Today is the deadline for the Wake County school system to respond to the complaint that the Wake County Taxpayers Associated filed with AdvancED.

The initial WCTA complaint focused on a variety of things, including the private meeting the new school board members had with Michael Alves, the post-midnight vote on the student assignment directive and board member Jim Martin trying to arrange an assignment provision for parents going on sabbaticals. WCTA has also argued that the new board members are unduly influenced by the Great Schools in Wake Coalition.

The WCTA later amended the complaint to include the firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

How Wake's response to the complaint affects AdvancED's review of the accreditation of the district's high schools remains to be seen.

New figures presented at Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting show more than $2 million worth of additional costs associated with the choice plan.

The biggest item is $1,089,643 that staff says is transportation operational costs for additional miles per day. The money covers funds for diesel fuel, oil, tires and parts for driving an additional 13,200 miles per day "with choice plan."

When the removal of 53 buses from the road led to transportation problems at the start of the school year, Wake responded by putting most of them back in service. Wake says they've paid $840,000 for 24 additional buses and drivers.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The Wake County Taxpayers Association announced today that it had filed a complaint with AdvancED asking the accreditation organization to investigate the actions of the Wake County school board majority.

The complaint hits on a variety of things, including the private meeting the new board members had with Michael Alves, the post-midnight vote on the student assignment directive and board member Jim Martin trying to arrange an assignment provision for parents going on sabbaticals,  

Several of the allegations deal with the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, from the behavior of some members in the audience of board meetings to charges they've unduly influenced the board majority.

How will the Wake County school board, in practice, balance the competing goals in the student assignment directive of proving stability, proximity and diversity?

School board members Susan Evans and Jim Martin provided some insight of how they'll approach the assignment issue during the Aug. 21 board work session on the federal magnet school grant. The issue was over staff not recommending magnetizing Barwell Road, Creech Road and Hodge Road elementary schools because it would result in reassigning out part of their enrollments and having a negative impact on minority isolation at surrounding schools.

Some board members gave different reasons for questioning whether that concern should keep the schools from being magnetized.

Wake County school board members John Tedesco and Keith Sutton painted sharply different views on the issue of choice in student assignment and last week's board vote for staff to develop an address-based plan with a diversity component.

In this interview last Thursday on the Bill LuMaye Show on WPTF, Tedesco said that the move to a choice plan had "changed the culture" of the school system to "put the families first." He said it promoted "free market principles" by causing schools to compete to attract students.

In this interview last Friday on the Bill LuMaye Show, board vice chairman Sutton said that Wake was "too large" to have the degree of choice that was in the choice plan. Sutton said there would be "some significant changes" made when the new plan goes into effect for the 2013-14 school year.

It looks like one consequence of Wake County's controlled-choice student assignment plan is that it's impacting the racial balance at schools

As noted in today's article, an analysis of projected kindergarten enrollment data for this fall indicates kindergarten classes at 23 schools will see their percentages of white students increase by at least 10 percentage points over the 2011-12 school year. Meanwhile, the proportion of black students at schools with predominantly minority kindergarten classes will rise as well, but not as sharply.

"There were no diversity guidelines,” said education consultant Michael Alves. “Pretty much what you are looking at is the result of parental preference.”

UPDATE

For those who are having trouble viewing the Excel files, I'm adding PDF links. Click here for the 2012-13 projected white kindergarten enrollments. Click here for the 2012-13 projected black kindergarten enrollments.

How much weight should be given to the disapproval coming from the business community over the Wake County school board's approval of the student assignment directive?

As noted in today's article, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership both expressed disappointment Wednesday over the vote. During the board discussion, the Republican board members had pointed to the support both groups had provided to the choice plan, including paying to bring Michael Alves to Raleigh.

"I’m just suggesting that the option of tabling it for 60 days to allow the staff to show us potential impact, to allow the community to have greater conversation in depth on that impact would be reasonable considering the amount of turmoil we as a community have gone through over the last couple of years, the amount of investment the staff and the system has already made both financially and with time, the amount of investment the community has made with the hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Ed Partnership and other community partners," said GOP board member John Tedesco. "To move in this direction asking for 60 days I think is very reasonable."

The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce is also "disappointed" today with the Wake County school board's change in direction on student assignment.

In an email this afternoon to the group's members, Chamber CEO Harvey Schmitt writes how he unsuccessfully tried to dissuade the board from passing the directive. In that email, Schmitt told board members "we are concerned that too much time spent on options that further divide the community or add additional anxiety and unknowns to the assignment process is not good for parents."

"Additionally, we are very concerned that continued examination of an unknown number of options will erode confidence in the direction of the WCPSS and in turn impact our ability to help you gain the financial support our students deserve," Schmitt continues.

The Wake Education Partnership is, to put it mildly, not happy with the Wake County school board's decision to change direction on the student assignment plan.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Steve Parrott, president of the WEP, said they were "extremely disappointed in the decision-making process used by the school board and frustrated by the absence of a collaborative approach." The WEP was heavily involved in the new choice plan, working directly with Michael Alves.

As for the board meeting Tuesday, Parrott writes that "late-night, partisan debate is not how a world-class organization would conduct its strategic work and is not representative of the skills and behaviors demanded from our students for college and career success."

UPDATE

I've reposted the WEP document as a PDF file.

Michael Alves, whose software is being used to help implement the new Wake County student assignment plan, was in attendance at today's school board work session discussion.

Alves, who was sitting in the audience and said he was in town visiting familiy, later spoke with reporters. While acknowledging there have some issues, Alves said the implementation of the plan has gone well in Wake.

Alves said people need to differentiate complaints about not getting into one of their top choices with the way the plan was managed and implemented.

Alves said the plan has accomplished the goal of providing stability to families. He said critics have forgotten how much reassignment was an issue in the past.