait two more weeks until March 16 for the vote.

"If it's on the agenda, I'm ready to go," said school board member Chris Malone on the conversion of some year-round schools to a traditional calendar.

The Wake County school board named new principals on Tuesday night for several schools.

Catherine Berry was named the new principal of Creech Road Elementary School in Garner. She's currently an assistant principal at New Hope Elementary School in Hillsborough. Her salary will be $91,591.

Mary Ellen Leach was appointed principal of Green Hope Elementary in Cary. She's been an assistant principal of Turner Creek Elementary since 2004. Her salary will be $99,659.04.

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