Should the Wake County school system guarantee bus service to all students who choose to stay on their current feeder pattern?

It's an issue in the new student assignment that the school board has been wrestling with for the past several months. The discussion got personal at times last week with board member Jim Martin, the most outspoken proponent of providing the bus service, taking shots from board members Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett.

For now, staff is continuing to review what bus service can be provided.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Wake County school officials are touting the grandfathering component in the new student assignment plan but it has some caveats.

The plan does provide grandfathering with transportation if you want to stay at your current school until you complete that grade span. The plan goes on to say that you can be grandfathered to stay in the remaining schools in that feeder pattern if you don't want what's on your list of choices.

The potential problem is you may not get transportation to go along with the grandfathering for that feeder pattern.

Here's a very abbreviated recap of tonight's public hearing at Cary High School, which drew 75 speakers.

Among the biggest contingents were those calling for Salem elementary and middle schools and Highcroft Drive Elementary to be converted back to a traditional calendar. You also had a smaller group from Highcroft urging that the school stay on the year-round calendar.

You also had a lot of people supporting reassigning Carpenter Village to Davis Drive Middle and Green Hope High. There were also several speakers who asked that Breckenridge be allowed to stay at Cedar Fork Elementary.

Next year's Wake County student reassignment plan is a work in progress with everything approved by the old school board under review with new suggestions coming in all the time.

During Tuesday's work session, Laura Evans, senior director of growth and planning, laid out to the board an explanation of the assignments being considered and the direction they're leaning toward. It will help to have your copy of the handout present.

The ensuing discussion showed how the thinking has changed to reflect the new student assignment policy. Multiple times, Evans talked about bringing students home, having them attend their neighborhood schools and moving the least number possible for stability.

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.

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.

Four year-round schools have made the list that Wake County school administrators will present to the school board on Tuesday for consideration for conversion to a traditional calendar.

The schools are Wakefield Elementary, Leesville Road Middle, Salem Middle and Mills Park Middle. Leesville Road Elementary is not in the group.

Administrators are stressing that they're not recommending that those four schools be converted. They're just saying they're the ones they think the board may want to consider, not that it will stop Deborah Prickett from proposing Leesville Elementary as well.

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 Education Partnership is speaking out about the Wake County school calendar survey results.

In this week's issue of In Context, the group's e-newsletter, they note how 81 percent of parents said they would prefer to keep their current school calendar. They also note how 94.5 percent of parents said they were satisfied with their school regardless of the calendar.