Bus ridership times

However, there are several significant events that can signal that a kid is “at risk”. Many of those events are contained and can be resolved within the school system/district.

While I *think* I understand what you are saying, I preface my comment by admitting that I am not 100% sure, so my reply may seem tangential.

Yes, a teacher (or other system-wide mechanism of your choice) may be able to identify, corral, and attempt to address the needs of a child who appears to be at risk.

But if I may bring that full circle to my original comment, that is all for NAUGHT if the parent(s) are uninvolved and/or uninterested in doing at HOME what the teacher is doing at SCHOOL to resolve the issue(s) identified.

So, we're back at square one, in my opinion.

A child has 5 years of SERIOUS nurturing (or lack thereof) going on before s/he ever sets FOOT inside a classroom. Not to mention the time spent at home outside the classroom once they become students. Which habits do you think that child will pick up on? His/her parent(s) or his/her teacher? THAT is the problem. And even if we plan to make the school system/district/Federal Dept of Ed SURROGATE parents for every "at risk" child in an apathetic home, we're STILL ignoring the problem.

As they say where I am from... pm, Stan, Anon, and every other person who keeps harping on the same thing: "more money" --
What part of "throwing money at a problem doesn't fix it" are you not understanding?

No one -- well, no one who wants to serve in the political realm -- is willing to admit/discuss the REAL reason why HS dropout #s are on the rise.
The real reason is that we have babies having babies, we have parents who don't give two craps about the kids they bring into the world, and thus never spend time with those kids or re-enforce the importance of going to, staying in, and graduating from school. We have a society that gets its hackles raised when we want to put the onus on a parent/community to be RESPONSIBLE for the choices they make and suffer the consequence(s) for those choices, and a government who REWARDS bad behavior and laziness and penalizes good, hardworking people by taking more of their money and spreading it around in a misguided attempt to make things "fair".

Let's get real. NOTHING in this community/country/world will EVER be solved if we continue to ignore the problems that stem from a lack of morality, family, and personal responsibility, and ostensibly throwing money at these issues will not lead to some magical "healing".

why should we foot the bill

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/education/story/748683.html

Yes the school system needs money desperately BUT priorities on how it spends the money needs to be defined:

Priority

 #1 - Build enough schools to house all students in permanent buildings.

#2 - Hire enough teachers to reduce classroom sizes within state mandates.

#3- Plan to remove modular classrooms at all schools and use them for what they were intended for - i.e. unplanned growth and stop gap capacity until permanent buildings can be constructed.

 #4 - Institute a real Academically Gifted program in WCPSS, not a "on-paper" one.

 #5- Hire an independent consulting group to evaluate programs (including "diversity" busing) that are not achieving results for the populations they are suppossed to serve. Have this group report to the school board and the public on the "bang to buck" of the programs. Cut the wasteful or unproductive spending based on their assessments.

The #5 priority is because our school board is blind to anything other that WCPSS administration and Wake Partnership for Education says. If they agree to do this, maybe I would be willing to open my wallet. Otherwise forget it.

Dadof3,
Since you like bashing the BOE and WCPSS so much, you might take the time to learn that they reside on Wake Forest Rd, not Six Forks Rd. Every time you quote "circus on Six Forks Rd" and whatnot, you lessen your credibility, as it suggests you have never been to a BOE meeting or other WCPSS headquarters function involving the public.

Dadof3,   Keep right on playing your broken record about more money not necessarily equaling better education. Sure it helps, but only if used the right way, and even then, there's no guaranteed correlation.

Did you by any chance mean to put "Wake Forest Road" instead of "Six Forks"?

Bob, There is no state law banning impact fees. They can be achieved two ways. One is a direct empowerment by the state. Three counties have such empowerments for schools including neighboring Chatham and Orange. Cary and Raleigh have such fees for roads. Impact fees for water/wastewater are legal everywhere and are use by all jurisdictions in Wake County. Another route (APFO's) has been taken by eight counties including neighboring Franklin. The muni's and the county come together and enter into an interlocal agreement that allows voluntary fees to be collected. Legislative approval is not required. Union County ( next to Mecklenburg) collects over $14,000 per SF home this way. The voluntary fees are paid or site plan approval is denied. The NCHBA lobby says these fees are illegal. But none-the-less they tried to get them banned in NC by the legislature...and failed. Cary introduced an APFO for schools a few years back. The CC's would not sign the agreement and it was eventually withdrawn because of the potential legal liability. The current CC's have refused to ask the legislature for an empowerment for schools. Nor have they been willing to address the topic of APFO's. Given a CC majority favorable to the schools, likely if I am elected, I will work for school impact fees by whatever route I can get four votes.

BTW, adding to the existing transfer tax is a dead isssue politically. However, in a strong market they are typically paid by the buyer. Even in a weak market they allow you to live in your home as long as you wish without paying a cent of tax. Someday the public will see through the distortions and propaganda promoted by the NCHBA and NCAR and will see transfer taxes as a fairer way to raise money for school construction than raising property taxes. An attempt by those legislators supporting the real estate lobby to roll back the transfer tax failed in the legislature this session.

http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/poll/index.html?poll_id=5959

Mr. Hui -- how does Char-Meck School system do on their bus times. I understand that have three or 4 transportation districts, so no cross-county busing.
So much wisdom on how to run a school system from Char-Meck. Why can't the our BoE(eR)/WCPSS see the error in their ways, and adjust accordingly. "The needs of the few and privileged, outweigh the needs of the many" is not a way to run a public school system.

Bob, Your comment on comparing rural and urban counties is well taken, but note that Wake has shorter bus rides than Mecklenburg or Durham. Neither Mecklenburg nor Durham have a diversity policy, so its obvious that factors other than diversity impact bus trip times. IMO the largest factor is the shortage of capacity for permanent seats. Our capacity falls short by the equivalent of roughly 25 schools. If the funds were supplied concurrent with growth to build these "missing schools", bus trips would be shorter. Instead we build larger schools mostly by using trailers. Also average permanent capacity has crept up in order to keep administrative costs down. Note that seven NC counties have concurrency laws (APFO's) under which developers pay impact fees if school capacity is inadequate in order to get approval for their subdivisions. These counties did not get NCGA approval for their APFO's. Rather, muni-county agreements are required. An attempt by the NCHBA lobby to prevent counties from collecting APFO/impact fees was killed in the NCGA this session. Another big factor contributing to long bus rides is the movement of the population to the edges of the County. Another is the school board policy not to build schools wioth septic systems rather than sewers. This effectively means that folks living in far out unincorporated areas are often remote from schools. Averages are often misleading. What is need as a first step is to disaggregate the data. e.g. what % of the trips are longer than one hour each way and what is the primary cause of same? What % are under 20 min. each way? What % is due to the diversity policy? It seems to me that it is a much smaller % than you would believe from reading the messages posted in this blog. I agree that an hour trip to and from school is too long. But short of impact fees or transfer taxes for adding school capacity, the alternatives involve higher property taxes and greater density...and how many would support those measures?

When I had kids at Enloe High School:
6:05-6:15 AM pick up time
7:00-7:15 Arrival time at EHS
About the same time getting home, so the average time on the bus was about 90 minutes a day.
Someone also mentioned that if the F&R kids that were bused would get there just before classes started, but they had to go eat breakfast first before going to call. Wouldn't that cut into instruction time?
So many problems could be solved by breaking this Beast (WCPSS) apart into four smaller systems, or at least give the Raleigh Elites their school system back.

Don't forget, due to their addiction to tax and spend, they have to borrow $550 million dollars to pay for their entitlement habits. Once again, not only have they failed the children of North Carolina, they have failed everyone except their special interest groups.

Time for a change -- vote them out and send them all back to their plantations or beach mansions.

Kids should not be on a bus for 30 minutes if there is another school that is 15 minutes away. Period. Irregardless of their F&R fraud status.