RALEIGH -- The Wake County Board of Education will vote at a meeting Tuesday on a student assignment plan that puts parents, not the school system, in charge of choosing the schools their children will attend.
The proposal is the culmination of a thorough seven-month process. It promotes proximity, stability, choice and student achievement. We believe it is a long-term plan that provides the elasticity necessary for a high-growth county such as ours and offers the best opportunity for success for all of our students.
Since beginning as the superintendent of the Wake County Public School System in January, I have spent the majority of my time in schools and in our communities meeting with teachers and students, talking with business and education leaders, worshipping in church congregations, attending sporting events and participating in cultural activities. But, mostly, I have been listening.
What I learned is that we are truly blessed. Living in Wake County means a better, higher quality of life. Our region is rich with opportunities that draw world-class businesses and entrepreneurs to the Research Triangle region, bringing thousands of jobs to a center of global innovation.
With that kind of opportunity, Wake County has grown. The school system has added thousands of students every year because of the attractiveness of our community and the quality of our schools. This demand has required us to add two or three schools every year, resulting in thousands of mandatory reassignments.
While growth is healthy for a school system, it creates challenges for student assignment. Today, we have more than 146,000 students in 165 schools. In 10 years, we will approach 200,000 students in roughly 195 schools.
Parents have called for stability. In the past six years, the system reassigned an average of 7,000 students with an additional 5,600 requesting transfers each year. Some neighborhoods were reassigned multiple times. Projecting forward to enrolling 200,000 students, we would anticipate at least another 70,000 students mandatorily reassigned and 56,000 transfer requests under the old node-based assignment plan.
That's not stable. And it's not sustainable.
As we transition to the new plan, parents who are happy with their schools can stay where they are. The plan provides stability by first allowing all students to "grandfather" in to their current schools with their current transportation arrangements if they wish. Second, the plan offers parents the opportunity to choose from a list of base schools that are most proximate to their residential address.
Those schools provide aligned feeder patterns from kindergarten through 12th grade. Today, we have 271 feeder patterns that fracture neighborhoods and splinter cohorts of children in multiple directions. The new plan offers 115 feeder patterns that keep students together through their school experience. Parents may opt out of the feeder pattern if they prefer another proximate school by participating in the choice process.
Importantly, the magnet program remains unchanged, providing stability to our system by mitigating the growth of high-poverty schools. While we currently have 59 schools that register above the 40 percent mark for students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, we must make every effort to prevent adding more. It is crucial that we enrich our magnet program with new offerings to maintain the vitality and attractiveness of all of our schools.
Parents will have a choice among at least their five most proximate elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools. If there are not at least two year-round or two traditional elementary schools within that list of schools, the most proximate of each will be added beyond the five to give every parent at least two of each on the list.
Selection priorities are based on siblings already in the school, proximity, achievement and facilities utilization. During the "blue plan" test drive, which included 21,000 participants, parents overwhelmingly indicated they preferred having choice in assigning their children to schools.
As the software and address look-up functions are finalized to implement the program, parents will be able to see, among multiple items, their lists of base schools, the distances from their homes, their priority, the number of seats available by grade level and the number of seats requested by others.
Parents' priority on their choice lists is based on their residential addresses. Those who live closest to a particular school have priority. Parents can buy a home near a school and have the highest priority to that school.
While the previous plan "guaranteed" a base assignment, it didn't guarantee that the base would be close to a home or that it wouldn't change. In fact, the trend indicates that without modification to the current plan, mandatory reassignments would continue to rise annually. We received thousands of comments and emails from parents all around the county who demonstrated a strong preference for proximity schools.
Stability promotes student achievement. The previous plan's requirement that the system reassign thousands of students annually fractured student-teacher relationships, not to mention opportunities for parent involvement and deeper community ties. Tens of thousands of students have been forced to rebuild peer and teacher relationships, sometimes annually.
Our own Data and Accountability Department found what national research shows: Students who change schools frequently will be more likely to drop out of school, experience lower achievement, establish behavioral problems and have difficulty establishing peer relationships.
This plan provides stability for students to thrive. It also affords every student the opportunity to attend a high-performing school and infuses a spirit of healthy competition into our system.
In particular, students who live close to some magnet schools receive priority for placement because these schools are typically smaller and close families have access to only 45 percent of the seats. Instead of moving children in a well-intentioned but largely unsuccessful effort to level poverty rates of schools, this plan allows parents of children displaced by reserved magnet seats to choose quality regional schools.
These are schools that have 1) demonstrated proficiency over 70 percent, 2) have demonstrated growth in all four achievement categories of students over a three-year span and 3) have an above-average density of advanced-degree teachers, board-certified teachers and teachers who score highest on the value-added system called EVAAS.
Built into the choice lists and business rules are priorities for students who live in areas that, in aggregate, have lower achievement scores over time. In short, this plan is purposeful about giving students displaced by magnet programs opportunities to attend schools that can serve them best.
Meanwhile, we will learn why schools are over-chosen and take their best practices to those schools that are under-chosen. Bear in mind that an over-chosen school will still only fill to capacity. But because we will know what parents are asking for and where the wait lists are, that data will guide our school improvement plans.
We anticipate that in the first few years of the transition, we may see an increase in transportation, outreach and software costs.
First, as we stabilize families assigned under the previous plan and begin implementation of the new plan, we will be executing two assignment plans at once. Providing this stability will require an additional five to 25 buses, depending upon choice patterns. We have 932 buses on the roads today with another 93 buses in reserve. We intend to work with the Department of Public Instruction to minimize any additional busing costs. Over time, as students are assigned closer to home, we anticipate any additional costs to lessen.
Second, we were already in the process of creating a family outreach department that will improve our communication with the public, which is needed under any plan. Much of this effort is in concert with existing community partners, and we anticipate costs to be limited to personnel that help coordinate and deliver the message.
Lastly, we are budgeting for some minor software costs that the system may take over soon after implementation.
We chose a select team of education system experts to develop the plan. To ensure that this plan reflects the broad desires of the county and captures national best practices in assignment policies, we studied 22 school districts, held 21 staff information sessions for the public, conducted a choice plan "test drive" with more than 21,000 Wake County participants, considered more than 4,000 comments and provided multiple updates to the board during the past seven months. We have been exceptionally thorough and transparent, and we are confident that this is the best plan for our students and our community.
This proposal will provide the stability and choice Wake County parents seek while focusing on student achievement and providing all Wake County children with access to a world-class education.
Anthony J. Tata is superintendent of the Wake County Public School System.
