Wake to unveil student assignment models on May 23

We're getting some more details and a release date on Wake County student assignment models.

Superintendent Tony Tata said today they'll post online for public comment on May 23 the nine models reviewed by the task force. They'll also explain why they're recommending the "Blue Plan" and the "Green Plan."

The Blue Plan, which Tata also called the “community base choice plan” would be "rooted" in proposals such as the Wake School Choice Plan. This would be more of a choice plan.

The Green Plan is also being called the "balanced base plan." This one sounds closer to what's in place now in Wake.

He said one of the things they're weighing in the Green Plan is where and how they'd assign the thousands of students who are now bused out of magnet schools for diversity.

Tata said proximity is the top driver in each plan and that student achievement is heavily weighted in both.

After the press conference, I asked Tata about how base schools would work in either plan. He said in both the Green and Blue plans parents would be given base options to choose from. But he said it's too soon to say whether either plan would have a specific guaranteed base assignment for families.

Tata said the details are still being finalized. For instance, SAS is still working on the assignment algorithms that would be used for one of the plans, presumable the Blue Plan.

Even as Tata talked about proximity, he brought up how they can't use strict proximity because some 50 schools would be over 150 percent of capacity while others would be underenrolled. If that sounds familiar, it's what the Wake Education Partnership said in one of its topic studies last year.