Monday, October 22, 2007

Gearing Up For Community Engagement Meetings

Well, as we have all heard, the Day 20 numbers are in.  WCPSS had projected that there would be 8,014 new students coming into our system, and there were only 5,930 more than last year.

While 5,930 is a lot of students, missing this projection by such a huge margin (26%) is particularly disturbing to me for several reasons.

In the fall of 2006, we heard a lot about the “Growth Crisis of 8000 new students coming into the system” and the fact that there were “NO SEATS for these children”  Actually, the threat of these “8000 new students” was the underlying reason for the forced conversion of 22 schools to a Mandatory Year Round calendar.  Back then, there were several people who challeged that number with facts and statistics, but it felt as though their arguments weren’t even considered.  Had the projection been only 6000 new students, there never would have been justification for forcing 22 schools to convert to a year-round calendar in such a rushed fashion.

SO, now we sit with under capacity year-round schools and OVERCROWDED traditional schools with new students arriving daily. 

I am continuing to encourage the WCPSS to survey all families in the system to determine the “School Calendar demand” before they formulate the plan for next year.  Until they know the actual demand, it is virtually impossible to set the “Supply”.

The ruling on the school district’s appeal should be back in early December.  Assuming that the Judge’s ruling is upheld, WCPSS will NOT be able to assign students to year-round schools.  I realize that in theory, having a school on a multi-track year-round schedule can accommodate more students.  BUT, in reality, if you cannot assign students to those schools, the empty seats do not accomplish anything.

There are 3 Community Engagement Meetings now on the schedule.  They will be held October 29 at Green Hope High, November 13 at Knightdale High, and November 15 at Sanderson High.  All 3 meetings will begin at 7:00 PM and are scheduled to last 2 hours.  Information used to build schools and assign students will be shared, and the plan is for all attendees to be able to provide input into the new assignment plans.

After these meetings, WCPSS will release a draft reassignment plan in early December.  Public feedback will be allowed, and then an official plan will be presented to the School Board on January 8.  There will be public hearings and work sessions, and the 2008-09 Assignment Plan will be voted on February 5.

I believe that there are a couple of things that WCPSS can easily do in order to ease the overcrowding at the traditional schools.  For starters, I think that by converting some of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar, there will immediately be traditional seats available.  Because my family was split onto 2 different school calendars with the MYR conversions (2 children attend Leesville Middle and 2 attend Leesville Elementary), I would personally like to see Leesville Elementary School considered for conversion back to a traditional calendar.  Since our school population has such a great desire to be on a traditional calendar, and the middle school and high school (both traditional) are physically connected to the elementary school, I think we’re an obvious choice to be a traditional option in our area of the county.  I also think that the new schools opening this year should open on a traditional calendar rather than year-round.  These are my opinions.  I’d like to hear more.

I’ve been receiving so many responses the past 2 weeks regarding this issue via the other NBC-17 blog, so I thought I’d start a new topic here.  Some good information has been shared.  Please post your responses here for all to read.

It sounds like many families decided to “give YR a try” this year, but are planning to opt-out for next year due to issues with the YR schedule that they hadn’t anticipated.  Please share some of your experiences here.

How would you propose WCPSS handle the overcrowding at the traditional schools for 2008-08?

Would converting some of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar be a good idea?  Why or why not?

Financially, what would it entail to convert a school from year-round to traditional?  (I only see cost savings, so I’m curious)