RALEIGH - One Garner middle school is no longer being considered for conversion to the year-round calendar, and another is losing its magnet program.

The Wake County school board has been debating which of Garner's two middle schools to change next year as part of its efforts to deal with the rapidly rising student population. The board decided Tuesday to drop East Garner from its plans, leaving it as an International Baccalaureate magnet middle school.

Instead, the board voted to keep North Garner Middle on the list of schools being considered for year-round conversion and decided to remove North Garner's IB magnet program, saying it would be too hard to operate on a year-round calendar.

School leaders said they will replace North Garner's IB program with another magnet theme or academic program.

"North Garner is a place that's going to be made attractive," said Horace Tart, the school board member for Garner. "Exactly what resources are going to be provided hasn't been decided yet."

The board had voted in 2003 to add the IB program to Garner High, East Garner Middle and North Garner Middle to lure back hundreds of students who had left to attend schools outside of the community. The goal of the academically prestigious program is to develop uniform standards that would be recognized worldwide.

But few students have applied for the IB program at North Garner, and many families are choosing West Lake Middle, a year-round school near Apex.

Garner community leaders have argued that something needs to be done to improve North Garner and make the town more attractive for economic development. They focused on the year-round program as a way to bring back families from West Lake.

"We're excited," said Paul Capps, a local real-estate agent who had pushed for a year-round middle school in Garner. "It could have been East Garner. That's fine with us."

But the board's decision to drop the IB program at North Garner angered parent Leanne Traub, who had hoped to enroll her twin daughters in it next year.

"I'm very appalled that they would take away the IB status," said Traub, who has an eighth-grader at North Garner. The school will keep the IB program through June.

Previously, only students assigned to East Garner could enroll in its IB program. But with North Garner losing its program, students probably will be able to apply to attend East Garner.

The elimination of East Garner from the conversion list leaves five middle schools as potential year-rounds: East Wake, Leesville, North Garner, Salem and Wakefield. A public hearing on those schools will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at Sanderson High School in North Raleigh. A final vote might be held Tuesday.

Last week, the school board voted to convert 19 elementary schools to a year-round schedule.

Also Tuesday, the board agreed that if a teacher is on a traditional calendar and has a child in a school being converted, the teacher will get priority for putting the child in a traditional school or on a specific track at a year-round school.