Magnet review

My daughter was accepted as an AG Basic student at an elementary magnet school this year. We gladly accepted and she started 4th grade two weeks ago. While visiting her at lunch I inquired at the school office to find out how many magnet students are at the school in comparison to base students and to my amazement, nobody seemed willing to answer this fairly straight-forward question—I've tried the Growth & Planning department, Magnet department, and the school principal (who can only be reached via e-mail btw). My concern is that if I apply to a magnet school, I would assume the majority of the students are magnet school students. If not, I find it a waste of tax money to invest in all these programs (which I think are absolutely awesome) to just certain schools, especially considering that the scores and test result at these schools don't seem to increase and improve. Last year, this magnet school my daughter was accepted at failed to reach its goals. 2006-2007 it did not make adequate yearly progress and its designation is that of "no recognition." At the WCPSS magnet department I was told students are selected for the magnet program based upon socioeconomic diversity (then why the importance of checking your child's race on the school record forms if race is not a concern? Then why are school reports, tests, and grades broken down to race???) which they gather via real estate records. I'm disturbed that each child in Wake county has a price tag without WCPSS knowing anything about our personal and financial situations. After listening to her, at this point I would like to know the socioeconomic breakdown of the magnet students as well. Based upon the lack of response, defensiveness from all departments, and just an overall sick feeling in my stomach, I inquired about transfering out of the school and according the WCPSS Growth and Planning Dept. I was told "you can apply to transfer but chances are you won't get it because we don't transfer students after the year has begun." This answer came after she had politely told me how to apply for a transfer, which at that point seemed pretty straightforward. I went on to ask what if we moved to the school district we would like to be in as well as asking what we should do if my daughter was really unhappy at the magnet school. Her answers to me then were "if she's not happy then go back to your base school next year" and "I'm not going to answer any more of your 'what if' questions" and that she had provided all the information I needed." When I showed up at 3600 Wake Forest Rd. to fill out my transfer application about 30 minutes later, conveniently, she was not available to speak with me... For four years, we've attended one of the highest scoring schools in the county, my daughter has excelled, and never been in trouble. After two weeks here, I feel all the efforts we've done and gone through to get to this point will slowly fade away. I consider her a token applicant (she is the only white girl in her class) that was accepted to keep the socioeconomic diversity in this class (doesn't matter we live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to pay for her lunch everyday...) These magnet schools are nothing but a bandaid to try to improve the education level of high level F&R school districts. But to what results? Where is the improvement? I'd say stop wasting Wake County residents' tax money and disburse these funds equally to all other schools and stop crippling neighborhoods—what is the incentive to do better on your own or to try to break a cycle when the government can just hand it to you?

I agree with the "do not understand magnets" poster. They are "application only" schools and you have to be the right color, sex, socioeconomic statistic to even be considered.

It does not matter if your child, let's say.. wans to play violin and so you apply them to the magnet that has violin classes.... that isn't the consideration..... that child must meet "criteria" to balance out the school. If there's a high number of minority kids already in the school as a base school, and you are from the same socio economic class (race, color) you are not getting in.

How that is not illegal in a "public" school system escapes my understanding.

This is not a "fair" and equal school system.