It's not much of an understatement that the release of the round two results for the Wake County student assignment plan could have gone better.

As noted in today's article, the plan to get the results up by Thursday afternoon fell through. By the time it was finally up around 6:20 p.m., it was soon shut down for several hours because of glitches reported by parents.

The problems will likely give critics of the new choice plan more ammunition as they argue that it was rushed through without proper implementation.

Thre are a bunch of changes to the latest version of the peoposed 2012-13 Wake County school bell schedules.

I'll go into more detail later but some highlights include staff recommending no changes from the 2011-12 schedule to several elementary schools: Briarclff, Kingswood, Lead Mine Elementary, Lincoln Heights and Sycamore.

Davis Drive Elementary would start 10 minutes earlier and go from 7:35 a.m to 2:05 p.m. instead of the proposed switch from a 7: 45 a.m. start to a 9:15 a.m. start.

Green, Wendell and Zebulon elementary schools would still change but not go from a 7:45 a.m start to a 9:15 a.m start. They'd both now operate from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

UPDATE

Click here to view Wake's press release. Staff is scaling back the projected savings from $6 million a year to $4.8 million because the changes announced today would keep 33 more buses on the road than the prior proposal.

The revised bell schedule list was approved 6-2 with board chairman Kevin Hll and board member Jim Martin the no votes.

Martin said the new schedules should have been provided to parents before the end of round one of the school selection process.

Martin also said he was concerned that the plan has so many schools starting after 9 a.m. because of the impact on working families. His amendment to require schools that open after 9 a.m. to offer before-school care died from a lack of a second.

Are there glitches in the selection algorithm for Wake County's new student assignment plan?

As noted in today's article, some parents and school board members say the first-round results may indicate that the software from Michael Alves has produced some errors. But Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler said the algorithm is working fine and processing applications correctly.

School board member Christine Kushner said she's heard from enough parents to think there might be a problem with the algorithm, especially in cases where applicants live within the walk zones of two or more schools. In those cases, she said some applicants didn't get placed at all or wound up in a school outside the walk zone.

Some Wake County schools are seeing noticeable changes in their percentages of low-income students because of the student assignment changes adopted by the school board in February.

For instance, Davis Drive Elementary's percentage of students receiving federally subsidized lunches fell from 18.9 percent last year to 6.6 percenet this year. For Reedy Creek Elementary, it rose from 41.4 percent last year to 53.3 percent this year.

This came after the board moved what was projected to be 175 students from Davis Drive to to Reedy Creek, Combs and Smith elementary schools. The moves were supposed to to be proximity related so students would attend a closer school.

The newly adopted Wake County student reassignment plan could help produce some sharp changes this fall in the percentages of students receiving subsidized lunches at some schools.

This handout was presented by staff at Tuesday's school board meeting following a request by school board member Anne McLaurin. During the votes on the individual items, the Democrats often cited the changes in the F&R rates for them voting no.

For instance, the Walnut Creek feeder pattern moves are projected to increase Southeast Raleigh High's F&R rate from 40.2 percent this year to 50.3 percent this fall.

There's plenty of empty seats at today's Wake County school board meeting.

Only 35 of the 153 vouchers were handed out for today's meeting. That's far less than the crowds that backed up into the hallway at recent meetings.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST 

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.

Most speakers actually talked about year-round schools at Tuesday night's hearing at Leesville Road High School on school calendars.

As noted in today's article, the year-round calendars at Leesville Road elementary and middle schools dominated much of the discussion. It's a departure from the first three CEM meetings in which turnout was light and neighborhood schools and the diversity policy were discussed more than the calendar.

Both sides of the Leesville fight turned out in large numbers. They tried to out cheer each other when one of their speakers finished talking.

Wake County school board member Deborah Prickett is not giving up her quest to convert both Leesville elementary and middle schools back to a traditional calendar.

As noted in today's North Raleigh News article, Prickett said she's weighing the calendar survey results versus the school capacity situation in the area. Even though a majority of Leesville Road Elementary parents who responded in the survey backed keeping the year-round calendar, Prickett pointed to the empty seats at nearby Sycamore Creek Elementary.

“It’s important what the parents said in the survey, but I take a look at Sycamore Creek, and they’re 300 seats below capacity,” Prickett said in the article.

This month's school board election in District 7 pretty much has shown that more people opposed mandatory year-round schools and the calendar conversions than supported them.

Concerned and Committed Lessville Parents and BiggerPicture4Wake had both claimed they represented the silent majority. But as noted in today's North Raleigh News article, CCLP's side prevailed and now the question is when Leesville Road elementary and middle schools will go back to a traditional calendar.

The signs seem to be pointing to both schools abandoning the year-round calendar for the 2010-11 school year.