Here is an early look at Bob Wilson's column in Sunday' Durham News. Tell us what you think below (with your name, so we may publish your comments in the paper) or at editor@nando.com

By Bob Wilson

The prospect of a charter high school in Research Triangle Park  has the Durham School Board in a lather, and that's good. The board and Superintendent Eric Becoats are getting an education in market-driven schools.

In other words, Durham Public Schools must learn to compete. The public schools in this city are losing their monopoly. Durham's existing charter schools already account for almost 9 percent of the city's elementary students, the highest market share in the state, according to a Feb. 1 N&O report published in last Sunday’s Durham News.

Predictably, the school board is fighting the RTP charter school tooth and claw, warning that the school will be yet another draw-down on local education funding.

Moreover, the board has thrown a hoary specter into the mix: resegregation.
That's a curious tack, considering that minorities comprise 73 percent of the student population in Durham's public schools. If that's not resegregation, what is?

The Wake County school system is taking a different approach than the Durham and Chapel Hill-Carrboro school systems in how they view proposed new charter schools.

As noted in today's article by Jane Stancill and Lynn Bonner, Durham school leaders are urging the State Board of Education to not give approval to a new charter high school that would be located in Research Triangle Park. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system is also raising concerns about a new charter school proposed in Orange County.

But Wake school officials have not submitted any response to the proposed Triangle Math and Science Academy that could open for the 2012-13 school year in the former Exploris Middle School building in downtown Raleigh.

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.”

--

Durham parents have sent out the message they don't want to emulate some aspects of Wake County's magnet school application process.

As noted in today's article by Virginia Bridges, Durham Superintendent Eric Becoats announced Wednesday that the district was putting on hold a controversial revamp of its magnet program. Durham was looking at creating magnet pathway feeders, that they called "links," that would have reduced the number of open lottery seats.

If some of that sounds familiar, it may be because Caroline Massengill, Wake's former magnet director, was paid $22,500 by Durham to help develop the plan. Massengill and Becoats said that the changes would help improve Durham's chances of winning a federal magnet school grant.

But the changes produced a parental backlash. It looks like the biggest complaints came from parents upset that the changes would reduce the number of open seats at the Durham School of the Arts.

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Is Durham Public Schools responding to the community’s call to scrap the plan to revamp the district’s magnet and school of choice program?

This afternoon DPS announced that Superintendent Eric Becoats “will make an important announcement” regarding the magnet and student assignment proposal Wednesday morning. Spokesman Jeff Nash said he couldn’t release any details. 

The briefing will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the Rogers-Herr Middle School media center located at 911 W. Cornwallis Road.

DPS released the proposal Nov. 16 with a plan to hold three public meetings before the Board of Education voted on the plan Dec. 15.  The proposal includes shifting base school attendance zones to address overcrowding, as well as a transportation component to streamline bus service, as the system prepared to open Lucas Middle School next year.  DPS officials have said they need to move quickly so the plan will be in place when the magnet application process starts on Jan. 21.

Many have criticized the proposed magnet changes and have asked the Board of Education to slow the process down to ensure information is disseminated throughout the entire community. More than 350 people attended the second of three information meetings about the plan last night. 

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Durham Public Schools and the U.S. Department of Education have reached an agreement to address a complaint alleging discriminatory practices and hostile school environments for Latino students and their families.

The agreement outlines next steps for the school district, including strengthening its anti-discrimination policy, translating report cards, and improving communication with parents who are not native English speakers.

The agreement makes DPS a better district for all students, Superintendent Eric Becoats said in a written statement. “We will continue to work side-by-side with students and families representing all cultures,” he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal complaint in May contending harassment, inadequate communication and translation services, and other issues affecting at least 6,080 students and their families who speak a language other than English in their homes.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will monitor the district until it determines DPS is complying with federal law prohibiting programs that receive federal assistance from discriminating on the bases of race, color or national origin.

Look for more on this story coming Sunday in The Durham News.

In somewhat election-related news, AdvancED will be back in town at the end of the month to assess how well the Wake County school system is doing with the issues the accreditation organization announced in March.

In the March report, AdvancED criticized the school board's governance and put the high schools on accreditation warned status. AdvancED identified seven action steps in its report and gave Wake a year to address the issues.

Ann Majestic, the school board's attorney, said a review team from AdvancED will return on Nov. 29-30 to see what's happened in the past six months. Superintendent Tony Tata has said they're seeking to fully comply with AdvancED's requested changes.

DURHAM Barbara Parker (right), principal of Spring Valley Elementary School, has been named Principal of the Year for Durham Public Schools in a program sponsored by the state Department of Public Instruction and Wells Fargo Inc.

Spring Valley's principal since 2010, Parker has worked in Durham's public schools since 1979, starting in the former county system as a special-education teacher at Southern High School. She was an assistant principal at Bethesda Elementary and Carrington Middle schools before becoming principal of R.N. Harris Elementary.

Parker spent 10 years at Harris before moving to Spring Valley, where she won a Leadership Excellence Award for the school's improvement.

For winning the honor in Durham, Harris continues as a candidate for state Principal of the Year. That winner is to be announced next spring.
 

AdvancED is showing more love to the Durham school system than to Wake County right now.

A review team from AdvancED told the Durham school board on Wednesday that they're recommending that the district receive full accreditation. This comes as Wake's high schools are on accreditation warned status.

In a blog post today, Terry Stoops of the conservative John Locke Foundation calls the accreditation of Durham's schools "meaningless." He points to Durham's performance on state exams, which is much lower than Wake's performance, to say that "it is proof that AdvancED accreditation does not mean much about the quality of the schools in a district."

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.