The lobbying and negotiating over what projects to include in the next Wake County school construction bond referendum is already in progress.
As noted in today's article, the scenarios presented Wednesday range from $609 million to $2.3 billion. It's understood that the $2.3 billion, which lays out all the district's needs, isn't going to happen.
The question is which projects to still fund in a reduced bond amount.
You may not actually live in the walk zone after all for the Wake County school you're now in or hope to attend.
As noted in today's article, Wake is using different mapping data for student assignment that what's currently used by transportation, Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler says they're using the most up-to-date data to determine how far students live from a school in the student assignment plan.
The new data means that some students who thought they'd get the walk-zone priority in the assignment plan are not now. That's a big deal because families who live within the 1.5-mile walk zone had a lot more success getting into a school than other applicants.
There's some good news and bad news for parents about potential changes in the Wake County student assignment plan.
Staff is recommending today that North Ridge Elementary now feed into Sanderson High instead of Millbrook High. Staff says there's capacity at both schools and it will free up more magnet seats at Millbrook, create more seats for students who live near that school and still give proximity priority to some North Ridge families who want Millbrook to Sanderson.
Staff said they can't recommend the proposal from parents to do a 40-40 split for both high schools or sunset current North Ridge students because it would set a precedent they'd feel would have to be offered to families at other schools as well. They said offering a mix of base assignments with a choice plan got Charlotte-Mecklenburg in trouble.
UPDATE
The assignment plan was approved as recommended by staff with no changes.
Some Wake County parents upset about their proposed feeder patterns have room for hope.
Wake Superintendent Tony Tata told school board members on Tuesday they're mindful of the situations at elementary schools that currently feed into multiple high schools. Since the new plan calls for one high school for each elementary school, the potential change in high school assignments has riled a number of families.
Tata singled out the example of North Ridge Elementary School, where about 44 percent of students eventually go to Millbrook High and 41 percent eventually go to Sanderson High. He said they're working to modify the feeder patterns for those kinds of cases.
Wake County school officials announced today that an additional meeting on the student assignment plan has been scheduled for Monday at Millbrook High School.
No reason was given for the Millbrook meeting. But the revised feeder patterns released on Monday made a pretty substantial change to Millbrook's feeder pattern.
Before Monday, staff had proposed that Douglas, Fox Road, Joyner, Millbrook and North Ridge elementary schools feed into Millbrook High.
But following parental complaints, the base students from Douglas and Joyner were dropped from the recommendation. Staff replaced them by adding Baileywick and Brassfield elementary schools to the feeder pattern.
The Wake County school board appointed four principals on Tuesday.
Ritchie (Malik) Bazzell was named principal of the East Wake School of Integrated Technology in Wendell, with a salary of $82,565. The former Wake County teacher an assistant principal has been principal of the Anacostia High School Turnaround Project in Washington D.C. since 2009.
Dell Edwards was named principal of West Lake Middle School in Apex, with a salary of $104,438. He has been an assistant principal at Lufkin Road Middle School since 2005.
