Raleigh Public Record (https://theraleighcommons.org/raleighpublicrecord/topics/news/school-board/page/5/)
As the first round of selection comes to a close nearly 75 percent of rising kindergarten families have participated and reactions are mixed. School officials acknowledge that the last 25 percent may be the hardest to reach.
Weeks of stilted progress and tense exchanges came to a head Tuesday when a progress report on the student assignment plan was postponed due to lengthy discussion on other issues. Advocates are now calling for the new Democratic majority to exert better control of the school board agenda.
The Wake County school system recently received one of 10 national grants that will provide new employees and resources to WCPSS to help make better use of the school system’s data.
Base school assignments are out and choice is in. The first round of school choice begins Tuesday.
A discussion of WCPSS’s policy on public information requests unexpectedly showed up on Tuesday’s board agenda as an action item. Certain board members asked whether group emails among board members comply with the spirit of the law.
Democrats have been looking for wriggle room in the implementing a new choice assignment plan for Wake County. Their conclusion Tuesday: if there’s no time to delay the plan, they’ll have to make changes simultaneously as the plan moves ahead.
The past year saw the unseating of a controversial Republican-led school board, a new student assignment plan and a flat budget for the third year running, but, despite the board changing hands, there won’t be a quick fix to student assignment or the system’s budgetary woes.
New Wake County School Board members Jim Martin, Christine Kushner and Susan Evans, as well as returning members Kevin Hill and Keith Sutton, were sworn in on Tuesday, marking the beginning of a new era.
The success of controlled-choice hinges on keeping all schools in Wake County desirable. At the same time the plan does not attempt to reduce the current 22 percent of schools where more than 50 percent of students receive free and reduced lunch. We look at this and other potential pitfalls of the new assignment plan.
With diversity gone from the assignment policy and balancing student achievement low on the list of priorities, magnet schools will now bear the brunt of balancing achievement. Photo by Editor B.
