Don't look for Debra Williamson-Dunn among the Wake County parents who are fighting efforts to convert their children's elementary schools to a year-round calendar.

For Williamson-Dunn, PTA president of Hodge Road Elementary School in Knightdale, the year-round calendar is a win-win situation that will let Wake keep up with growth and help students learn better.

So even as some well-organized groups fight conversion, pockets of support for the year-round calendar are forming around the county.

"You have people who are agitated over this situation, and that amazes me," Williamson-Dunn said.

Last week, school administrators named 23 elementary schools they want to convert to a year-round calendar in 2007. As the school district grows by 7,000 students a year, year-round schools can help by accommodating 20 percent to 33 percent more children than traditional schools.

Year-round students are split into four groups, with three in class and one on break to keep the building in constant use.

The school board will discuss the list this morning. After a public hearing Aug. 28 at Southeast Raleigh High School, a vote is scheduled for Sept. 5.

Though widespread conversion to year-round schools has been talked about for 14 years, the Wake school board usually has backed down in the face of vocal parental opposition. But this time, the public response has seemed muted.

As of Monday, school administrators said the public response on conversion was evenly split among the 316 e-mail comments they had received.

The most organized opposition has come from elementary school parents at Combs in Raleigh and Green Hope in Cary.

Combs parents say the year-round calendar would hurt their school's leadership magnet theme because teachers would be on different schedules that would prevent them from meeting together to jointly plan lessons.

Green Hope parents say it's not necessary to convert their school when the existing year-round schools in their area are not at capacity.

With the exception of Combs and Green Hope parents, board member Eleanor Goettee said, the responses from the schools have been favorable. She said people have told her they're in the "silent majority" that supports conversion.

"The community has been responsive," Goettee said. "There has been support. It hasn't been overly negative. It has been heartening."

To make conversion more palatable, board member Horace Tart said he'll propose "sistering" year-round and traditional schools so that families will have more of a chance to pick the calendar they prefer.

School leaders point to Hodge Road and Garner as elementary schools where conversion seems to have support.

Williamson-Dunn noted a 2002 survey of Hodge Road parents in which 111 of the 225 parents who responded said they would support converting the school. More recently, she said, all the parents actively involved in the school that she has spoken with support the year-round calendar.

Williamson-Dunn said students will learn better under the year-round calendar because they will no longer have the long summer break that causes them to forget much of what they learned.

"Hopefully we'll be approved and left on the list and be a year-round school next year," she said.

Kim Walaski said most of the parents she has spoken with at Rand Road in Garner will support conversion if their children's friends can be kept on the same schedule.

"My daughter has been in a trailer the past two years," Walaski said. "I'd like to see her in an actual building. If the only way they can do that there is to have them year-round, I'll support it."

Administrators haven't said which middle schools they might want to convert. But several Garner community leaders are lobbying for North Garner Middle School to be converted to lure back students who now leave for the year-round program at West Lake Middle School.

But board member Ron Margiotta said his colleagues should not think there's no widespread opposition. He said he's trying to unify the groups in hopes of getting the district to drop any conversions to year-round.

"We're going to beat this --maybe not by Sept. 5," Margiotta said. "If the administration wants the bond issue passed, they're going to have to drop this."

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