Which Wake County magnet schools, if any, should be worrying about losing their magnet status?

During Tuesday's school board work session, Deputy Superintendent Cathy Moore said the determination on demagnetization is a longer more drawn out process that they weren't going to discuss yet. She wanted the board to focus on the adoption of the magnet principles and which schools to include in the magnet grant.

But this color-coded chart showing how the existing magnets fare under the magnet principles could give an indication of which schools might be at higher risk. Green indicates strongly aligned with the magnet principles, yellow is moderately aligned and red and white both mean not aligned.

A partial return to letter grades in elementary school and a discussion of revising how grades are issued in middle school and high school will form part of today's Wake County school board discussion.

As noted in today's article, staff will present to the board a number of changes they want to make in a draft R&P on grading policies. It would go along with revisions they want the board to make to the grading policy.

The secondary school changes would mirror efforts begun in 2001 at elementary schools to separate out what could be considered classroom behavior from the academic grades. But the changes may be going too far for some parents and board members.

The one figure that people kept repeating out of Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was 35 percent.

As noted in today's article, 35 percent is this year's gain in Algebra I enrollment under the new EVAAS placement guidelines compared to last year's total. There was a 26 percent increase in pre-Algebra enrollment. Overall, the gain for both courses was 30 percent.

"I know this is new for a lot of principals, but I want to really thank all of you for taking on the challenges," said school board member John Tedesco, chairman of the task force at Thursday's meeting. "Because of that we saw measurable gains. You can’t dispute that. A 35 percent increase is impressive."

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR THURSDAY'S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON MATH PLACEMENT UPDATE

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.

Wake released data on Tuesday showing a majority of applicants were placed at magnet and calendar schools this year.

But the district changed the way it reported the data. You decide which way is better. (Go to the end of the post for school-by-school data.)

In past years, it was a simple acceptance and rejection rate. This year, Wake reported a placement rate instead.

It looks like Sideburns has beaten me to the punch on this item.

A Zebulon Middle School student was shot on a school bus this morning when a hand gun accidentally went off in his "buddy's" backpack. Luckily, it only grazed the student in the leg.

More details to come.

UPDATE

As an example of how serious it is, Wake has the info on its web site.