Future shock

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Too far to walk

Walk to School Day was Oct. 7. In the Oct. 8 N&O, you showed three lovely children in Cary walking to their school. It would have been nice for my two grandchildren who have a Southeast Raleigh address to walk to their school, except their school is in Apex. I wonder the percentage of children who could walk to their schools versus the bused children who could have participated?

Sheril Howard, Garner

East Wake's four schools to continue

The four small schools at East Wake High School got a thumbs-up Tuesday when the Wake school board voted for them to continue operating as specialized units within a whole.

Interim Chairman Kevin Hill asked for a show of thumbs and got it. And the four principals of the school attending Tuesday's meeting beamed.

The vote means the schools have a reprieve until at least December of 2010 after three audits are performed. At that time, the staff will either recommend continuing the schools-within-a-school concept or introduce a plan to phase them out.

UNC-CH's 'First School' may take youngest students

Early grades at Seawell Elementary could be eliminated to feed students to a new type of school run by a UNC-Chapel Hill institute.

At a planning conference next week, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board will look at removing the elementary school's pre-kindergarten through second-grade classes.

Under the proposal, students in those grades who would have attended Seawell Elementary would go to the "First School" envisioned by UNC-CH's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute.

Questions raised to determine school conversion

The Wake County school district has asked school board members to rank, in order of importance, the questions that would be used to determine which 16 to 30 elementary schools to convert to a year-round calendar in 2007.

A proposed $1.06 billion school construction plan could not keep up with growth without the conversion of some schools to year-round. Year-round schools can handle more students than traditional schools can. Wake could choose to convert a lower number of large schools, which tend to be located in one part of the county, or spread the year-round calendar by converting a higher number of smaller schools.

“If we only target the biggest schools, it will almost solely be in the far north, far west and far south of the county,” said Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning. “That would go against ... providing families traditional-calendar options.”

No crows here

I have to take issue with the study indicating that most Wake County students do not have a long distance to travel to school unless by choice. Your article stated that according to the study, 99 percent of students travel less than 10 miles to school, as the crow flies.

In the latest reassignment proposal, the school board recommended moving the children of our neighborhood from Leesville High School (a distance of 7 miles on the road) to Millbrook High School (a distance of 15 miles on the road). There is absolutely no way to look at this "as the crow flies." This is not the way our children will be transported to school -- ever.

I would suggest that this study is meaningless.