The parents of the Breckenridge community of Morrisville have apparently won their victory with the Wake County school board.
The board preliminarily agreed today to drop the reassignment of the 220 Breckrenrdge students from Cedar Fork Elementary to Green Hope Elementary. Breckrenridge parents had heavily lobbied to stay at Cedar Fork.
The Breckenridge students have been at Cedar Fork since the school opened. When the students were reassigned to Alston Ridge Elementary, Cedar Fork was left as the traditional-calendar application school.
To relieve crowding at Cedar Fork, whose base grew by more than 117 students this year, staff had recommended making Green Hope the new traditional-calenar application school for Breckenridge. Now there are 46 students who are capped out.
The vote means they'll leave in place the cap at Cedar Fork. Staff had planned to recommend lifting the cap once the Breckrindge families left.
UPDATE
Laura Evans, senior director of growth and planning, started things off by noting how the enrollment cap has kept 46 base students out of Cedar Fork. Based on the rate of growth in Cedar Forks' base, she said she expects 100 students to be capped out by the end of the year.
Pointing to the large turnout Monday night at the Cary High reassignment hearing, board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman talked about how the Breckenridge families feel they built the school. Breckenridge has been there since the school opened and represents a large share of the PTA leadership.
"We pay taxes in Morrisville," said Robin Blanton, a Breckenridge parent on Monday. "We want to stay in our Morrisville schools."
School board chairman Ron Margiotta asked about adding more trailers because he said he doesn't want to reassign students out. Evans said they've maxed out trailer space there.
Margiotta drew groans from the crowd when he talked about raising class sizes to accommodate Breckenridge.
Evans said they would have recommended lifting the enrollment cap to bring more base students in if Breckenridge was sent to Green Hope Elementary as their traditional-calendar option.
Goldman asked if there's any way to make Alston Ridge Elementary, which is Breckenridge's base school, more enticing.
Evans said that a lot of the complaints from parents came when Mills Park Middle was opened by the board this school year as a traditional-calendar school, causing a loss of calendar match.
Evans then gave out this handout showing that Alston Ridge has the fastest-growing base of any elementary school in Wake.
Goldman said the people who opened Cedar Fork should while the new people who move to Wake should have to leave.
Goldman asked if they've heard from families who've been capped out. The answer was no but Evans said new families who may not know what's going on in Wake.
Evans also pointed to the growth in the bases of other western Wake schools.
"With no new schools on the horizon, we’re heading for trouble spots in western Wake," said Evans, who said they may need to consider converting some schools to year-round in the future.
(Expect this to be the argument used Thursday against converting Highcroft Drive Elementary, Salem Elementary and Salem Middle to a traditional calendar.)
Evans added that more than 100 of the 220 Breckenridge students who'd leave could be grandfathered to stay. But in the end, the board all agreed to drop the move from the plan.
