How do you explain Wake County's new choice-based student assignment plan to realtors?
That will be Wake Superintendent Tony Tata's job on Friday when he gives a presentation to the Raleigh Regional Association of REALTORS. According to a press release, Tata "will discuss the new choice based school assignment plan and ways that REALTORS can be best informed and assist their clients."
"We look forward to hearing from Mr. Tata and exploring ways the REALTOR® Community can partner with Wake County Schools," said RRAR president Linda Trevor in the press release.
Real estate agents were frustrated by the old node-based plan. But whether they'll find the new one any easier to explain to customers remains to be seen. The meeting is only open to RRAR members.
Comments
Not just realtors
Fri, 12/16/2011 - 12:44 — awake1In addition to realtors, I think the superintendent needs to spend time coaching non-magnet schools on how to attract students and parents. Magnet schools are accustomed to promoting their schools to attract applicants, but for non-magnet schools, this is unchartered territory. I have a rising 6th grader and we have been on 4 school tours – 1 magnet and 3 proximity/non-magnet schools. The tours at all 3 non-magnet schools were solely focused on how 6th grade operates, which was great, but none offered us information that would help us decide which school is the best fit. Other than the obvious differences in the school buildings, the schools seemed basically the same to us, so we didn’t find the tours very helpful in our decision-making process. To us, there wasn’t much value in touring an empty cinder-block school building, guided by one school administrator.
Ripples
Sat, 12/17/2011 - 13:54 — turnerk1I'm sure that there will be many unforeseen consequences of the new plan. Perhaps learning how to sell their school will be a good lesson for staff at understanding just what does make their school special.
Brassfield will really confuse them
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 18:48 — sam123456Can you imagine a realtor trying to explain this to a prospective buyer -- "you should definetly buy this house. It is a great price and in nice neighborhood. As a bonus since you have a child in high school she can go to Wakefield High, and yes your middle school son can go to Wakefield Middle and then to Wakefield High. Oh and your youngest son can go to Brassfield but he will be forced instead to go to West Millbrook Middle and Millbrook High schools." My guess is that prospective buyer will look at homes in Chapel Hill. Down go our property values...
Have you contacted Mr. 'Stuck in the Past' Hill?
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 20:54 — FSandYOUDoes he plan to address your concerns or is he like the rest of them refusing to even discuss the issues THEY created over this new plan?
After talking to some others the thought is they are going to ignore it all until parents have picked their schools. Once all of that is finalized then they'll do like those they worship from the previous, previous board and make changes. After they see which schools are full and have to be capped.
On the bright side, this should helped keep growth to a crawl for at least the next several years.
The old plan was easy to
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 18:03 — mnordbergThe old plan was easy to explain. Put the address in and you go to the school assigned or possibly the alternative calendar option. If you don't like those, apply to magnet. It was pretty deterministic.
The new plan is relatively easy to explain as well. Put address in, you get a list of schools to choose from. Not as deterministic as before but essentially, you rank your schools you want to go to from 1-5 and then the school system puts you where there is space. And then based on that you go to MS and HS based on ES choice or HS based on MS choice. And if you don't like those, apply to a magnet.
What is harder for realtors to explain is that you can't really tell the client where they are going to school for sure as some schools in a certain node may be full and you get 2nd or 3rd choices because new people moving in will be last in line as the school year already started and wait lists exist. So I don't think the problem here is the ease of explanation, it is the difficulty in selling houses with uncertainty of school.
I'm guess they'll just go
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 17:27 — shearertwI'm guess they'll just go back to their old explanations of:
"Don't worry about the school your home is assign to, it will change next year anyway."
and
"MYR is wonderful. Everyone I know loves it. If you just have an open mind, I'm sure you'll love it too. Just think of all those vacations to Disney World you can take during the off season."
...
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 17:13 — SideburnsReal estate agents were frustrated by the old node-based plan.
Oh, c'mon. Anne Sherron loved it. I'm sure she made oodles of money off of it.
Oh this will be good
Fri, 12/16/2011 - 09:34 — FSandYOUOnce the realtors hear the plan they'll be as confused as the parents. Then I have no doubt they will continue to avoid discussing schools with those who "aren't from around here" just as they've done for years.
He'll also need to alert them that the new board has said they will tweak this plan. But will he tell them that as of Friday the new board has failed to even schedule a work session to discuss what they will change?
32 days and counting before choice #1 fills up and schools get capped. Realtors are going to love that!