Parents voice concerns over Raleigh school's calendar conversion
Parents of Leesville Road Middle School students voiced their opinions Monday evening about converting the north Raleigh school from a traditional calendar to a year-round schedule.
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The school system made its plan public on its Web site last weekend.
Some parents of Leesville Road Middle School students are strongly against converting from a traditional calendar to a year-round schedule. They talked about their concerns Monday evening at public meeting held at the school.
“It is disruptive to families. It is disruptive to communities,” parent Richard Borris said.
School system leaders say year-round calendars will be a money-saver by helping reduce the need to build more schools.
"This is a situation which is immediately cost-effective and doable in a very quick way that other kinds of solutions aren't,” said Chuck Delaney, assistant superintendent of the Wake County Public School System.
Those with children at other schools could be particularly affected, with children on different schedules in the same household.
"What happened to keeping families together?” parent Lisa Boneham asked at the meeting.
Delaney said a move to a year-round schedule would open up 300 more spots at Leesville Road Middle – a campus already using more than 40 mobile classrooms.
"We need to generate space,” Delaney told the parents.
There are also parents who are for the conversion.
"I find it works really well for my family,” parent Heather Firm said.
"It should, in the long run, reduce reassignments because we will be able to increase capacity and that will give them some wiggle room and flexibility. So when we get more students, we will have room for them,” Marguerite LeBlanc, spokesperson for BiggerPicture4Wake, said.
The school board will make a final decision of on the Leesville Road Middle calender in February.
About the reassignment plan
Overall, the number of students reassigned is comparable to those moved in the past three one-year plans.
How the plan was formed
Officials said they also considered schools' socioeconomic balance, the distance students would be bussed and the state's magnet-school policy.
Next steps
The school board will hold a new round of public meetings and finalize the plan by or on Feb. 3, 2009.
The public meetings, each beginning at 6:30 p.m., are as follows:
- Nov. 20 – Knightdale High, 100 Bryan Chalk Lane in Knightdale
- Dec. 1 – Cary High, 638 Walnut St. in Cary
- Dec. 3 – Wake Forest-Rolesville High, 420 W. Stadium Drive in Wake Forest
- Dec. 4 – Holly Springs High, 5329 Cass Holt Road in Holly Springs
- Dec. 8 – Broughton High, 723 St. Mary's St. in Raleigh
Mailings will then be sent out to the parents of affected students, who will know their final assignments by mid-May of next year.
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