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 board chairman Kevin Hill is defending staff members against fellow Democratic board member Jim Martin's allegations of political partisanship in the 2012-13 school bell schedules.

The issue is the changes recommended by staff, and later approved by board, to the original bell schedule proposal. In a March 27 email, Martin charged that "only schools in districts represented by Republican members of the Board were changed."

"I am not pleased with the fact that there still is too much partisanship in Board decisions," Martin wrote. " It appears to me that this is another example."

Wake County school board vice chairman Keith Sutton will face the heat as a guest at tonight's community engagement meeting sponsored by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Agenda topics will include an update on Walnut Creek Elementary School, bell schedule changes, the impact of round one of the student assignment plan on Southeast Raleigh and the school-to-prison pipeline.

The meeting comes after Sutton has faced criticism from some CCCAAC members about the demographic composition of Walnut Creek's enrollment.

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.

Bell schedules, the math placement policy, the school budget and student assignment are some of the items that could draw a lot of attention at today's Wake County school board meeting.

The school board will discuss the bell schedules during the work session and vote during the regular meeting. We'll see today whether any changes are made by staff or the board to what's in the board packet.

Based on past meetings, you can expect people to make one more pitch to change the bell schedules for the schools that would see the sharpest shifts this fall.

Will the Wake County school board make any last-minute changes to the proposed bell schedules for the 2012-13 school year?

The school board is scheduled to adopt the bell schedules on Tuesday amid lobbying by parents at some schools to modify the proposal. Staff is recommending that they continue to make the move to a modified two-tier schedule.

During his Friday's news conference, Superintendent Tony Tata hinted that more changes could come to the proposal.

Budgets and student assignment headline a long list of items on today's Wake County school board agenda.

 As noted in today's article, during the work session, staff will present recommended changes to the assignment plan based on the results of the first round of the choice selection process. The board has scheduled a vote on changes for the regular meeting.

Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler previously told the board they may recommend adjustments in four areas: whether seat set-asides should be allocated for some or all of the high-performing schools, the percentage of magnet vs. base students at some schools, options for students whose feeder doesn't include transportation and sibling priority in grades 1-5, 7-8 and 10-12.

A pair of online petitions created by parents hope to reverse actions being considered by the Wake County school board.

This online petition calling for delaying implementation of the new student assignment plan by one year has 370 signatures. The arguments in the petition should sound familiar because they're taken straight from a Great Schools in Wake Coalition paper released in January that called for a one-year delay.

These families from Raleigh's Hayes Barton community also created this Facebook group called "Real 'Choice' for Wake County Schools."

This online petition that has 296 signatures calls for not changing the bell schedules for Davis Drive Elementary, Davis Drive Middle and Green Hope High. The plan shifts Davis Drive Elementary's start time 90 minutes later to 9:15 a.m. while moving Green Hope 40 minutes earlier to 7:25 a.m. and Davis Drive Middle 45 minutes earlier to 7:30 a.m.

Some changes are being proposed for Wake County school bell schedules for this fall but it doesn't like shifting high schools to a later time is one of them.

As noted in today's article, staff revised the proposal Tuesday to reduce the number of schools that would see shifts for this fall. But the plan leaves in place proposed changes that would move more high schools 40 minutes earlier to a 7:25 a.m. start time.

Staff said that talk about starting high schools later and elementary schools earlier needs more review before it can be implemented. Click here for the staff presentation.

More to come but here's a quick recap on the revisions that staff proposed today for Wake County school bell schedules this fall.

They're now eliminating the changes that had elementary schools shift from a 9:15 a.m. to a 9:25 a.m. opening time. The new plan also only has 53 schools seeing changes for this fall with only five schools seeing shifts of more than 50 minutes.

Staff is now projecting a $12.6 million saving over two years. It's different from the one year $10 million savings mentioned before because they say Wake's transportation efficiency rating will drop this fall no matter so they'll lose some funding.

UPDATE

Click here to view the revised schedule.

Click here for the survey results.

Click here for the staff presentation.