School board votes to consider whole reassignment plan

Best advise, price low and expect to make up your loss on your next purchase. My realtor says Raleigh still has a lot of downside for this year.

Be aware though, mortgages are a bear to get these days without 20% down and good credit. MY advice, call a mortgage banker before you sell.

Good for her. She followed the policy.

From what I understand, Patti Head appointed some real doozies on BAC7.

Sure, parents could opt-out of YRs, but they weren't told exactly where the traditional alternative would be. Who would choose an unknown for their child?? Even when they did find out, some of the traditional options assigned to them were extremely far away.

Many parents bore with the hardships and kept their children in YR because the students were in special ed. classes, were autistic, etc., and moving them out of a familiar setting would have been traumatic and detrimental. There were many reasons why parents felt they had little choice but to stay in YR even though it was a hardship and not the best thing for their family.

As for minority families - in my opinion, these folks have really been "thrown under he bus" so to speak. Take, for instance, the 2006 WRAL/News & Observer poll.  When asked about YR schools, 52% of Blacks (that's the wording of the poll) and 52% of Latinos either opposed YR schools altogether or thought that they should be optional only - a fact conveniently ignored and pushed under the rug all these years, in spite of my constant sharing of this data with the "powers that be".

Also, in the spring of 2007, I attended a press conference that African American leaders held. I prefer to have first-hand accounts before I speak on things. The purpose of the meeting was to encourage members of the African-American community to return the required (at that time) YR consent forms - an good idea - and I saw and spoke with several leaders that I know. First thing, all attendees were called onto the stage to stand together in support of the WCPSS and the School Board. Some were hesitant, whispering that they only came to get information, but never-the-less felt the pressure to go forward. 

Though it was heavily implied, only one speaker actually came out and told these citizens that they must check "yes" to year-rounds. My greatest concern, however, was the heavy emphasis on this thought: year-round = diversity, traditional = segregation. It's one thing to wonder if reassignment plans will negatively affect diversity percentages. But to blatantly put the thought in peoples' minds that if they choose traditional for their child they are leaning towards the days of segregation? I have a real problem with that, and I hope others do as well. 

These parents - ALL parents - deserve to know the true facts, and to make informed decisions on their own, with no hints of coercion.

In order to comply with the law, without having a massive shift of students, the District's school officials decided to turn all public schools in Washington into neighborhood schools.
      By this time, the neighborhood around Dunbar High School was rundown.  This had not affected the school's academic standards, however, because black students from all over the city went to Dunbar, though very few of those who lived in its immediate vicinity did.
      When Dunbar became a neighborhood school, the whole character of its student body changed radically-- and the character of its teaching staff changed very soon afterward.  In the past, many Dunbar teachers had continued to teach for years after they were eligible for retirement because it was such a fulfilling experience.  Now, as inadequately educated, inadequately motivated, and disruptive students flooded into the school, teachers began retiring, some as early as 55 years of age.  Inside of a very few years, Dunbar became just another failing ghetto school, with all the problems that such schools have, all across the country.  Eighty-five years of achievement simply vanished into thin air.

Current educational fashions see parents' roles as that of active participants in the shaping of educational policy and on-site involvement in the daily activities of the schools.  Whatever the merits or demerits of these notions, that was certainly not the role played by parents of children at successful schools in the past. 

Parents today may be more educated and more sophisticated but it is not clear that their political or quasi-political involvement in schools has been a net benefit.  At the very least, history shows that it has never been essential.