Wake County considering changes to year-round school program

Wake County families aren’t choosing to attend multi-track year-round schools in large enough numbers, so school leaders are considering whether to further cut the program in the next few years.

Wake has historically accepted the higher cost of operating multi-track schools – which are open all 12 months – because they save on construction dollars by increasing the number of students a building can accommodate. But the majority of Wake’s 37 multi-track year-round schools have empty seats at a time when some families are complaining about a shortage of traditional-calendar seats.

Now the district’s student assignment staff is recommending River Bend Elementary in Raleigh switch to a traditional calendar in 2017. Staff will make recommendations on changes to track 4 year-round schools in 2018 and to multi-track schools in 2019.

At multi-track schools, students are split into four groups, or tracks, that follow their own schedules and can increase a building’s capacity by as much as 33 percent. At track 4 schools, all the students follow the same schedule.

Some school board members are also talking about no longer offering a year-round school option for every family. They have said, though, that they would still want to continue giving every family assigned to a year-round school the option to apply to a traditional-calendar school.

Amid all these potential changes, school board Chairman Tom Benton said they’re waiting for more data from staff.

“We don’t have a preconceived idea of where we want to go,” Benton said in an interview. “We’re not convinced we’re getting the efficiencies that people want us to have out of our multi-track year-rounds. We are interested in simplifying calendar options.”

Some parents say Wake has already cut back too much on the multi-track program. Wake has 14 fewer multi-track schools than it had in 2009.

“They are slowly moving our children from year-round to traditional calendar,” said Joanna Byrnes, a Cary parent of two year-round students. “I do not understand the goal of eliminating the year-round calendar.

“Wake County schools are confusing parents like me,” she said. “And they offer no solid information for their decisions.”

The majority of Wake’s estimated 159,000 students attend traditional-calendar schools, which open in late August and end by early June. Students have summer breaks of 10 or more weeks.

In year-round schools, the summer vacation is reduced to a month or less, and students have three-week breaks throughout the school year.

Year-round supporters say the periodic breaks help students recharge and curb learning loss from long summer breaks. Critics say it can be tough for families to find inexpensive childcare during the breaks and to manage different schedules when older siblings are in high school.

Wake had a mass expansion of multi-track schools between 2007 and 2009 because the district was projected to continue growing by 5,000 students a year. But slower-than-expected growth during the recession, opposition from parents and a lawsuit kept many of the multi-track schools below their projected enrollments.

Wake ultimately won a lawsuit in 2009 saying it didn’t need to get parental consent to send children to year-round schools.

Parental opposition to year-round schools is still strong. Wake had considered converting nine traditional-calendar elementary schools to a track 4 schedule this year to try to improve student performance by scheduling classes during the breaks. But Wake converted only Walnut Creek Elementary after families at the other schools threatened to leave if the calendar was changed.

Only one multi-track school was part of the building program funded by a bond referendum approved by voters in 2013. All of the new schools in the current building program are planned to open on a traditional calendar.

As Wake switched more multi-track schools to a traditional calendar or to track 4, the district launched a study of the year-round program.

Earlier this year, the district’s study found that the majority of traditional-calendar elementary and middle schools were over capacity. The study also found that the majority of year-round schools were under capacity.

School board member Bill Fletcher, chairman of the facilities committee, has been vocal about the need to maintain the multi-track program. But Fletcher said he doesn’t see the number of multi-track schools expanding until they can fill the existing ones.

“We’ve got a number of empty year-round seats that we need to figure out how we’re going to use,” Fletcher said. “That’s a prudent financial thing for us to do and if we can fill those and have the family satisfaction for the K-8 multi-track program, then that would be fiscally responsible for us to do.”

As part of the year-round study, administrators are working on the recommendations for 2018 and 2019. One of the things administrators are talking about is having more families on the same calendar for elementary and middle school.

River Bend Elementary is being recommended for a change because River Bend Middle is opening in August on a traditional calendar. Staff have put the potential 2019 calendar conversion for Alston Ridge Elementary School in Cary on the board’s radar because Alston Ridge Middle will open with a traditional calendar.

Supporters of year-round schools warn that providing fewer options for families will make the program less desirable.

“When the year-round schools are going to be so few and far between, it’s going to limit choices for parents,” said Byrnes, the Cary parent. “They don’t even have to refuse multiple options. It will be obvious you cannot send your children.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 5:52 PM with the headline "Wake County considering changes to year-round school program."