Cary High at center of latest reassignment battle

Some families want out, others want in

CARY -- Cary High School is at the center of much of the opposition to the school reassignment plan that's coming from western Wake.

Some families don't want to be sent to Cary High. Other families don't want to leave the school, while still others say they want to be reassigned to Cary High.

Many of these parents are expected to make their case at tonight's public hearing at Cary High.

"The school system shouldn't be forcing families to compete against each other like this," said Sharon O'Donnell, a Cary parent who is upset that her neighborhood is being reassigned to Athens Drive High School instead of Cary High.

Last month, Wake County school administrators proposed moving 26,771 students to different schools over the next three years. Western Wake high schools are particularly affected.

Cary High has been thrust into the spotlight this time.

Administrators want to fill Cary High and reduce the percentage of low-income students attending the school. The school now has 489 empty seats after the completion this year of a $12.5 million expansion.

Administrators propose adding 863 students to Cary High while moving 213 other students out over the next three years. Administrators say the moves will reduce the percentage of low-income students at Cary High from 39 percent to 25 percent.

But families now assigned to Apex and Green Hope high schools say they don't want to move to Cary.

Michael Wisniewski contends that it doesn't make sense to move 200 western Cary students who live near Green Hope High over to Cary High in eastern Cary. He is leading other parents fighting the plan in the Preston community.

"There are areas closer to Cary High that they can move instead," Wisniewski said.

Economic diversity

The movement of the Preston students is part of a series of moves that would raise the the percentage of low-income students at Green Hope from this year's 11.9 percent to 21.6 percent in 2011-12.

Parents of 136 students who live along the Cary-Apex border also say it doesn't make sense to send their children to Cary High when other neighborhoods are closer to the school.

These students, nearly all from middle-income and upper-income families, now attend Apex High.

"I'm all for neighborhood schools," said parent Rob Galvin, who is leading the Apex High families. "I think the kids are better off this way."

But there are some families who strongly want to be at Cary High.

Some families who live a mile from Cary High have turned to Cary Town Council member Don Frantz for help. Administrators want to move these 84 mostly low-income students to Apex High, which is five miles away.

Frantz says that reducing the percentage of low-income students at Cary High is "admirable." But he says it shouldn't come by forcing out students who are close enough to walk to the campus.

"I don't expect Green Hope and Panther Creek to have the same [low-income] percentage as Cary High," Frantz said. "If Cary is going to have a higher percentage, they should put in extra resources."

Some families wouldn't mind being reassigned. Families in the Wessex neighborhood want to return to Cary High, where they attended before helping open Panther Creek High in 2006. Now Panther Creek is overcrowded.

What has shocked the Wessex families is that administrators want to send them to Athens Drive High in Raleigh. O'Donnell said they are tired of having their children bounced around like a "pingpong ball."

"We've paid the price for growth in high schools," O'Donnell said. "We think it's time to give us something back."

O'Donnell and other parents plan on attending tonight's public meeting, hoping to pack Cary High's auditorium in the process.

"We want to show them it's not just a couple of people who are upset, but it's the whole neighborhood," Galvin said.