Alves student assignment plan delayed until February

RALEIGH -- The leadership of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership announced today that the new student assignment plan being developed by education consultant Michael Alves won't be released until February.

Leaders of both groups said that they decided not to release the plan this month because the Wake County school board will be holding public meetings on the 2011-12 student assignment plan. Both groups said they want to wait on presenting the Alves plan until the board holds work sessions in February on how to develop a new plan that would begin in the 2012-13 school year.

The Alves plan would also focus on possible changes beginning in 2012. Alves was hired to develop an assignment model that factors in student achievement along with stability, family choice and proximity

Under Alves' controlled-choice plan, parents would rank which schools they'd want their children to attend. School leaders would use various factors for determining which choice to give to students. The school board has not decided whether it will use the Alves plan.

The board doesn't have its own long-term assignment plan since they voted in October to kill work on a plan to divide the county into 16 assignment zones. The board, which eliminated the use of socioeconomic diversity in student assignment, is trying to move Wake toward community-based schools.