Durham Public Schools Board of Education members will decide Thursday how to open a new middle school and close two others.

After shelving most of a controversial district-wide magnet plan last week, school board members must address three pressing components at their 6:30 p.m. meeting: 1) how to populate Lucas Middle in the 2012-13 school year, 2) closing year-round Chewning Middle School and 3) closing arts magnet W.G Pearson Middle School.

Superintendent Eric Becoats presented two student assignment plans for Lucas.

Option A has 70 percent of its population coming from its assignment district and 30 percent from a magnet lottery for the International Baccalaureate program. Under the proposal, no more than 10 percent of applicants would be assigned from any elementary school, and Lucas would not open with an eighth grade for the 2012-13 school year.

Option B for Lucas has 100 percent of its enrollment coming from its assignment district.

School board members are unsure if IB is the most appropriate magnet addition in northern Durham or if they should build a strong base middle school customized to the surrounding community’s vision.

School Board Vice Chairwoman Heidi Carter said she's leaning toward option B because it would buy the system more time to determine the most appropriate direction to take the school.  

The second and third components of the plan focused on phasing out Chewning and W.G. Pearson middle schools.  Under the proposal, year-round Chewning would operate on a traditional schedule next school year and serve only eighth grade.  W.G. Pearson Middle would serve only seventh and eighth graders in the 2012-13 school year.

The school board discussed whether students leaving those schools should get priority in the magnet application process, and if enough students would remain at the schools to justify keeping them open.  Some of the unintended consequences could include limited course offerings and resources, and school board members asked whether students would really want to stay under those circumstances.

“These are hard decision that we are going to have to look at,” said school board Chair Minnie Forte-Brown. “But we have to look at what we are doing in terms of making a difference and making it equitable for all children.”

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From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Durham Public Schools moved one step closer to district-wide accreditation this week with a review that commended the system for making key strides, while calling for it to address resource and achievement disparities in schools.  

Today, a 13-member panel of educators from across the nation recommended that AdvancED grant DPS district-wide accreditation. Last school year, DPS commissioned AdvancED, a Georgia based nonprofit, to audit the system in the accreditation process that includes a self-assessment and a 3 1/2 day external audit by the team of 13 educators.

School Board Chairwoman Minnie Forte-Brown describes DPS’s application for accreditation as a bold move. “To have an external review team come here and look at what we do and tell us openly and honestly, what it is we need to work on, where we are not, where we want to be,” she says. “We are going to do right by our children.”

The team visited 12 schools and interviewed 570 stakeholders, from board members to students, Monday and Tuesday. The team rated the district “operational” – the third highest rating out of four – in all seven of its evaluation standards.
 

Durham Public Schools' board of education unanimously re-elected Minnie Forte-Brown and Heidi Carter as chair and vice chair, respectively, for next year. The pair have been members of the school board since 2004.

Forte-Brown is a Durham native and Hillside graduate, who currently serves as coordinator of speech communication and an English professor at NCCU.