Latest Reassignment Proposal Affects 10,000 Wake School Students

Video:

On The Web:

Wake County 2006-07 Student Reassignment Plan

On The Web:

Schedule Of Public Hearings

About 10,000 students will be reassigned, according to the new proposal, which also allows about 3,400 current tenth-grade students the option to remain at their current school.

"The projected growth in 2006-2007 is 7,000 net gain students," said Ramsey Beavers, with the Wake County school system.

About five out 10 high school students affected by the plan would attend schools closer to their homes, and about seven out of 10 elementary school students would attend closer to home.

"We fear a lot of our kids are being sent into more crowded situations so that again, four years from now, we'll be going through the same thing with families being split between schools," said parent Lib McGowan.

Nearly 3,400 students have the option of staying at their current schools as long as they can provide their own transportation and they're not being reassigned to a new school.

If all eligible students choose to stay where they are now, it would reduce the scope of the reassignment plan by about 34 percent, meaning many of the schools where administrators are trying to alleviate overcrowding could still be overcapacity.

There are some winners -- parents like Bonnie Quesenberry were able to convince education leaders to keep her kids at the same school.

"We wanted to stay together in the neighborhood, and it's really cool that they heard our voice," Quesenberry said.

Members of one community, however, said they are stunned by the changes to the reassignment proposal. They were set to move to a school within walking distance, but now they've learned they are no longer part of the proposed reassignments.

Parents in the Riverside community have lobbied for five years to get 100 children in the subdivision moved to Wildwood Forest Elementary. When WRAL talked with parents in December, they were ecstatic to finally be moved. They now say they were blindsided by the decision to keep them at Fox Road Elementary and vow to keep fighting.

Public hearings on what is the biggest reassignment proposal in the school system's history are expected to begin on March 1. The Wake County Board of Education is expected to vote on the proposal March 21.