New Wake Students to Get Same Treatment on Year-Round Assignment

Raleigh, N.C. — The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday turned down the Wake County school system's request that it be allowed to place new students in year-round schools without parents' permission if the system thought it necessary, school officials said.

The district implemented Superior Court Judge Howard Manning's directive for parental consent for non-traditional calendars even as it appealed his decision in a lawsuit that a parents' group brought against the plan.

In the process, the district had asked the court to be flexible about students who enrolled after June 4.

The district went through a complicated reassignment process after about 2,600 students out of approximately 30,000 said they did not want to stay in year-round schools if they were already in them or did not want to be assigned to them, as the district had planned.

It is not clear when the appeals court will hear the district's case.

Patti Head, who has served as school board chair during the year-round school effort, said officials still hoped the court might stay Manning's order for new students later in the appeal process.

The school district is converting a number of elementary and middle schools from traditional to year-round calendars this year as a way to handle increasing numbers of students. Schools on year-round calendars can enroll more students because a quarter of the student body is always on break.

45 Comments

WRAL.com welcomes your comments on this story. All comments are moderated prior to publication based on our posting guidelines. Please review them prior to posting and if your message is not approved.

VIEW ALL 45 COMMENTS

This story is closed for comments. Comments on WRAL.com news stories are accepted and moderated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Latest Comments

CUDOS to Commissioner Joe Bryan for willing to step up and do what he thought best! We call can learn a lesson from what he did. NOW...if someone will just REMOVE that new Human Services director, Ramone Rojano! That man is going to ruin that county department! The former director and staff worked so very hard to build a strong department - helping so many needy folks - and this man is tearing it apart already! He is very rude to some staff, and makes "off the cuff" remarks to females, especially...some with a sexual context. If the commissioners don't get rid of this man, it will continue to happen. Staff are afraid to say anything ..afraid to lose their jobs. The Human servics board did NOT want this man - the county mgr. forced him down their throats! PLEASE encourage county commissioners to get him out. HE is a disgrace to our latin culture.

latin4change
June 21, 2007 7:29 p.m.

Good luck to your child! As it's already been mentioned here, if you are active and involved, which you appear to be, you'll find a solution! 3rd and 4th were hard for us b/c of the teacher (same teacher each grade, long story, but we didn't make that mistake a 3rd time). However, the level expected by us during those grades did help form the work habits which made 5th a piece of cake!

Good luck!

Rocknhorse
June 20, 2007 3:41 p.m.

I hope that my 3rd and 4th grades are not so hard. I can only hope my son conquers his major hurdles by then so he can cope. We do sport also, which has its benefits to the kids too.

poohperson
June 20, 2007 3:25 p.m.

For us it was 3rd and 4th grade. My child would sit down as soon as we arrived home from school and begin work. We are also involved in sports and occassionally would have to finish the homework after baseball. Yes, there were times I sent a note saying the homework was excessive, but more often, I made sure it was done. I felt it was the teacher's responsibility to understand the workload expectations and not over burden the kids. I often sat beside my child and, on a separate sheet of paper, did the exact same homework. It often took me 1 hour, sometimes 1.5. After documenting 2 weeks of homework (began 3:50, stop 4:05 for bathroom break, etc) and documenting homework from other teacher's of the same grade in our school and other elems., I was finally able to get the teacher to acknowledge perhaps she was too tough. Things got somewhat better. On a positive note, when my son entered 5th grade w/a different teacher, school was a breeze!! He now loves school again!

Rocknhorse
June 20, 2007 3:21 p.m.

Why at an age of second grade is there even an emphasis on grades? It is how you handle it at home that makes the difference.

Rocking- I had the same HW issue with my son, but more of my problem was my son has speech and fine motor delays. What it took other students to do in maybe an hour was taking him 2. Plus the additional work he had for speech and occupational therapy. I pushed him to complete all tasks (especially ones in Math, since he is fairly good at that) and we worked past the 20 minutes recommended, but when I sensed his frustration level rising to high, we stopped. Our saving grace was each Friday we got the homework assignments for the entire next week, so at times we did some work on the weekends so the weekdays would be less stressfull. I do think we need to impress upon our children to complete tasks, but we also need to recognize the point in which our efforts become detrimental instead of helpful. Two hours of homework for a first or second grader is not good

poohperson
June 20, 2007 3:11 p.m.