County commissioners heed Margiotta's call that Forest Ridge High is dead

Zande - you hit a good point there about property values.  My neighbor is from Charlotte, moved here two+ years ago in part to get away from the neighborhood schools there. The parents in the areas that had many schools but not enough children via proximity to fill them, in 250-500K  older neighborhoods convenient to downtown, have a different perspective on Charlotte's choice model.  Parents abandoned the neighborhood schools in an area they call the ring, which is where she lived (I take that to mean like our rim) joined together at a few select magnets, leaving the schools they could walk to at 80%+ F&R and underenrolled.  She said when she left there were 15 schools in neighborhoods like hers like that. Can you imagine 80% F&R schools in neighborhoods bordering the beltline? Can you imagine trying to sell your 4 bedroom three bath two car garage house with a 80% F&R school across the street and no opportunity for a buyer to get into a magnet with lower F&R because they are full to the brim? (It took her two years and at 82% of list price, and this was before the real estate bust).  So far she says she is hearing the exact same language and rhetoric here that she heard 10 years ago in Charlotte, and it makes her sick to her stomach. She is hoping the board will look at what happened in Charlotte and learn from it. And, this lady is as far from a racist or elitist, she recognizes the challenge of high poverty schools because she stayed in her neighborhood school for 6 years by choice, across the street from her house. She said that even with zones, there will be winners and losers within the zone. And, even in an affluent zone, one school will eventually be the"poor one" as compared to the others, regardless of housing values around it.   She said it took only one year for the affluent polarization.  Even Charlotte is back pedaling their decision now as reported in the Charlotte Observer, my neighbor still receives that paper, and she brings me articles to read.  I am waiting to see what lessons this board will learn from other areas, or if they care.  There are a lot of citizens asleep to the big picture issues, and how the ultimate decisions will affect them. You don't have to have a kid in school for this to affect you. It was after listening to her, and learning some facts about high poverty schools from my GSIW neighbor, that I starting sitting up and paying attention. So far, it seems to me the only folks that are asking "What is the big picture if we go to neighborhood schools" are the GSIW people and Wake Education Partnership people. I wish they would show how Charlotte ended up, and how the Charlotte board is rethinking their decision now. They certainly did not get the achievement they expected and they are paying more for what they did get.  They are even  closing 10 schools. Imagine. Every other organization that is backing this new board stops at "we won, now lets do it" without analyzing the ramifications for the county as a whole, as far as I can find. If somebody can direct me to information from any of these pro groups on how we won't end up with the same resulting issues as Charlotte and how, I'd love to see an alternate perspective. But I feel Charlotte is our window into the future and we should be looking.