Commissioners want to rethink Wake year-round schools plan

Raleigh, N.C. — Wake County officials said Wednesday that they would like to take another look at the school district's plan to operate all new elementary and middle schools on year-round schedules and to convert some existing schools from a traditional calendar to year-round.

During a joint meeting of the county Board of Commissioners and Board of Education, commissioners questioned the need to pursue year-round schools exclusively. They pointed to enrollment growth that didn't meet projections last fall and the community uproar over the policy.

About 6,000 students enrolled in Wake County public schools for the first time last fall, while projections called for about 8,000 new students. Also, many year-round schools last year were below capacity because hundreds of parents opted to stay in traditional-calendar schools when the district converted 22 schools to year-round schedules.

Chairman Joe Bryan said the commissioners don't plan to meddle with the district's student-reassignment plan, but they wanted to make sure parents had enough options to have children attend both traditional-calendar and year-round schools.

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Latest Comments

I agree that Mr. Margiotta is the ONLY board member that is acting from a place of reason and common sense.

I suggest county-wide voting to elect more board members with the capacity to be fair to the ENTIRE county.

happymom
February 20, 2008 5:19 p.m.

BTW, my previous comments exclude Ron Margiotta of course. He is the only BOE member who is consistently trying to do right by the whole county and not just his area.

oceanchild71
February 20, 2008 4:37 p.m.

Cracks in the armor are starting to appear. Howard Lee dresses down Del Burns in a letter, audits showing mismanagement of funds, AG kids being shortchanged, more and more parents getting ticked off. I looooooove it! It is only a matter of time until either WCPSS and the BOE are under possible further legal litigation or they actually use a little common sense and actually LISTEN and COMPROMISE with families.

oceanchild71
February 20, 2008 4:11 p.m.

Finally, some common sense thinking. Is there really a need for Sycamore Creek to be year round when the 2 year round schools (Leesville and Brier Creek) are under capacity and yet the traditional school (Hilburn) is over capacity? And if the families reassigned to Sycamore choose to stay at Hilburn (about 700 were reassigned) add that to the number of families reassigned to Hilburn and it appears that Hilburn will continue to be over capacity while the 3 area year round schools operate under capacity. Lets teach our children that common sense is just as important as book smarts and use some common sense in the decision process.

momof2
February 20, 2008 3:50 p.m.