It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.
As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.
The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.
The 1,479 figure is based strictly on reassignments of base nodes from the 2011-12 school year to the 2013-14 school year.
Lynn King, a North Raleigh parent, argued that the 1,479 figure is too low to reflect how many students are actually affected by the plan.
In her case, King has a sixth-grader at Wakefield Middle School and a fifth-grader at Pleasant Union Elementary.
Under the choice plan, the feeders for Pleasant Union were set at Wakefield Middle and Wakefield High.
The return of the 2011-12 base maps means her feeders go back to being West Millbrook Middle and Millbrook High.
King complained about how her children now could end up in two different middle schools and her son, who she said is "established" at Wakefield could now have to go to Millbrook High.
King asked the board to keep the choice plan feeders for middle and high school for families who are already following them. She said that younger siblings entering middle school and high school next year should be allowed to go to the same school that they're older siblings are enrolled in without having to go through the application process. She also said they shouldn't make changes this year if they're going to have a new plan in 2014-15.
Staff has said they'll try to honor the choice plan feeders for next school year. They've also said that siblings entering k, 6 and 9 will be guaranteed to be in the same school as an older sibling if they file during the first transfer period.
“We don’t need a temporary plan followed by another different plan," King said. "We need stability. Our children need quality education and you have been giving them schools that are not accredited.
Our children need stability and you’re currently giving them chaos. Our children need caring, committed leaders and you are giving them selfish politics.”
For the Durant Trails families, reassignment was a frequently used term although they're not considered to be reassigned by the district.
"Reassigning our neighborhood to Rolesville Middle School and to Wakefield Elementary School, which is over 9+ miles away, will tear our neighborhood apart even more," said Sue Reynolds, vice president of the Durant Trails Homeowners Association. "This is not why I moved to Raleigh five years ago.”
Even though Durant Trails is right next to Durant Road elementary and middle schools, their bases in the 2011-12 school year were Fox Road Elementary and East Millbrook Middle. But they've been able to apply to Durant Road as their year-round calendar options.
The 2013-14 plan changes their year-round calendar options to Wakefield Elementary and Rolesville Middle.
"Why send these kids on buses 10 miles away to Rolesville?" asked Bennette Arnold, president of the Durant Trails Homeowners Association and the parent of a rising sixth-grader. "It doesn’t make sense."
At the same time that the year-round options are changing for Durant Trails, a similar action is taking place in the Wakefield area.
At least some Wakefield families who had applied to Heritage Middle School in the past for their year-round option are now being told their new choice is Durant Road Middle. Part of the reason for that is Heritage is one of the proposed full-cap schools that wouldn't be taking non-base students.
School board vice chairman Keith Sutton said he hadn't known about the Durant Trails issue before the hearing but it's something they'll see if they can fix.
Comments
This reassignment is bigger than it appears
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 10:39 — CaryMomof4I just realizaed that this is a bigger reassignment than what the board has led the public to believe. Yes, they did return us to our base nodes from the 2011-2012 school year, but they have changed the calendar options for many people, and I don't think the public realizes that. We are voluntary YR and I just found out last night that they have changed out YR middle school option from what it was in 2011-2012. I live in Cary and knew that our base would not need to be adjusted to fill the new school in North Wake (and my kids will "stay where you start for the next 2 years so it wouldn't affect me anyways) so I never even bothered to use the address look-up because I thought I knew what we were returning to. That 1500 number only includes BASE reassignments. No where have they published the fact that there are so many CALENDAR OPTION reassignments. If you think you know what your calendar options are, you better check again.
"They"?
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 20:41 — realisticThe BOARD did not design this plan. The gave a directive to go back to the 11-12 base assignments, and open up new schools with bases, and work out the new magnets' bases. STAFF made the feeder changes, and the board is holding meetings to hear from the public regarding those changes. The board learned of the feeder changes for year rounds at the same time the public did - at the work sessions when the plan was presented.
The directive said nothing
Sat, 12/01/2012 - 00:14 — CaryMomof4The directive said nothing about changing calendar options. I really don't care who "they" is. It has not been publicized that those changes have been made and many people are not aware. For people who have chosen calendar options it is a reassignment and should be included in the published number.
As far as feeder patterns go,many feeder patterns have changed. Our middle school, East Cary, will now feed to 7 high schools instead of the 2 we were promised when we chose this school. How do you think that will effect enrollment? Would you choose this school if you knew that your child's classmates would be scattered to 7 different schools is a few years or would you return to /stay at base? It is currently at 57% capacity. This plan will only serve to increase under enrollment at that school.
...
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 23:19 — SideburnsLOL. When the directive was approved under Tata's leadership, the Board majority/GSIW blamed him for what staff came up with based on the Board's own directive. Now you're blaming staff?
The June directive approved by the Board majority set the new parameters -- for the "stopgap" plan for 2013-14 and for multi-year plans after that. Obviously, adjustments had to be made to feeders, calendar options based on this new directive. In essence, the Board DID design this new plan
Do you recall a reassignment that wasn't bigger than they claim?
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 13:29 — ForEquityI can't. We are back to the future. Unfortunately, we can't reset the future and unelect those elected in 2011. We are stuck with them, their lies, their bad behavior, their bad decisions, their lack of accepting accountability, their egos, their smoke and mirrors, their lack of transparency, their tone-deafness, their lack of experience in and caring about the non-magnet world and their lack of leadership skills.
What the democrats who decry
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 11:18 — WakeCtyMomWhat the democrats who decry the choice plan don't seem to realize is that we've ALWAYS had a choice plan. Address based assignments are a choice plan for the rich. The wealthy can buy any home in the district they want and can even move when the assignment changes if they choose to. They can choose to attend private schools if they don't like public. They can choose to move to another county. The choice plan was actually a way to even out the playing field and provide all families with the choices that the wealthy have enjoyed all along.
I sincerely disagree with a point you made
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 20:52 — realisticPriority was given to proximity in the Choice Plan. How does that not give favoritism to those higher income neighborhoods to attend one school together? Only if the Choice Model algorithm included economic balance (it did not) would it have been a way to even out the playing field, as you put it. Now, with a more liberal transfer policy, anyone can ask for any school - even a poor child wanting to go to a rich school (continuing your language). I find your thoughts intriguing - do you support saving seats for poor children to transfer into rich schools? Just curious. We already have non-impoverished children choosing schools in predominately poor areas. Why not the reverse?
Good point. I would add that
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 12:13 — jenmanGood point. I would add that our magnet selection process has favored the affluent as well. They got the ultimate choice--great neighborhood school and first dibs on magnet seats if they lived in the right neighborhood.
Doesn't make sense...
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 09:53 — Bob_SconceI used to live in Durant Trails -- those schools are within walking distance; there's even an entrance from Durant Middle into the Durant Trails subdivision. It's asinine to assign them to a different year-round school.
Yes, it makes no sense at
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 12:10 — jenmanYes, it makes no sense at all to send Durant Trails to Wakefield ES and Rolesville MS. Was somebody else given the Durants as their yr choices instead of Durant Trails?
Yes, the Durant schools are
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 12:14 — WakeCtyMomYes, the Durant schools are still calendar options for other schools much further away (like Green).
I forgot about Green
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 12:20 — jenmanI forgot about Green switching to trad. Are there any other new areas being given Durant as their YR option?
I know that Durant is one of the choices for some of the capped schools (Lacy is the only one I can remember right now), but does anybody really think that any of those families will choose to go to Durant?
Of course school board is burying the lead
Thu, 11/29/2012 - 09:05 — mnordbergof course they are burying the lead. They are only forcing 1500 students to be reassigned via the node changes but there are many more being impacted by yet another feeder and base node assignment so you have to throw all those people into the equation on this new plan will mean their kids go someplace different than last year. Every school board in the last 5 years has been hiding the facts and not being transparent about it. And again this is a temporary 1 year patch to a new plan next year. They need to fundamentally change the nodes, get rid of non-contigous nodes and add sanity to a base node assignment plan and a real growth plan. The concept of capping vs forced reassignment is a start but that is not saying much with as much that is broken.
Yet more ineptness at any kind of real planning and transparency.