Gov. Bev Perdue is getting into today's first day of school festivities.
Perdue's office has sent out a media advisory announcing that the governor will mark the day by visiting Wiley Elementary School in Raleigh at 3:30 p.m. She's hoping to ride a school bus that will be taking students home. She's only staying to the first stop.
Perdue will also be joined at Wiley by State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison.
Wake County elementary students are bearing the brunt now for the state rejecting the 329 K-3 class size waivers
As noted in today's article, many of the 66 schools that had asked for the waivers are in the process of reorganizing classes to get them under 25 students. You're seeing new classes, track changes, multi-grade classes and classes consisting of children of different tracks.
Many of the schools are implementing the changes next week.
How much slack should Wake get for not meeting federal No Child Left Behind guidelines for letting parents know ahead of time that they can transfer out of failing schools?
As noted in today's article, Wake says it can't tell parents at Title I year-round schools before the school year starts that they can get out under NCLB. They're arguing the mandated 14-day advance notice doesn't work for year-round schools that start July 7 because the test results aren't back yet.
Officially at least, that doesn't cut it for the feds.
It doesn't look like state education leaders are okay with the Wake school board's request to cut the school day by a year to allow employees to serve their furlough time.
As noted in today's article by Lynn Bonner, State Education CEO Bill Harrison said "I don't think so" when asked whether a waiver would be granted to Wake. Instead, the state Board of Education adopted procedures for when employees can take their 10 hours off.
The state is saying teachers can use planning periods on instructional days so long as substitutes don't need to be hired. That could increase pressure on Wake to use the early release and early dismissal time on Wednesdays.
Education talk is the subject of the (probable) last installment of soundbites from the editorial board meeting with Gov. Beverly Perdue this month. Perdue lamented coming cuts in the state's education budget and talked of one program she will never cut: early college credits for high school students. She also talked of her decision to shift the power in the state's education hierarchy from the elected superintendent of public instruction (June Atkinson) to her appointed CEO and board chairman (Bill Harrison).
