RALEIGH -- Wake County parents will likely need to start doing homework to choose their children's schools, instead of having the decision made for them on the basis of their address.
Members of a key school board committee Tuesday praised an approach that would drop the longstanding idea of assigning neighborhoods to a specific school. Instead, the county would be divided into a number of new attendance zones, with parents choosing among several schools and the system making final decisions based on parental requests.
Although no formal vote was taken Tuesday, members of the board's student assignment committee told administrators to keep working on four zone maps that were presented.
"You can't have every child going to their neighborhood school or else you'd have schools over capacity and schools under capacity," said John Tedesco, chairman of the committee. "But we can provide them four or five logical choices they can choose from."
Tedesco said that this new-to-Wake "controlled choice" model would reduce the likelihood that students would be repeatedly reassigned to different schools. Massachusetts education consultant Michael Alves, a controlled choice proponent, pitched the idea to the committee members Tuesday.
Under the plan, the school system could better control growth and crowding in the zones, Tedesco said. He said Wake would likely allow students to continue at the schools they currently attend. Based on their address, students now are assigned to a specific school. Although some apply for magnet schools or year-round schools, most attend their assigned schools.
But a school board majority elected in fall campaigned on changing the way students are assigned. Those board members promised to end the busing-for-diversity policy in favor of sending students to schools in their community.
The elimination of Wake's policy of trying to balance the percentages of low-income students at schools has split the school board and the community. But both sides in the fight are interested in how controlled choice could be adopted.
"I look forward to the continued discussion about controlled choice," Kevin Hill, a member of the board's minority, said after the meeting.
There would be magnets
In addition to selecting from schools within a student's zone, families would be able to apply to countywide magnet schools, Tedesco said.
A computer program would place students at schools within their zones on the basis of what parents request, Tedesco said. He said the program would consider factors such as proximity to a school and whether students have siblings there.
Tedesco said it would be impossible to grant everyone's first choice because the school system also has to consider factors such as crowding.
Allison Backhouse, a supporter of the majority, said the plan being considered is what parents wanted, because it will provide choices and promote stability. She said parents understand that they can't all go to the closest school.
"I don't think everybody thought that neighborhood meant going to school in your backyard," she said.
The four models presented Tuesday include options that would divide the county into:
Seven zones based on the schools that each area superintendent oversees.
Ten zones based on the planning regions now used for developing school construction bond issues.
Fifteen zones based on current school transportation districts.
Sixteen zones based on high school assignment areas. It includes the middle schools that feed into those high schools and the elementary schools that feed into those middle schools.
Setting boundaries
Administrators said the models are based on minimizing reassignment, providing community schools and eliminating involuntary long-distance assignment of students.
Tedesco said the committee will narrow the list of models and adjust the one they recommend to the school board. He is hoping to have community meetings this fall about zone boundaries.
With haste, please
Details of how the new plan would work cannot come soon enough for John Wood, a real estate agent in Cary. He said agents aren't able to tell newcomers now where their children will be going to school.
"The concern is right now we don't have any idea how a new plan would work," Wood said.
