Defending Wake's handling of No Child Left Behind

School board members and administrators managed to simultaneously defend their handling of No Child Left Behind choice requirements while also acknowledging they can do some things better.

Recent stories have questioned how Wake isn't providing the advance notification required under No Child and is forcing parents to return to their old failing schools and reapply to get back out.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said Wake is following all federal guidelines for No Child Left Behind.

The issue came up Tuesday because the board had to officially vote on the options for the 15 Title I schools that need to allow choice for this school year.

Dulaney said the district was "actually jumping the gun" by asking the board to vote on the choices before the official AYP results come out Thursday.

Board member Ron Margiotta questioned why they couldn't provide transfer options sooner to parents.

Dulaney said they can't give options until they get the AYP results to see if a school might be in "school improvement" (aka not make AYP). For instance, he said that Wilburn Elementary had been one of the schools that had been required to provide choice in 2008-09. But it's out of school improvement status and is now a transfer choice for Hodge Road Elementary.

But Dulaney acknowledged they could have acted sooner with a school such as Barwell Road Elementary that would have been in school improvement no matter what happened this year and thus would have been required to provide transfer options.

The issue soon turned to why parents who had taken advantage of the transfer options last year were sent back to their old failing schools for this year.

Dulaney responded than any parents in the above category could have filed a transfer request to stay at their choice school for this year. He said they would have approved that request automatically.

(The drawback from the transfer here is that those parents who had gotten transportation last year would have lost it for at least the start of this school year. They would have gotten transportation if Wake decided to provide it to that school for this year.)

Board member Horace Tart asked if it's true that people were told they had to return to Barwell.

Dulaney responded that "at no time" did anyone on his staff tell parents they had to stay at Barwell. He said they could have asked for a transfer after the assignment slips went out May 15.

The answers so satisfied board member Beverley Clark that she said Supt. Del Burns should write a letter to the editor in response to the recent articles.

What next emerged was the discussion of how Wake handles the issue of transportation for families who use the transfer choices. The federal guidelines say that districts "must provide, or pay for the provision of, transportation to and from the school of choice."

Dulaney explained that what Wake does is provide two choices.

Dulaney said they'll then poll the parents about which school they'd prefer. But in the end, Dulaney said they'll only provide transportation to one of the two choices.

Dulaney said that, when it comes to the choice not getting transportation, a parent can still ask to attend that school. But he said that would be handled as a discretionary transfer request that can be denied.

Here's an example of how it's playing out.

Dulaney said 85 Barwell families had indicated they wanted to leave the school, with 50 listing East Garner Elementary as their choice and about 30 for Swift Creek Elementary.

Dulaney said they decided to provide transportation only to East Garner in part because it's a shorter distance than Swift Creek to Barwell's attendance area. He said about 30 to 35 students accepted the offer to go to East Garner with transportation.

Dulaney said they'll review transfer applications from Barwell families who want to go to Swift Creek.

Tart asked if Wake is under federal investigation.

Dulaney said he believed they're following all federal guidelines. But after getting an opinion from the state Department of Public Instruction, he said they'll modify guidelines next year with some form of notification letter going out the spring.

This earlier notification would likely only apply to schools that would be required to provide choice no matter how well they did. Once a school is sanctioned under NCLB, it has to pass for two years in a row to stop providing transportation.

Dulaney said the problem is that parents don't realize there's a difference between getting a choice and getting transportation.

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