Wake assigning schools three years

The merry-go-round is driven by growth and demographics

RALEIGH -- Families across Wake County will be caught up in a sweeping reassignment plan that could move 26,771 students to different schools over the next three years.

In the draft plan released last week, school administrators said the fast-growing northern part of the county will be affected by the opening of several new schools. Students in more established areas in central Raleigh face being moved to free up seats at magnet schools and to help distribute poor children throughout the schools.

"If you're going to be a growing county, it's inevitable," said Chuck Dulaney, the school system's assistant superintendent for growth and planning.

This is the first time that Wake has let parents know more than one year ahead of time where their children could be going to school.

Dulaney said the moves in the plan, once approved by the school board, are contingent upon winning a lawsuit challenging the county's year-round school assignments and receiving adequate county allocations to open 10 new schools through 2012.

In the first year of the plan, Dulaney recommends moving 382 students into Leesville Road Middle School as part of its conversion to a year-round calendar.

Dulaney said that the plan calls for making sure that all students coming from Leesville Road, Hilburn and Sycamore Creek elementary schools are sent to Leesville Middle. He said this means that more than 80 percent of the students will come from year-round elementary schools.

But Dulaney said there wasn't enough space at Leesville Middle to get students from the Brier Creek area.

Parents on both sides of the Leesville conversion issue are mobilizing their forces.

Lisa Boneham, head of Concerned and Committed Leesville Parents, a group that claims 1,000 members, said she still hopes to keep Leesville Road elementary and middle schools on a traditional calendar.

"I hope the [school] board will truly listen to us and make changes," Boneham said.

But Eric Blau, a member of BiggerPicture4Wake, a parent group that supports conversion, pointed out that more than just Leesville families will be affected. He wants his children at Leesville Middle and Sycamore Creek Elementary on a year-round calendar.

"Shouldn't the Sycamore Creek parents have a say in the middle school as well?" Blau asked.

Daniels and Broughton

The changes also will affect Daniels Middle School, which is both getting and losing students from Leesville Middle. When including all the other schools involved, Daniels is projected to lose 328 students next year and gain 157 to help offset the loss of its magnet program.

Wake also is likely to hear from parents at Broughton High School, which is projected to gain 320 students over the next three years but also lose 563. In return for keeping the magnet program at Broughton, school board members said last month they wanted more seats available for magnet applicants.

"Since Broughton is a magnet school, we need to assign some of the base out," Dulaney said.

Debbie Mann, Broughton's PTSA parent, said the "base families" who attend by virtue of being assigned to the school will fight any efforts to be forced out. "Most people who've been long-term supporters of the school don't feel good about being replaced by magnet parents," she said.

High school reassignment would play a big part in the second year of the plan, when Heritage High School officially opens in Wake Forest.

Wake traditionally doesn't assign rising juniors and seniors to new schools. Instead of leaving Heritage half empty, Dulaney wants to open the new high school off Forestville Road near U.S. 401 a year early. This means housing students from both schools at Heritage in 2010-11.

But filling those two new schools would affect several other schools as well.

Leesville and Millbrook

Dulaney said he'd want to ease crowding at Panther Creek High School in Cary by moving Brier Creek students to Leesville Road High. That would result in some Leesville students moving to Millbrook High, continuing a chain that eventually ends at the two new schools.

Even with all these moves, Dulaney said he's planning to leave enough students at Wakefield High so that it can continue to use the off-campus ninth-grade center in Wake Forest.

A large part of the third year of the plan, 2011-12, involves filling the new Rolesville Middle School.

But nothing is final yet.

Parents can suggest changes before administrators present a revised plan to the school board on Dec. 16. A final vote is expected in February.

"There are bound to be things that my staff will have overlooked that parents can point to that can be changed," Dulaney said.