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3:35 a.m. • 2-11-12

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Parents Start Reassignment Petition: 'We're Not Being Heard'


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Reassignment
Reassignment

One group of parents is hoping to make a convincing sales pitch to the Wake County school board. It's a fight that plays out every year around this time.

The parents don’t want their kids to change schools due to a reassignment plan that moves thousands of kids to new schools because of growth or to balance poverty levels.

They've started a petition with hundreds of signatures, and they have one board member on their side.

“I think there’s a frustration that’s being vented on the petition that we’re not being heard,” said parent Katie Sommers.

The proposed reassignment plan would affect more than 6,000 elementary students in Wake County.

DeLana Anderson's daughter, Morgan, would move from Oak Grove to Adams Elementary. She and other parents started the petition against the reassignment.

“Every parent, when your children are being messed with, you feel angry, you feel frustrated,” Anderson said. “You want what’s best for your child, individually.”

School board member Ron Margiotta represents the parents whose students go to Oak Grove. He says the reason for the move is simply to keep the socioeconomic scales balanced.

“You know my opinion, it’s foolishness,” he said. “We’re disrupting schools. We’re disrupting children. We’re disrupting families. We’re disrupting communities to the benefit of no one.”

Margiotta also said the bus route to Adams Elementary will be longer. The parents say that is taxpayer dollars wasted.

“Millions of dollars of tax dollars to bus our children further away from their communities is not a solution,” Sommers said.

School board Chair Rosa Gill said the reassignment proposal is far from done, and she welcomes parents to present the school board with constructive alternatives.

Board members will hear a revised version of the reassignment plan on Tuesday. They're not expected to make a decision on it until February.

RELATED TOPICS: Wake County, Wake County School Board, Oak Grove

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For all of you who don't like the way WCPSS is run -- move back to where you came from. For all of you who think busing is a bad idea -- go to a south Raleigh neighborhood base school -- your views would change. For all of you with too much energy and time on your hands to do nothing better than gripe about a school system -- get a life.

We need to assign first the students whose parents were born & raised in North Carolina to the school of their choice. Then, those alien students can take what's available. If there isn't room in Wake County to educate all these extra children, then their parents should make other arrangements. Why should the taxpayers be burdened with these second generation ingrates?

I really wish vouchers were a viable option in NC.

Unfortunately, at the point that the government of NC starts "paying for" (even with our own tax dollars!) private or home education, it will also immediately begin demanding increasing amounts of control over what, when, how, and with whom our children may be taught, in effect recreating the public school system in all our options until we have no options left.

As much as I'd love to sacrifice less financially for the joy of schooling my child at home, I'm just not willing to trade control for cash.

I know NOT everyone can afford private schooling, but people if we could get vouchers everyone could. The amount of money our government spends on each kid in NC and in the US on average is far MORE than an average private school. And yes there are some really good public schools and some really bad private ones, but as a whole the private ones work better. They are not mired down with layers of bureaucracy, a busing overhead that in itself could build several paid for schools every year and ridiculous last minute busing of kids across town. Once again, if the gov't would allow the free market to work, we would all see our schools and our children benefit. Support choice, support vouchers.

WHY ANYONE WOULD SEND THEIR CHILD TO A WCPS IS BEYOND ME. THE SCHOOL SYSTEM HERE IS SO TERRIBLE. GET ANOTHER JOB, AND SEND THEM TO RAVENSCROFT!! STOP COMPLAING PEOPLE!! THATS WHAT YOU GET FOR FREE EDUCATION!! HAAAAAAAAA

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