Friday, January 11, 2008

Time For Public Hearings

The most recent revision to the Student Assignment Draft was released this week, and next week the Public Hearings will begin for the 2008-09 Assignment Plan.  Parents are being given the opportunity to attend these Public Hearings, and if you have anything to say you will have 3 minutes to give feedback and/or suggestions that you would like to see made to this draft.  The feedback will be considered by the School Board in making any changes to the current draft, and the final proposal will be voted on by the School Board on February 5.  (you may attend all 3 meetings, but may only speak at 1) 

The dates of these Public Forums are January 15 at Sanderson High School, January 17 at Green Hope High School, and January 24 at Middle Creek High School.  All 3 meetings begin at 7:00 PM and run until 9:00 PM.  If you are planning to speak, online registration is recommended although they will be taking on-site signups at the meetings.

While we all await the Appeals Court’s decision regarding Judge Manning’s ruling, there continues to be a great deal of confusion, frustration, speculation, and anxiety regarding which schools our children will attend next year AND what calendar the schools will follow.

Something that has become very apparent to many of us during the past several months is that contrary to what we were told, the main reason that the Mandatory Year Round conversions were forced on 22 schools was NOT to help deal with “capacity” in the School System.  Instead, the conversions were actually made in the name of “diversity”.  Students were shuffled around the system in an attempt to make F&R percentages more similar, but the plan is severely flawed.  Instead of increasing F&R percentages at many of the MYR schools, many students opted-out in order to attend traditional schools, causing overcrowding and even higher F&R percentages at these traditional schools.  Many of the MYR schools actually have less students in attendance this year than they did when they followed the traditional calendar.

I feel confident that the majority of Wake County families believe that diversity in schools is a very good thing.  Unfortunately, the massive bussing that is going on in our system to play with the F&R percentages has gotten out of hand.  Not only is it extremely costly, it is unfair to force children to take extremely long bus rides, passing several schools in the process.  I have personally requested data (proof) that this massive busing is helping the kids of Wake County who are being moved around from year to year, but I still haven’t received anything conclusive.

I plan to attend all 3 Public Forums, and I look forward to hearing all of the comments and feedback from parents around the county.

Are you happy with the proposed changes in the Assignment draft?  Will you be attending the meetings?  What kinds of input will you offer to the School Board?  What changes will you ask for?

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Dates Have Been Set for Reassignment Public Hearings

The school board announced Tuesday that they will hold 3 reassignment public hearings on January 15, January 17 and January 24 2008.  The times and locations will be released later.

Between now and January 1, you can still make comments on the Draft Reassignment Proposal.  This can be done through the WCPSS website or by e-mailing Growth Management.  Comments made during the month of December will be taken into account when formulating the “revised plan” which will be given to the school board on January 8, 2008. Public hearings will be held during January, and following the public hearings a final vote on the Reassignment Proposal will take place on February 5, 2008.

Friday, December 07, 2007

“Draft Day” Is Here

The 2008-09 Student Assignment Draft will be released at 5:00 PM today.  I can honestly say this is something I’ve been anxiously awaiting for a long time.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, just go to http://www.wcpss.net and follow the links.  By inputting your address, you’ll receive your “proposed” assignment for the 2008-09 school year.

Remember, this is just a draft plan.  Comments can be made via the website or e-mail between now and the end of the year.  Chuck Dulaney did mention that if you want to have a “major” change considered you’ll need to get your response in by next Friday December 14.
The timeline for the Student Assignment Plan looks something like this:
-December 2007 - Make comments online regarding the Draft Plan
-Early January 2008 - Staff will make recommendations to the Board of Education as to what they feel the final Assignment Plan should be.  (this will be made public and will possibly incorporate changes to the draft based on comments they received after releasing the draft on December 7)
-January 2008 - A series of Public Forums will be held to allow families to voice any concerns or comments on the plan presented to the Board of Education
-February 2008 - Board of Education will vote to adopt the final 2008-09 Assignment Plan
As curious as I have been to see how the draft plan affects my family, I would like to hear what has been happening around the county.  How does the draft affect your current situation?  What changes will you suggest?

Monday, December 03, 2007

Big News Coming Out Friday at 5:00 PM

Well, this Friday at 5:00 PM the Draft Assignment Plan will be released on the WCPSS website.  The stated reason for waiting until 5:00 PM is so that parents checking the website won’t be competing with schools for network resources.  Click here for the WCPSS press release regarding the plan. 

http://www.wcpss.net/news/2007_dec3_assign/ 

As of this point, any decisions regarding school calendar and student assignment are still speculation.  A lot of the speakers at the Community Engagement Meetings stressed the importance of “creating” more traditional seats in the system.  During the first 3 meetings Chuck Dulaney stressed “All 3 of the new elementary schools will open on a year-round calendar” and also “My department will not recommend converting any of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar”.  However, at the last Community Engagement Meeeting he did mention that “one option being considered is converting some of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar.“  Whether you believe he said that because he is truly considering this option OR you think that he only said it because he knows that the School Board is considering it doesn’t really matter.  We’ll all see the draft on Friday and go from there.

Some of the speakers asked for special consideration regarding the assignments of their particular nodes.  The whole concept of keeping track of neighborhoods and nodes is mind-boggling to say the least.

It’s no secret that we are one of hundreds of families at Leesville Elementary School hoping to be converted back to a traditional calendar.  I know many other families are hoping for the same thing to happen at other schools too.  Nothing has been said as to how they will evaluate which schools (if any) to consider in this draft plan.

Regardless of what you are hoping to see, this is just a “draft”, and there are 2 more revisions that will be done before the School Board signs off on the final plan.

No matter how you look at it, I sure don’t envy WCPSS for the task they’re being faced with. 

As you think about the draft plan, what are you hoping for?  What are you expecting to see?  Are you anxious?  Excited?  Hopeful? 

Have a GREAT week!

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)