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.

More details to come later but Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is recommending today that Alston Ridge, Highcroft, Lake Myra, Rand Road and Timber Drive elementary schools make the change to single-track year-round.

Tata said the schools would make the move as part of a two-year pilot that he estimated could save Wake $400,000. The schools are expected to all move to track 4.

Tata says they'll take steps like making allowances for families who would have been on tracks 1, 2 and 3 who had already planned to be in school in July. Track 4 starts in late July so they'll provide a trackout program.

UPDATE

The changes to all five schools were unanimously approved.

More details to come later but there's now a proposal on the table to collapse 14 multi-track Wake County year-round schools to a single track.

Superintendent Tony Tata proposed today giving flexibility to principals at under-enrolled year-round schools the flexibility to go to a single track for the 2011-12 school year. He said the principals would pick the track.

The schools identified by Tata are those that are at under 100 percent of what would be their single-track capacity: Alston Ridge, Ballentine, Banks Road, East Garner, Harris Creek, Highcroft, Lake Myra, Rand Road, River Bend, Timber Drive, Wakefield and West Lake elementary schools; and East Cary and Holly Grove middle schools.

UPDATE

Tata says he'll come back in May with a specific list of schools to recommend. While he didn't specify a number, it will likely not be all of the 14 year-round schools that are below 100 percent of single-track capacity.

Are you ready for another battle over converting some Wake County year-round schools to a traditional calendar?

As noted in today's article, Superintendent Tony Tata said he's looking at whether to recommend converting some year-round schools to a traditional calendar as part of his 2011-12 budget. It stemmed from his review on how to efficiently utilize space throughout the district.

"We can’t have 140 percent enrollment in one school and 50 percent in another school," Tata said about why he was looking at spending $900,000 to help provide teachers at 19 underenrolled traditional-calendar elementary schools. "So this an effort to make all of our schools desirable."

Rand Road Elementary School is expected to open Wednesday after students were sent home early today when the air conditioning system failed.

School officials say crews will be installing an emergency cooling unit today that should be online when Rand Road opens Wednesday morning. Crews will also begin working on repairing the malfunctioning unit.

School was dismissed at noon, school officials say, because replacement parts for the malfunctioning air conditioning system had been delayed.