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WakeEd
The WakeEd blog is devoted to discussing and answering questions about the major issues facing the Wake County school system as it prepares to undergo historic changes. Will the new school board scrap the diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools? Will year-round schools be converted back to a traditional calendar? How will the new board respond to growth and the school construction program?
WakeEd is maintained by The News & Observer's Wake schools reporter, T. Keung Hui. While Keung posts information and analysis on the issues, keep us posted on your suggestions, questions, tips and what you're doing to cope with the changes in Wake's schools.
Low response to reassignment plan
Submitted by KeungHui on 01/02/2009 - 17:08
It looks like the holidays have really killed response to the student reassignment plan.
So far, there have been only 383 online comments since the full plan was released Dec. 20. There have only been 108 speakers who've registered for the five public hearings.
Only 31 people have signed up to speak at Monday's hearing at Apex High School. The plan has been to split the speakers into two groups. But that assumes that more than 50 people want to speak.
You've got until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday to sign up online to speak at Apex High. You can also sign up at the door from 6-7 p.m. on Monday but you'll go after the online speakers.
Click here to find out how to sign up for any of the hearings.
To put the low response in perspective, the draft plan received 4,165 online comments during the 3 1/2 weeks it was out there.
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Comments
Traditional-MYR-Traditional Need to Speak Up!
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 17:35 — ForCryingOutLoudI hope a lot of those complaints came from the nodes assigned to Baucom Elementary (tradtional) that move on to year-round middle schools and then traditional high schools. This just doesn't make sense.
Some folks have asked why WCPSS doesn't trade the MYR middle school assignment between 2 different Apex elementary schools -- but the reality is NO ONE wants to be forced into MYR, especially at the middle school level.
When Mills Park opens in 2010-11, Salem Middle should be flipped back to traditional, and this should be announced NOW, before families apply to get their kids into Apex Middle only to have them yanked back to their "Base" if/when it is unconverted. I am all for unconverting -- just do it & let folks know!
People -- speak up!
Yes the energy has
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 12:42 — ncdad1Yes the energy has dissipated. Maybe everyone has gotten what they wanted either formally or informally. Maybe the purpose of public meetings has been realized whereby everyone has had their say now.
Most of the passion here now is F&Rs. (who are they, where do they live, how to we count them, how much fraud they commit), Disparity between school in what is offered (when, what, who, how) and the value of diversity in schools and society. Those were not the points I was expecting being generated from reassignments. Thank you for all the great information and updates.
We don't have what we want,
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 21:31 — gunfambut know that we won't at this point. I am personally not affected by the current reassignment proposal, but I continue to speak out against the constant reassignments and MYR. What I want is my current schools back to traditional - but that will not be happening anytime soon. I'm afraid people are still not happy, but when you see great proposals being presented to BOE and they ignore it and do what they want anyways - its hard to keep going.
I hope that people *do* continue to voice their concerns to BOE and hope that they will listen someday.
Glad we could enlighten you
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 19:51 — SideburnsGlad we could enlighten you so you now understand what the BoE is all about now.
>> Label children by their parent's ability to pay for lunch and use that as a basis for busing them around the county.
>> Offer hundreds of electives at ITB magnet schools and then cry disparity and complain about the lack of offerings at the rest of the high schools.
>> Tout diversity as job one but refuse to study if it is actually increasing the academic achievements of anybody.
Actions by WCPSS serve the big picture perfectly. Everything looks good on paper but, heaven forbid, don't look at the details.
You are Ill-Informed
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 14:15 — local23The reason many, many, many of us have not responded again is two-fold. One we have constantly battled this mess for over 10 years and there is usally very little change done between these hearings and their meetings. The second one IMHO is once you have responded on-line to the first time you may not be counted as a new response, but rather disregarded again. Many of us have battled this for years, so exactly what is you stance in all of this?
Many of us will continue to battle, look to Wake Cares, rally's and such, along with the future bond and board elections. The saying still holds true...People, who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!
North Raleigh
Fri, 01/02/2009 - 21:39 — loriacI don't think there's much of a surprise - first we had to quickly rally our whole neighborhood during Thanksgiving to respond to the initial reassignment draft. After seeing the final proposal sent to the school board, and realizing how much input we really had, we all decided to take a breather during the holidays. However, we have a number of speakers signed up for the Jan 12 meeting at Millbrook High School, and have been preparing for that. I hope the school board members will listen to our proposals and inject some logical thinking into this plan - Wake Growth Management is all about the numbers, never mind what makes sense.
Hope all 383 comments were from my nodes!
Fri, 01/02/2009 - 21:25 — btwalshYou're right it has been quiet on the reassignment front, but not on the home front during the holidays for all of us parents with kids out of school, gifts to wrap, secrets to keep and relatives to visit. I chose to take some time to focus on what is meaningful and positive in my life, my family. No regrets!
Nodes 383.3 and 384.4 will provide 6 of the 31 speakers at the Jan. 5 BOE hearing at Apex high. We are finalizing our presentations and have contacted the media about the 6pm student rally and Apex High's 16 new mobile classrooms. Guess what? Apex High now has more open seats (290) than Athens (167). Exactly WHY are 23 student being moved from open seats at Apex to open seats at Athens? Perhaps the BOE members will have an enlightening answer for us.
The long haul
Fri, 01/02/2009 - 22:59 — SDR256I totally empathize with you, btwalsh. Last year our holidays were completely ruined because of the reassignment mess. And we were in exactly the same place, trying to save the stability of our own homestead. I can only hope, once your story is settled for your nodes that your group will continue to fight this outrage. The node by node perspective is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a completely new solution. Look up the Comer model. You might like what you see. Until then, no one can say they won't be reassigned again NEXT year. Unless you homeschool or go private.
You definitely have the
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 08:40 — ncdad1You definitely have the best, most organized node I have seen with a very persuasive and complete proposal. While, I wish you well, I would really like to have such talented folks with us atAthens