Is the new reassignment plan unfriendly to families?
As noted in today's article, yesterday's vote on the plan was far from unanimous. In what's become an annual event for him, Ron Margiotta voted against the plan as he accused his colleagues of not listening to parents.
"Reassignment should be used solely for the purpose of filling new schools," Margiotta said. "I can’t vote for a plan that’s so family unfriendly.”
The school board just voted 6-2 to approve the reassignment plan.
Unlike previous years, most board members chose not to speak before casting the vote. Board member Ron Margiotta and Beverley Clark tried to explain their no votes.
Margiotta accused the board of engaging in social engineering.
Clark asked that the board delay the vote a week to see if the state Supreme Court ruled on the year-round case.
The grandfathering vote was done separately and was passed unanimously.
Here's some numbers on the latest version of the reassignment plan.
The plan would move 24,654 students over the next three years, down from 25,486 students in the proposal released to the school board in December.
The breakdown works out to 9,547 students for this upcoming school year, 10,489 students in 2010-11 and 4,618 kids in 2011-12.
It looks like the school board has agreed to make at least one more change to the reassignment plan.
During today's work session, Kevin Hill, the board vice chairman, asked that they not move nodes 233.4 and 233.5 from Fox Road Elementary to Wakefield Elementary.
None of the board members objected. But rather than voting during the work session, Rosa Gill, the board chairwoman, said they might as well do it this afternoon during the vote on the full plan.
The three-year reassignment plan that the school board is scheduled to vote on this afternoon is looking like a multi-year plan in name only.
County staffers told county commissioners at this weekend's retreat that the money isn't there to fund all the new construction projects unless taxes are raised. So, barring a tax increase, some school or other capital projects could be delayed.
Any delays to the renovations at Wake Forest-Rolesville High or the construction of H6 would cause major changes to the reassignment plan. Both projects are among the biggest items needing cash this year from the county.
Are we reaching the point now that parental anger over reassignment could lead to major changes in the school system?
As noted in today's article, there are a whole lot of groups around who want to change the school system. Many of them will meet Thursday at 6 p.m. at Holly Springs Town Hall to see if they can find common ground.
"The more you impact, the more you'll alienate," said Kathleen Brennan, co-founder of Wake CARES. "At some point you'll reach the saturation point. Whether that's been reached remains to be seen."
A person who recorded Wednesday's work sesssion graciously forwarded me the audio of school board member Beverley Clark's take on the Lacy-Stough reassignments.
You'll hear her reasons for backing the moves to Stough and more about her talk with her SAS researcher friend.
Clark's decision not to push for a reconsideration pretty much took it out of play. Board members are reluctant to push for a change in another member's district if that person isn't on board.
The dffierence is shown from 2006 when Clark helped push for those nodes not to be moved from Lacy to Stough.
What could tear away a lobbyist from the opening festivities for the General Assembly?
The answer it seems is Wake County student reassignment. At least three registered lobbyists, all Lacy Elementary parents, were at Wednesday's work session to see if the moves to Stough Elementary would be dropped.
Dana Cope, executive director of the State Employees Association of N.C., was working the room to promote his new group, the Children's Political Action Committee.
UPDATE
Link for Children's PAC flier now at end of the post.
The Node 325 people have been more successsful, it seems, at getting dropped from the reassigment plan than other bigger groups.
At the urging of Kevin Hill, the school board agreed to not reassign Node 325 from Wakefield middle and high schools over to Wake Forest-Rolesville. The people in that node had been concerned they'd be overlooked because of the larger groups pushing for change in the area.
In contrast, the Bedford folks are still slated to go from Wakefield to Heritage High.
UPDATE
The board has finished reviewing the reassignment plan. Thursday's work session has been cancelled. Next up is the final vote on Tuesday.
The school board is sticking with the reassignment of students from Lacy to Stough elementary schools
School board member Beverley Clark said, after having a friend from SAS review the data yesterday, that she feels the staff data for Lacy and Stough are good. She said she wasn't going to ask for reconsideration of the moves, especially with the crowding at Lacy.
"Will the students from Lacy receive an excellent education at Stough?" Clark said during the meeting. "The unqualified answer is yes."
Clark had raised hopes of some Lacy parents on Monday by asking the board to review the school at tonight's work session.
UPDATE/CORRECTION
It looks like the board decided to move the Lacy students to Root Elementary in 2009 in all. I'm sorry about any confusion over this item.
