Is it a coincidence that right as Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is about to present the new student assignment plan his staff is touting fuel savings?
In a school system press release this morning, staff is saying that taxpayers could save almost $600,000 this year because of a "timely" bulk fuel purchase by the Transportation Department.
Here's the press release:
The spinning is going on about how much transportation costs will be impacted by Wake County's new student assignment plan.
School administrators said Tuesday that it could could cost five to 25 additional buses because of the grandfathering that will be employed over the next few years as the plan is phased in. Administrators said they expect costs to drop below current levels once the grandfathering of current students ends.
In a blog post Wednesday, Matt Ellinwood of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch cited the transportation analysis to mock critics of the old diversity policy.
CORRECTION
The blog post was written by Matt Ellinwood.
How much of an impact would going to express busing only for Wake County magnet schools have on the program?
As noted in today's article, Superintendent Tony Tata and school board vice chairman John Tedesco don't think the potential change would have too much of an impact. Tata pointed to the recent online test drive in which more than 70 percent of participants said only having express busing wouldn't discourage them from attending magnet schools.
Tedesco pointed to how the magnet school program still turns away a few thousand students each year. Even if fewer applications come in, he said he doesn't expect the use of express busing will cause them to have fewer applicants than seats.
SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST
Wake County magnet school parents are not going to be happy with the latest proposal being considered by Superintendent Tony Tata.
Tata said at his weekly news conference today that he's directed staff to look for ways to reduce the length of bus rides to no more than an hour. He called it a "serious contending proposal" that he's looking at going to complete express bus service for magnet schools to accomplish that goal.
“We’ve got to find a way to decrease the time a student is on a bus,” Tata said at his weekly news briefing. “Being on a bus two hours is ridiculous.”
SEE END OF POST FOR LINK TO TRANSPORTATION HANDOUT
Wake County school board candidate Jennifer Mansfield is urging the school board to halt work on the new choice-based student assignment plan being developed by staff.
In a press release today, Mansfield said she's issued an open letter to the school board asking them to "begin looking for an alternative assignment model that addresses the needs and desires of Wake County residents." She says it's "clear that this plan will not be ready for implementation in a few months as planned."
"After the never ending controversy and upheaval we experienced with previous assignment policy, it should be clear to you that any new assignment plan must have transparency to be successful," Mansfield says in the press release. "Under this controlled choice model, parents may not get their first, second or even third choice in this plan and they will never know why.”
The Cary era of the Wake County school board officially starts this afternoon with the first meeting at the Crossroads I Building.
The new board room and conference at 5625 Dillard Drive both hold more seats than the former digs at Wake Forest Road. But there are also sight-line issues so monitors have been placed around the board room for people who will have a hard time seeing the board table.
The work session agenda appears to be much meatier than the regular meeting agenda with topics such as student assignment, the Hilburn Elementary conversion, the new middle school math placement policy and school bus travel times.
SEE UPDATE ON HILBURN AND REJECTION OF THE LAND SALE AT END OF POST
How significant is it that the overwhelming majority of people who've participated in the test drive of Wake County's blue plan seem to think that proximity is important?
As of Monday morning, 88 percent of the participants answered that having their child attend school as close to home as possible was somewhat or very important. It's one of several questions people can answer, in addition to making simulated choices, before the test drive ends at midnight tonight.
School board vice chairman John Tedesco said the responses indicate that parents back the changes in the student assignment policy.
Here's how Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata plans to avoid having to extend the school year by five days.
Tata will ask the school board tomorrow to modify the 2011-12 bell schedules to add 10 minutes into the school day. Every school would start five minutes earlier and end five minutes later as part of a plan to add 25 hours of instructional time.
The revised bell schedule would then be submitted to the State Board of Education as part of a request asking for a waiver from the new requirement that schools add five more days into the school year.
How far should grandfathering be extended in the new Wake County long-term student assignment plan?
Both the blue and green plans would guarantee that everyone who is already in a school for 2011-12 gets to stay there in 2012-13 and through completion of that grade span if that's what they want.
But that doesn't automatically extend to the existing feeder patterns. So a student who completes that grade span would not necessarily feed into the same middle school and high school that they'd have gotten in the 2011-12 school year.
The discussion of the blue plan being used for Wake County school assignment also got detailed Monday.
Once again, start with this handout. Let's start with the clarifications.
One, everyone who is already in a school for 2011-12 gets to stay there in 2012-13 and through completion of that grade span if that's what they want, even if it's not on their "list" of choices. (Grandfathering is also provided in the green plan but some people were concerned about the blue plan more because you're more likely to see changes in choices.)
