The opening all new Wake County elementary and middle schools on a multi-track year-round calendar may not officially be part of the next school construction program.

This set of draft capital planning program issues approved by the school board's facilities committee on Tuesday omits any reference of opening all new elementary and middle schools on a year-round calendar.

For a comparison, look at this version that school staff presented to the school board in February. It included the wording from the agreement approved by the school board and county commissioners that was used to develop the $970 million bond issue that went before voters in 2006.

Did the Wake County school board make a mistake in 2010 by voting to open Mills Park Middle on a traditional calendar instead of as planned on the year-round calendar?

As noted in today's article, the answer was yes Tuesday from several Carpenter Elementary parents who blamed the decision to open Mills Park on a traditional calendar as a big reason why they're feeding into East Cary Middle in the new student assignment plan.

Without Middle Park as a year-round school, the plan gives the Carpenter families calendar continuity by sending them to East Cary. But parents said it's their seventh closest middle school located on the other side of Cary.

Could the development of feeder patterns be more of a hold-up on the new Wake County student assignment plan than coming to an agreement on achievement-choice schools?

As noted in today's article, staff's update on the student assignment plan included discussion on achievement schools and a presentation on sample feeder patterns. During the meeting, board members said zilch on the achievement schools but went into detail on the feeder patterns.

"We know this is contentious," Superintendent Tony Tata said to board members in response to the feeder pattern concerns. "This is high stakes. We want your feedback to make this right."

The issue of whether siblings could be accommodated on Track 4 decided which Wake County year-round schools would make the move to a single track for the next two school years.

Click here for this handout that shows how the 14 underutilized year-round schools were evaluated by staff. Inability to accommodate siblings was cited for eight of the nine schools as to why a move to a single-track year-round calendar wasn't considered feasible.

Laura Evans, senior director for Growth and Planning, said inability to accommodate siblings reflected challenges caused by moving multi-track year-round schools to a single-track calendar.

By a 5-3 vote, the Wake County school board has preliminarily agreed to go with the staff recommendation to open Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh as a traditional calendar.

Keith Sutton, Anne McLaurin, Kevin Hill, Chris Malone and Debra Goldman voted to open Walnut Creek as a traditional-calendar school. John Tedesco, Deborah Prickett and Carolyn Morrison voted to open it as a year-round school, which was the original staff recommendation three years ago.

Supporters of making it traditional cited the childcare costs on the low-income families that will make up the majority of the families at Walnut Creek. Supporters of year-round focused on the additional capacity the calendar would provide.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

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.

The first meeting of the Wake County school board's new student assignment committee has now been set for Thursday.

School board member John Tedesco, the committee chairman, said the meeting will focus on looking at a handful of node changes for the 2010-11 school year. This includes requests from Brier Creek families to be reassigned to the new Mills Park Middle School and to stay at Panther Creek High.

The meeting will take place as the final community members of the committee are being finalized. The membership so far represents a diverse mix of people, some of whom will be well known on the blog.

 SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR FINAL TWO COMMITTEE MEMBERS

CORRECTION: I HAD THE WRONG SUE KING LISTED. SEE INFO AT END OF POST.

We're now seeing seeing some of the consequences from last week's Wake County school board to convert Leesville Road elementary and middle schools and Mills Park Elementary back to a traditional calendar and to open Mills Park Middle on that same schedule.

School administrators said today they're giving parents of 4,500 Leesville and Mills Park families until March 18 to apply to stay on a year-round calendar or to attend a magnet school.

The new window for Leesville and Mills Park families means Wake is pushing back the March 18 date to let other families know if they were accepted into a magnet school, year-round school or traditional-calendar school. The new date is April 8.

UPDATE: LEESVILLE AND MILLS PARK PARENTS DON'T HAVE TO FILE A NEW MAGNET APPLICATION IF THEY DID SO LAST MONTH 

Details are still being worked out on how to accommodate the families who still want to stay on the year-round calendar now that the Wake County school board has changed schedules for four schools for the 2010-11 school year.

The school board unanimously agreed Tuesday to convert Leesville Road elementary and middle schools and Mills Park Elementary to a traditional calendar and to open Mills Park MIddle on that same calendar.

The plan is to allow families at those four schools to apply to a year-round calendar if they don't want to stay after conversion. But the mechanism for allowing families to apply still is being worked out.

There's going to be a vote this afternoon on converting Leesville Road elementary and middle schools and Mills Park Elementary to a traditional calendar while opening Mills Park Middle on that same calendar.

The Wake County board agreed during this afternoon's committee of the whole meeting to go ahead with votes at the regular meeting on those four schools. While the COW votes were only on putting the schools on the action agenda, it's a good be that they'll be approved as well at the regular meeting.

The board appeared to be willing to defer to the wishes of individual members.

UPDATE

The school board unanimously approved the four calendar conversions.