Raleigh Public Record (https://theraleighcommons.org/raleighpublicrecord/author/bleclaire/page/3/)
The Wake County Board of Education Tuesday approved a guaranteed maximum price for the 52 bids on individual elements of the Rolesville High School project. The proposed project budget is $74.8 million — more than $1 million less than in the budget presented to the board in April. Image: Current Wake Forest-Rolesville High School.
At a presentation before a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, consultant Robert Schiller called Wake County Public School System administrative services “strong,” but offered some suggestions for improvement. In response, Superintendent Tony Tata suggests creating three new positions to focus on increasing academic achievement.
Teacher assistants in the Wake County Public School System could see their contracts diminished from 10 months to 9.25 months if education funding is reduced to the levels in the current state budget proposal. The budget, now waiting for Gov. Bev Perdue’s signature or veto, cuts education funding by 6 percent. The budget approved by the Wake County Board of Education in May assumes a 5 percent cut in state money.
Wake Schools Superintendent Tony Tata and his staff this week presented the Blue and Green assignment plans at 10 high schools. At each session, they demonstrated the district website, where residents can enter their addresses and see possible school options under each plan.
The Wake County Public School System, like other districts in North Carolina, uses the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) to rate its teachers. But EVAAS has drawn fire from education academics, teachers and teacher organizations in the state and around the country. Despite these criticisms, Wake Superintendent Tony Tata is already attempting to use EVAAS to staff struggling schools and classrooms with teachers deemed effective by the program.
The website offering details of new Wake County student assignment plans has received almost 170,000 page views since it went live Monday afternoon.
Wake Schools Superintendent Tony Tata released nine student assignment plan options Monday. Tata’s six-member task force has designated two of the plans as frontrunners. One, dubbed the Blue Plan, is a community-based choice plan (or controlled-choice plan). The Green Plan is much closer to the existing student assignment plan.
Last week, the Wake County Board of Education learned that the district’s most effective teachers are not teaching its lowest-performing students. In this two-part series, the Record examines the teacher evaluation system in Wake County. Today, in Part One, we answer the question, what is EVAAS?
The Wake County school board voted this week to cut 174 clerical jobs. At its Tuesday meeting the board voted 5-2 to approve a reduction in force for 155 school-based clerical and 19 central services secretarial positions.
A partisan tone once again reared its head Tuesday when the Wake County Board of Education voted 5-3 to approve a new redistricting plan. At a public work session before the official meeting, the board also voted 5-3 not to ask for additional plan options from Shanahan Law Group (SLG), as requested by the community groups Great Schools in Wake and the League of Women Voters.
