Wake County commissioners rewrote a $282 million spending plan Monday in an effort to keep the school board from forcing students to switch to a year-round calendar this summer.

The decision leaves unsettled the fates of some 18,000 elementary and middle-school students who were supposed to start attending year-round schools in July as part of a plan to deal with growth. It throws a major roadblock in the way of a student reassignment plan slated to be released today.

In a 4-3 party line vote Monday, Republican county commissioners altered the school board's routine spending request for an advance on the $970 million school bonds voters approved in November.

Instead of spending money now on converting schools to year-round calendars, moving mobile classrooms and renovating 11 schools, the commissioners drafted a plan to build new schools more quickly. The renovations would happen later, and the conversions would be studied more. It remained unclear whether commissioners had the legal authority to force the change of plans.

The changes meant that the school board got $312 million, $30 million more than it had requested. But school officials said the plan commissioners laid out would not work, because it would not provide much-needed seats fast enough.

Chief facilities officer Don Haydon said the school district has not even bought land for the extra schools in the rewritten request.

"We're trading capacity that we need six months from now for capacity that we need three years from now," he said.

At issue are year-round schools, which eliminate long summer breaks in favor of shorter vacations throughout the year. That increases school capacity and reduces construction costs as Wake faces a growth crunch.

The calendar has proved unpopular with some parents who say it will hurt their families' schedules.

In recent weeks, hundreds of parents asked commissioners to delay or withhold the money for year-round conversions in order to force the school board to change its mind.

Newly elected Commissioner Paul Coble, who proposed rewriting the funding request, said he hoped it would buy the school board time to find alternatives to mandatory year-round schools.

"I didn't take year-round schools out of the equation," he said.

He was joined by Kenn Gardner, Tony Gurley and Joe Bryan, who helped draft the construction plan last year. Gurley, who is chairman, said more year-round schools would eventually come in Wake.

"We wouldn't be as aggressive about it," he said.

Opponents of year-rounds said they expect the board to try to proceed with conversions anyway, but celebrated the vote. "You have to be pleased by what you saw," said Dave Duncan, co-founder of Stop Mandatory Year-Round. "They showed they listened to the parents."

Board, county at odds

It is not clear how the school board will respond.

After Monday's meeting, board member Carol Parker said she will consider alternatives such as spending money the board already has on year-round conversions and sending some students to school in morning and afternoon shifts.

She said she felt "betrayed" by the vote, because commissioners had helped assemble the school bond proposal during a year's worth of joint meetings leading up to the referendum.

During today's meeting, the board will begin wrestling with legal questions the decision raises.

Under state law, commissioners are financially responsible for schools, while the school board sets policy on student assignment, school calendars and class size.

Commissioners argued that they were not interfering because all they did was change the timing of construction. They also argued that year-round schools are a financial decision, not a policy decision.

The board may fight that interpretation, either by suing or by spending the money on conversions anyway. That could provoke a lawsuit from the county.

The school board had asked the county to approve building elementary, middle and high schools; converting 19 elementary and three middle schools to year-round calendars; and starting renovations and other projects.

Commissioners voted to delay giving the school board money to convert schools and renovate and move mobile classrooms, but advanced money for two new elementary schools and one middle school. The rewritten plan would postpone renovations at East Millbrook and Martin middle schools and at Lynn, Lacey, Poe, Root and Smith elementary schools, as well as at Enloe High School. It would move up renovations at Bugg.

The vote angered Charlene Shabazz, a parent at East Millbrook.

"I voted for the bonds because East Millbrook was included in it," Shabazz said. "Why would you mislead the public and tell schools you're going to fund it if you're not going to?"

(Staff writer T. Keung Hui contributed to this report.)