Wake schools face a delicate balance

ZEBULON -- Balancing school efficiency, student diversity and expanded classroom opportunities will be a challenge for the new Wake County Board of Education, Ann Denlinger, President of the Wake Education Partnership told participants at a forum on magnets and charter schools Thursday.

"How do you balance growth, educational opportunity, diversity and efficient operations?" asked Denlinger, who leads the nonpartisan group designed to analyze educational issues. "Those are the competing factors."

Denlinger said magnets had done their job over the past 27 years.

But the former Wake County teacher and Durham County superintendent said the county still has geographic patterns of achievement, with the southern and eastern parts of the county lagging behind the rest. She said partnership research was given to the school board candidates to help them understand the issues. It shows inequalities in AP class offerings across the county and disparities in student performance.

"It's not right that kids across Wake County do not have an equal shot. But I want you to understand how complex this (balancing) is. Every action has an intended and unintended consequence. It requires a very delicate balance. We all need to come up with the best answers."

The forum was one of the partnership's roundtable discussions held across the county along with hosting chambers of commerce and businesses who choose the topics. The eastern Wake County roundtable was sponsored by the Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon chambers of commerce and held at the Eastern Regional Center in Zebulon.

That partnership is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization sponsored by businesses and is for the education of all students in Wake County, Denlinger said.

Denlinger said the forum was held to engage the public in discussion about charter schools and magnets.

"Please help us by sharing your best thinking about magnet schools," she said.

Jennifer Mansfield, a Raleigh mother said eastern Wake County students are at a disadvantage of getting into a magnet school under the current magnet selection system because of the schools' high free and reduced lunch ratios. The system is designed to balance the number of students who receive free or reduced lunches at any one school and does that at magnet schools that start out with high free and reduced lunch ratios balanced by bringing in students that are not using free or reduced lunch benefits.

"That is a perfect example of a situation we find ourselves in," Denlinger said. "It is profound. It is hard."

Denlinger said for years 27 magnets did their jobs as a way to make better use of the facilities, better integrated schools and increase parent involvement. She said watched as Enloe High School went from being a last choice to a first choice for many parents to send their children.

Charter schools which receive state money for student instruction but not for facilities and transportation were established with an legislative act on June 21, 1996.

Most charter schools demographics do not look like the demographics from which they come, said Denlinger. An average of 81 percent of charter school students read at grade level, 70 percent at magnets and 76 percent at Wake County Public Schools as a whole.

Of the 27,000 students who attend magnet schools, 55 percent are assigned to the schools and 45 percent attend by choice. But rates vary widely. For instance Zebulon Middle School Magnet has 72 percent assigned and 28 percent choice while Bugg Elementary in Raleigh has 33 percent assigned and 67 percent there by choice.

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