Wake schools to send out letters on reassignment

Raleigh, N.C. — Letters go out Monday to families affected by the Wake County Board of Education's reassignment plan, which will have an impact on more than 24,000 students over the next three years.

The board voted 6-2 last week in favor of the plan, which will help fill 10 new schools, beginning with three elementary schools for the 2009-2010 school year.

A Wake County Public School System spokesman said last week that details of the plan should be posted on the system's Web site sometime Monday. Families, however, can find out if they are affected using the system's node lookup system.

The plan assumes funding for the new schools will still be available next year. If budget troubles change that, the board can modify the plan.

Approximately 4,000 of the students affected are expected to enroll during the next three years. More than 1,400 are kindergarten students who will enroll and will be assigned to schools other than the ones to which their houses are assigned now.

As it stands, the plan moves about 2,900 fewer students than previous draft proposals would have moved, and more than 11,000 students are eligible for a relaxed grandfathering policy, which school members made to accommodate families.

School system staff say they are able to be more flexible because growth projections have dropped and more schools have opened.

Under the grandfathering policy, families who have been reassigned twice in three years may apply for a "transfer" to stay at their current schools, and those will be granted automatically.

For families who have two or more children at the same school and the older sibling is being reassigned, they can apply for a similar "transfer" back to where they are now. That would be approved and automatically extended for the younger siblings so they can stay at the same school.