{"id":12979,"date":"2012-08-29T09:51:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T13:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=12979"},"modified":"2012-08-29T09:51:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T13:51:20","slug":"no-exit-navigating-the-wake-school-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/08\/29\/no-exit-navigating-the-wake-school-system\/","title":{"rendered":"No Exit: Navigating the Wake School System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Floods of families are pushing through Wake\u2019s student assignment office this week as the school year begins, and many parents are feeling frustrated, suffering wait times extending beyond five hours.<\/p>\n

Tuesday roughly 200 people crowded into the central office around 2 p.m. School officials and parents say Monday was even busier.<\/p>\n

Many people reported seeing families leave when they couldn\u2019t stand the wait.<\/p>\n

Because Wake no longer offers a school assignment based on address, all families have to come to the central office in Cary to register.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming majority of families in Wake\u2019s central office were minority families.<\/p>\n

Here are some of their stories.<\/p>\n

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Brothers Adrian (right) and Pedro Nicacio arrived at 8 a.m. to register Pedro for school. We interviewed them at 3 pm.<\/p><\/div>\n

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“At the beginning everything was fine but after a while people started getting frustrated and agitated and then people started to leave. Some people are just getting mad, frustrated. They\u2019re just taking off. Hopefully we\u2019re almost done.\u201d -Adrian Nicacio<\/p>\n

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Lacole Linsey watches her daughter and another child play while she waits.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s kind of irritating because the school is right next door to us and we had to come wait in Cary to do it, but it had to be done so \u2026 A lot of people have just been asking, \u2018why are they calling people one-by-one?\u2019 and \u2018why\u2019s everything so mixed up?\u2019 I kind of figured with all these kids\u2019 different ages and different grades, different schools\u2026 I already knew it was going to be a little hectic \u2026 As long as it takes, as long as I get her in school.\u201d -Lacole Linsey<\/p>\n

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Mark Reynolds waits with his son Zack.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cIt sucks. We went to the school, we\u2019re on the school block and then they sent us down here to do all this. Last year, he was home schooled and now to try to get him re-enrolled again is crazy \u2026 There\u2019s no organization to it.This is ridiculous.\u201d \u2013Mark Reynolds<\/p>\n

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Latosha Turner<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cI came here at about 10 o’clock and what time is it now? \u2014 3:10 and I\u2019m just leaving. It was a long process just to enroll her in school but I understand that it\u2019s a lot of people going through the same thing. A lot of people were upset and agitated. I just think it was too much of a process. We had to get a number and be called and then be called again and be seated somewhere and be called again and seated somewhere. I don\u2019t know, but that\u2019s how they work and I\u2019m out of there now, so I\u2019m good.\u201d – Latosha Turner<\/p>\n

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Princessa Palmer came to central office on multiple days to enroll her children. Right is her son Anthony, already enrolled. She said all the schools on her proximity list are full so her son has been assigned to a school not on his choice list.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is my second visit. My first visit was three and a half hours. This is my second visit and it\u2019s actually been quite brief because they\u2019re unable to assist me with what I need to have done so he can go to school. They assigned him to a school that\u2019s 40 minutes away from where we live, which I think is absolutely outrageous. It\u2019s not a selective school that I would\u2019ve chosen to send my child to. I moved down from Virginia and a school system that was very much more organized, with a much more defined and clear process. Education is just very important to me\u2026 Mom\u2019s not happy with it\u2026 People are angry and upset, in general, because either their child is getting sent to a school that they don\u2019t want or the wait time. It tells you on the website to prepare for two hours. It doesn\u2019t tell you to prepare for four.\u201d -Princessa Palmer<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got my iPod, so I\u2019m just chillin\u2019.\u201d \u2013Anthony Palmer<\/p>\n

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Barry Steward and Rasheda Holmes decided to smile for their picture because the ordeal was over.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019ve got kids to pick up from daycare and you\u2019ve got jobs or are working, I mean that\u2019s horrible to have to drive all the way from Raleigh to come way our here to Cary just to register this child in school that lives across the street from the school. You\u2019ve got to be kidding me. How are you going to have to take a whole day off of work just to register your child in school. That\u2019s unbelievable. Then you\u2019ve got to rush from here to go pick up kids from daycare. It shouldn\u2019t be that difficult\u2026 People are trying to be patient because at the end of the day it is education and we all need education, so whatever it takes, that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do. But I think at the end of the day it shouldn\u2019t be this frustrating and so hard on us to register a student\u201d \u2013Barry Steward<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to have two offices. If they are going to have that many people and it\u2019s going to take that many hours they should have two\u2026 That shouldn\u2019t just have one in the whole county.\u201d \u2013Rasheda Holmes<\/p>\n

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David Arnette<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cWe got here about 45 minutes ago. It\u2019s going OK, I guess. We didn\u2019t know what to expect. We didn\u2019t expect such a big crowd. We\u2019re just moving into the area and need to get registered for school. We were more interested in the school choices and didn\u2019t really think there would be this kind of wait until we talked to some friends in the area, earlier today and found out that might be an issue. Before then we didn\u2019t really think about it. I don\u2019t think any of the school in our area have seats available right now, so that\u2019s been the biggest concern.\u201d – David Arnette<\/p>\n

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Jian Huang said his experience transferring his child has not been difficult.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cThey have instructions on where you should go for what. It was quite easy for me anyway. For me, I feel comfortable.\u201d -Jian Huang<\/p>\n

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Veronica Davis waited four or five hours on Monday and then came back Tuesday. She drove nearly 40 miles from Wendell both days. She wonders why children can\u2019t register at schools near their home and says it\u2019s tough to take so much time out of the day.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cI was here yesterday, but I left. It was too crowded. It went faster today. It isn\u2019t like it was yesterday. It was crazy yesterday. This is too much. They are wasting too much money doing this.\u201d -Veronica Davis<\/p>\n

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Tacheka Perry<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI mean it was busy at first, but then it kind of slacked off a bit and they speeded up the process and got me in there and got it done. Any typical place where there is a lot of people, people are going to be agitated. But for me, it\u2019s all about getting your kids what they need.\u201d – Tacheka Perry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve gathered a collection of portraits and firsthand accounts of waiting in Wake\u2019s central offices in Cary to register students during the first week of school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":12981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,26,23,55],"tags":[546],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}