RALEIGH -- Wake County school board members voted today to put four year-round schools on a traditional calendar beginning this fall.
The board agreed to convert Leesville Road Elementary School, Leesville Road Middle School and Mills Park Elementary School to a traditional calendar. The board also agreed to open Mills Park Middle School on a traditional calendar instead of the planned year-round schedule.
The conversions could result in hundreds of students changing schools to stay on a year-round calendar.
School administrators said that converting those schools would result in the loss of $28 million worth of seating capacity. Year-round schools can hold more students than traditional-calendar schools.
New board members had campaigned on converting some year-round schools to a traditional calendar as part of a pledge to end mandatory year-round schools.
A majority of parents who responded to a recent districtwide survey at Leesville Middle had said they’d prefer the traditional calendar. A majority of the parents who responded whose children will be rising sixth-graders when Mills Park Middle opens this summer also said they prefer the traditional calendar.
Board members Ron Margiotta and Deborah Prickett suggested converting Leesville and Mills Park elementary schools as well to have the whole campus on the same calendar.
A majority of parents who responded at Wakefield Elementary and Salem Middle also said they’d prefer the traditional calendar. But board member Kevin Hill, whose area includes Wakefield, didn’t back the move.
Margiotta, whose district includes Salem Middle, said those families could easily go to Mills Park.
