The WakeEd blog is devoted to discussing and answering questions about the major issues facing the Wake County school system. How much will the new Democratic majority on the school board do to undo the changes made by Republicans since 2009? Will the new student assignment plan be a hybrid of the last two models or primarily be a return to the use of busing for diversity? Who will replace Tony Tata as the new superintendent of the state's largest district? How will voters react to a likely request in 2013 to borrow potentially more than $1 billion to build and renovate schools?
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.
Teleconferencing is definitely not the best way to participate at a school board meeting.
That proved to be the case Tuesday during the committee of the whole/work session meeting. School board member Patti Head's attempt to participate via phone didn't pan out.
Head had wanted to listen in, for as long as possible, on the discussion of the magnet/calendar selection criteria. But soon after the meeting began, she was disconnected.
It looks like school board members and county commissioners are going to have to settle for being disappointed with today's media coverage of the joint meeting.
During Wednesday's joint meeting, school board member Horace Tart brought up an argument that's increasingly being used by the district and its supporters. He complained that the media reporting that nearly 25,000 students being reassigned over the next three years "isn't the whole story."
Tart argued that the "real number" being moved is 10,000 students.
It looks like the school system will be more conservative in how much money it requests from county commissioners in the new budget.
As noted in today's article, school leaders say they'd be content with getting just a $6.6 million increase from commissioners this year. That's far less than the $54.7 million increase that the school board unsuccessfully sought last year.
But also as noted in the article, Harold Webb, chairman of the board of commissioners, said it might not be possible to even give $6.6 million more. Doing so would require either cutting some other part of the budget or increasing property taxes.
The enrollment projections are being lowered again in the face of the national economic meltdown.
At today's joint meeting, school and county staff say that, for budgeting purposes, they're projecting enrollment this fall at 140,012 students. That would be a gain of 2,306 students, the smallest increase since 1990.
The growth is so much slower this fall because of the economy and a new state law that says students must turn age 5 by Aug. 31 to attend kindergarten.
It's going to be a tough love kind of meeting today between the school board and county commissioners.
As noted in today's article, County Manager David Cooke said he’ll talk bluntly to school board members as he walks them “step-by-step” through the limitations on borrowing more money in the face of steep declines in tax revenues.
“It gets down to what you can afford given the current realities of the economy,” Cooke said in the article. “It’s not that we like having to make these tough choices, that’s just where we are.”
We've got some comings and goings among principals and senior administrators.
Here's one a lot of you guys have been waiting for. Scott Lyons will become principal of Leesville Road High School in North Raleigh, replacing Stephen Gainey, who became assistant superintendent for human resources.
Lyons has been principal of Ligon Middle School since 2005. He used to be a teacher and assistant principal at Enloe High.
UPDATE
Bio sheets now at end of post.
The school board is giving in and will pay the $1.4 million cost of doing road work around Panther Creek High School in order to get permission to use 22 modular classrooms on campus.
It's a far cry from as recently as two weeks ago when the board only voted 5-4 to pay up to $750,000 for the road improvements. They unanimously agreed today that they need to get the modulars in use as soon as possible.
The money will come from savings in the Cary High School renovation project budget.
No new changes were made to the magnet/calendar selection criteria.
School board members agreed to delay the changes that were proposed today by staff. The changes were such that staff will research their potential impact before the board decides whether they may want to implement them in 2010.
One proposal from staff would be to cap the percentage of students who could leave a node or school to go to a magnet school, year-round school or traditional-calendar school.
Another option would be to leave seats unfilled at magnet schools or calendar schools if the choice is to take kids from schools with higher F&R rates or are undercapacity.
Staff is recommending delaying the opening of H6 in order to fund the renovations for Wake Forest-Rolesville High School.
Supt. Del Burns said that the Monday infusion of $100 million from the county still leaves the school district short of all that is needed. He said that some projects will be delayed.
Burns said that the Wake Forest-Rolesville High renovations should remain the top priority and be kept on schedule. But that means the other big ticket item, H6, would be put on hold.
Speaking of H6, this may finally be the day that the high school gets a proper name.
The board is scheduled to vote today on a new batch of possible names for the school, located on Forestville Road near U.S. 401 in northeastern Wake. Administrators came up with new names after board members complained about the last set.
Staff is recommending Forest Ridge High. It was proposed because of the site’s topography, its long history as forested land, and its location along Forestville Road.
UPDATE
The board adopted Forest Ridge High as the new name.
