RALEIGH - Broughton High School, which serves some of Raleigh's oldest and most influential neighborhoods, could lose its magnet program as part of a sweeping review today of Wake County's magnet school program.

The school board will consider which magnet middle and high schools should be eliminated and whether other schools should now get programs.

Broughton's magnet program will undergo close scrutiny because it has ranked low in reviews of how well schools meet the goals Wake sets for magnet schools.

"There are some programs I don't think we'll need to change," school board member Eleanor Goettee said. "But I'm sure we'll look at Broughton."

The loss of the magnet program would be opposed by the Broughton community. Its theme is the International Baccalaureate program, which provides a rigorous academic program with standards recognized and accepted worldwide.

"It's an important part of the school right now," said Lisa Pace, who has two children at Broughton. "Schools evolve, and it's evolved into a very good IB program."

Today will be the culmination of two years of reviewing the magnet program that has already led to many elementary school changes.

Last year, the school board agreed to phase out magnet programs at four elementary schools and not start one at a fifth school. The school board has given tentative approval to start magnet programs at Brentwood and Smith elementary schools.

Now the board is focusing on the 14 magnet secondary schools.

"All things are on the table," school board member Beverley Clark said.

Wake's nationally recognized magnet program started in 1982 to integrate underenrolled inner-city Raleigh schools. Suburban students were lured to magnet schools to get programs that they couldn't find at their neighborhood schools..

The school board had agreed in 1999 to add a magnet program to Broughton, on St. Mary's Street near Cameron Village, because of its declining enrollment. Since then, Broughton's enrollment has increased.

In recent years, questions have been raised about whether some schools still need their magnet programs.

In a pair of reviews, Broughton struggled to meet the magnet program's objectives of reducing high concentrations of poverty and supporting diversity and maximizing use of school facilities.

Broughton has a smaller percentage of magnet students compared with other schools. The students assigned to the school also are below the county average for receiving subsidized lunches.

"The elite neighborhoods of Raleigh have always gone to Broughton," said Jennifer Mansfield, a North Raleigh parent who runs voiceforequity.blogspot.com, a blog that's critical of Wake's magnet schools. "I don't know why they made it a magnet."

School board member Lori Millberg agrees that losing the magnet program wouldn't significantly hurt Broughton.

But Millberg said she's not so sure that removing the magnet program is the best action to take, considering how much time and money has been spent on Broughton's IB program.

Millberg said she's more interested in looking at moving some elements of the magnet program at Enloe High School to another school. She said Enloe would still be a magnet school.

Both Kevin Hill, vice chairman of the board, and Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the board, said they want today's decision to be factored into the new multiyear student reassignment plan that will come out in early November.

"We're getting to the point where we need to make some decision soon to give [administrators] some direction," Hill said.

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