Wake to change process to switch schools

Superintendent Tony Tata said Friday that the review was initiated after a school board member Debra Goldman made a verbal request for her daughter to switch schools.

The review by Terri Cobb, the school district's chief of staff, concluded that nothing improper was done in Goldman's request, but the overall process could be improved.

"We determined that all recent transfers followed board policy, but I want to make changes that will clearly spell out the process to ensure consistency and maintain better transparency," Tata said in a statement.

He recommended requiring that transfer requests be made in writing and that decisions to provide transportation for students who switch schools be judged on a case-by-base basis.

The school system received nearly 12,000 transfer requests in the past three years and approved about 60 percent of them, according to Cobb's report. Both the number of requests and the rate of approval increased during that period.