Saturday, Dec. 01, 2012

Parents have chance to weigh in on Wake assignment plan

Two more public hearings are scheduled on the plan this week

Wake County parents have two more chances this week to share their opinions of the school board’s proposed assignment plan for next year. The final hearing Wednesday at Rolesville Middle School likely will draw families who have been assigned to three new schools in northern Wake.

The new plan calls for moving 1,479 students to different schools for the 2013-14 school year, mostly to fill the new Rolesville High as well as Rolesville Middle and Richland Creek Elementary in Wake Forest, which opened this year under the choice plan. In prior years, as many as 10,000 or more students were reassigned.

About 50 people were at Sanderson High School Wednesday for the first of three public hearings on the proposed 2013-14 plan. Only one of the parents who spoke was concerned about being reassigned to a brand-new school.

Dena Penna doesn’t want her child to move from year-round Jones Dairy Elementary to traditional calendar Richland Creek. Her other kids attend year-round Heritage Middle.

“Either my children will be on two calendars, or I will have no transportation to my public school,” Penna said, adding that she doesn’t like Richland’s temporary modular campus. “Jones Dairy is not at capacity.”

Chris Laxton, who lives just outside Rolesville, would be assigned to the town’s new middle and high schools. But under the plan, his child would attend elementary school 10 miles away in Zebulon. “The proposed school is in the opposite direction of everything in our lives,” he said.

Laxton was among many parents at the Wednesday hearing who aren’t technically being reassigned but are unhappy with returning to 2011 base schools.

Pam Maher lives near North Hills and wants her kids to attend Carroll Middle School down the street. But because they’re in the museums magnet program at Brooks Elementary, they’d be assigned to Moore Square Middle downtown, which is about to drop its museum program for another magnet theme.

“There’s not a logical relationship anymore between Brooks Elementary and Moore Square,” Maher said.

The largest contingent of speakers Wednesday complained about a recommendation to change the year-round schools some neighborhoods would apply to if they didn’t want a traditional calendar base school.

Durant Trails options

Several speakers from the Durant Trails area in North Raleigh complained that their year-round school options would switch from Durant Road Elementary and Middle, which are adjacent to their neighborhood. For the Durant Trails families, reassignment was a frequently used term, although the district doesn’t put the change in that category.

“Reassigning our neighborhood to Rolesville Middle School and to Wakefield Elementary School, which is over 9 miles away, will tear our neighborhood apart even more,” said Sue Reynolds, vice president of the Durant Trails Homeowners Association. “This is not why I moved to Raleigh five years ago.”

School board Vice Chairman Keith Sutton said after the hearing that he thought they’d be able to address the Durant Trails issue. “As I explained to one parent, if we can fix it we will,” he said. “If we can’t, we’ll give an explanation why.”

Some schools capped

At the same time that the year-round options are changing for Durant Trails, a similar action is taking place northwest of Wakefield and Wake Forest.

Some families there who have attended Heritage Middle School for their year-round option are now being told their new choice is Durant Road Middle. Part of the reason for that is Heritage is one of the proposed full-cap schools that wouldn’t be taking non-base students.

“Our kids would have to be driven to North Forest Pines (Elementary) and then with traffic down to Durant Middle” 17 miles away, parent Kari Kristoffersen wrote in an email to school board members. “What kind of ‘choice’ is that?”

Board members have called the new plan a “stopgap” measure before a more comprehensive plan is developed for the 2014-15 school year. “We don’t need a temporary plan followed by another plan. We need stability,” Raleigh parent Lynn King said Wednesday.

But after the Sanderson hearing ended, parents wanted assurances that their concerns would be heard. “Will you actually take our comments into consideration or is this just to let the people vent?” asked Bennette Arnold, a parent and president of the Durant Trails Homeowners Association.

Board members assured parents they would heed their concerns before the final vote Dec. 11.