Wake business leaders to discuss student assignment plan

RALEIGH -- The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership will hold a press conference Thursday to comment on the Wake County school board's plan to assign students to neighborhood schools.

The business and community leaders will focus on a tentative map being reviewed by a school board committee that would divide the county into 16 different assignment zones. The maps don't use socioeconomic diversity to fill schools, which could result in schools with extremely high concentrations of minority and low-income students.

School board members have stressed that the boundary lines for the 16 zones, which are largely based on current high school attendance, are fluid and will change after public input. The goal is to have a new plan in place by the 2012-13 school year.

The business community has been a vocal supporter of the diversity policy that was discarded by the new school board majority that took office in December.

Last month, school board chairman Ron Margiotta had urged the audience at the Chamber's Summer Leadership Conference to cooperate with the school board and to give them an opportunity to implement the new plan.

Tomorrow's press conference will be at 10 a.m. at the Chamber's offices, 800 S. Salisbury St. in downtown Raleigh.