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)

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Survey for Families Opting-Out of Year-Round Schools

Some of the families who opted-out of year-round schools to traditional calendar schools have received a survey from Wake County’s Evaluation and Research department.  The purpose of this survey is to better understand why families chose to opt-out of year-round and modified-calendar schools. The WCPSS staff says they hope that the information will allow the district to better address the concerns of families.

All families who had opted out should have received a form, even if you opted out before Judge Manning’s ruling.  If you opted out and have not received a form, you can request one by calling 850-1863.  The forms are due back by October 12.

One point that was mentioned is that the survey results will be broken down across subgroups of parents. An example that was given is that they’re going to evaluate the results to find out if English-speaking parents and Spanish-speaking parents opted out for different reasons.  Apparently they want to be able to encourage specific “subgroups” to choose YR instead of traditional, since the traditional schools are so incredibly overcrowded.  Breaking the survey results down will allow them to target certain subgroups, but some people I’ve heard from feel this is a form of “stereotyping”.

While I do feel that this is a step in the right direction by attempting to gather information, I am also going to encourage the School System to survey ALL parents in the system.  By asking people their opinions and feelings BEFORE formulating an assignment plan, they’ll have a TRUE understanding of what the families want.

I also believe that what the public really needs to see is a list of those who stayed at their converted school, but wrote “under duress” and similar comments on their consent forms.  (I am one of those)  So many of us decided not to “opt-out” even though we preferred a traditional calendar because we were not told what our traditional option was. In the Spring when the consent forms were turned in,  I was told that “most” of the forms coming back to the school did have those types of comments hand-written on them.  I wonder if there is a way to see those results?

Have you received a form?  What have you heard about this latest action?

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Tracked Back In!

We have just completed our first track out and in process.  We couldn’t be happier!

I know that you haven’t heard much from me lately, but I can explain.  We just completed our first track out and were out of town during that time.  We enjoyed our rearranged vacation back home.  By rearranged I mean we usually go to visit family and friends back home around the 4th of July time.  We go then well because quite frankly we can count on it being warm at that time.  But because of the YR conversion this year we just couldn’t make it happen.  So we stepped back and looked at it.  We figured we could still go on the kids’ first track out.  Being September, though, it is kinda hit or miss with the weather but we thought at least we would be able to catch the fall colors changing.  The weather was quite frankly a little cool when we got there and down right hot when we left.  All in all a great get away with lots of fun activities for all. 

We returned to school this past Monday.  The children knew, at least two of them, that their rooms would be different and they knew right where they needed to go.  I had the opportunity to take my kindergartner to school that day and she was a bit confused.  I kept asking her if her room was changing prior to the track out and she insisted that she was in the same room.  Come to find out that wasn’t entirely true.  As we ventured down the hall and realized we were not where we needed to be, her teacher heard us and popped her head out to catch us.  They had only moved the the room next door so it wasn’t much of a move but still a move none the less.  I kept waiting for the teachers to send home reminders of classroom changes prior to the track out but that never occurred.  Luckily my 2 older kids where keeping close track of that but I feel bad for the younger one.  At least I was able to take her that first day back, but what of all those young and confused kids like my daughter that didn’t have that luxury?  I bet they were scared.  My suggestion is that with the younger children the teachers should send home a reminder over break of their new room number so that the parents can reiterated that to them prior to returning to school.  Sounds fair.

I also found something very lovely when I walked through the front doors of the school.  On a board sitting for all to see in front of the office was a welcome back poster for all those returning teachers on track two.  I thought that was just a real nice thing to do.  I do have to give a shout out here to my son’s 4th grade teacher Ms. Dudley who was unfortunately forgotten on the board.  While all the other teachers names were placed on nice old school house shaped cards, Ms Dudley was on a yellow post it note.  So here is a very warm welcome back to you Ms. Dudley. 

I know that you haven’t heard from me in a while and quite simply that is because everything is going fine.  Our school is adjusting well to the new schedule with no major hang ups.  I have finally had an opportunity to speak with the Principle about how things are going and it’s true that they did have to close on track of I believe 4th graders but she assured me that this happens every year the only obstacle is that when a class is consolidated now they have to contend with the track system.  How has everyone else found their new system working?  If your from Rand Road let’s hear from you. 

Monday, August 27, 2007

Traditional Schools BUSTING at the seams!

Today the traditional schools in Wake County started classes, and projections show that they will be severely overcrowded.

If the projections hold true, over 75% of the traditional calendar elementary schools will be over capacity today.  In contrast, almost every one of the year-round schools has available space to take more students.

My younger children are in one of the newly converted year-round elementary schools, and they have already started the year AND have also experienced a full track-out period for the current school year.  As far as they’re concerned, the school year has been going smoothly.  They’re at a school they know, they have friends in their classes, and now that their brother and sister are in school it will be more “normal” to them.

Today my older 2 started classes at the middle school.  Since their younger siblings have essentially been “going to school” since early July, they feel fortunate (but guilty) to have had a real summer.  We met their teachers last week and saw some friends in each of their classes, so they were looking forward to seeing what the new year has in store for them.  We are walkers so my kids don’t ride the bus, but the bus service appeared to be operating “as usual”.

I feel a little bit left out now that they’ve all abandoned me for school!  We had a fun and busy summer, and I miss my kids already.  I’m sure we’ll have a great year once I adjust to being solo during the days.

The latest talk at bus stops, carpool lines, and on the news pertains to the overcrowded situation at the majority of Wake County’s traditional schools.  Obviously, all we really know right now are the “projections”, and actual numbers will not be available until after the 10th day of school (sometime the week of September 10). 

From what I’ve been told, we should expect a HUGE uproar from parents at traditional schools now that they are in such an overcrowded situation.  Last year, we were on the traditional calendar and were technically “over crowded”.  To spend time in the school (I was there EVERY day) it never felt over crowded to me.  My children had the earliest lunch slot AND the latest, and 2 of my 3 were in mobile classrooms.  Obviously, if given the choice (all things being equal) I would have preferred to have all 3 classrooms in the building and all 3 children eating lunch at 12:00 noon.  HOWEVER, when faced with the choice of staying traditional with early/late lunch and having classes in mobiles OR converting to a year-round schedule, the lunch hours and mobiles were small sacrifices to make in order to keep our school on a traditional calendar.  The majority of families at our school felt the same way, and we had come to accept these small “inconveniences”.  (However, even with the conversion to YR one of my children is in a modular, 1 has lunch at 10:40 AM, and 1 has lunch at 1:40 PM so even though we’re under capacity those things didn’t “go away” with the conversion either)

NOW, all I’ve heard the past few weeks from friends at the traditional schools is “bringing in mobiles is unacceptable”, “I will not have my child eating lunch at 10:45 AM”, or “the situation had better be much more positive than we’ve been told or there will be trouble”.  I’m afraid that the things we had already accepted are going to become MAJOR inconveniences to families who have not had to experience them before.  If the families who were forced to convert to YR schools seemed upset, I’m guessing that the unhappiness experienced by these traditional calendar families will be MUCH greater.

How was the first day for everyone else?  Were the busses on time?  Classes full? 

Monday, August 13, 2007

Time To Discuss Reassignment for 2008-09

It’s hard to believe, but in just 3 weeks the School Board will be having a work session to discuss the reassignment plan for the 2008-09 school year.

The session is scheduled for September 6, and from what I’ve heard it’s open to the public.  However, this is one of their “work sessions”, so no public comments will be allowed.  Community engagement meetings will be scheduled at a later date.

Families are still trying to come to grips with the current school year.  Considering the fact that the MYR plan hasn’t even come close to accomplishing what it was supposed to do, there is still a great deal of uncertainty.

There are 3 new elementary schools slated to open under a year-round schedule in July 2008.  So many of the converted schools are now extremely under-enrolled.

Will the new schools now open on a traditional schedule?  With such a great demand for traditional schools, will some of the schools that were forced to convert this school year be allowed to revert back to traditional for 2008-09?  Will all VYR families be allowed to finally get into a YR school?

One thing’s for certain.  The School Board members have their work cut out for them, and I don’t envy their position at all.