Wake will reassign 3,000 students to different schools. Is your child moving?
Wake County’s newly approved student assignment plan could move 3,000 students to different schools next fall.
The Wake County school board unanimously approved Tuesday a plan to fill new and under-enrolled schools and to ease crowding at other schools. The moves for the 2022-23 school year come despite the lobbying of some parents, who said reassignment should be put on hold because of the instability that children have faced during the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is never an easy decision as board members, and certainly one that we struggle with and ask many, many questions about,” said new school board chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey.
Much of the plan involves filling three new schools: Apex Friendship Elementary in Apex, Barton Pond Elementary in Raleigh and Herbert Akins Road Middle in Fuquay-Varina. The 2022-23 student enrollment plan will move students from more than 60 Wake schools.
The new plan doesn’t include any calendar changes for year-round schools. But calendar changes could be proposed in January by school administrators.
Stability transfers
The 3,000 students impacted by the plan represent around 2% of the school district’s enrollment. But the number being moved could drop under a process previously referred to as “grandfathering.”
Between Dec. 13 and Jan. 2, some families whose neighborhoods are being reassigned can request to stay at their current school. The “stability transfer” requests will be automatically approved but will result in the students losing district bus service next school year.
The stability rules vary by school and by grade level.
Parents can find out more about the stability rules, as well as see if their address is being moved, at the district’s website, (www.wcpss.net). Administrators say it make take a few more days for the website to reflect the changes made on Tuesday.
Last-minute changes to the plan
Parents have been lobbying for changes since the first draft was released in October. Some changes have been made over the past two months, including last-minute revisions on Tuesday.
“We looked at all of the feedback that we were provided,” Glenn Carrozza, assistant superintendent for school choice planning and assignment, said Tuesday. “Some, we were able to accommodate those requests, others we were not. But we really do appreciate everyone advocating for their families.”
Carrozza proposed two changes on Tuesday that were adopted by the board:
▪ Reduce the number of students who’d be moved out of York Elementary. Parents had complained it would leave York too underenrolled.
▪ Reduce the number of students being moved from Leesville Road High to Millbrook High. The move was meant to ease crowding at Leesville, but parents complained their kids would be moving to a more distant school.
Board members also suggested their own changes on Tuesday.
The board approved a change from board member Roxie Cash to drop the reassignment of students from the Falls River subdivision to Durant Road middle and elementary schools. The moves were meant to relive overcrowding at Abbotts Creek Elementary, but Cash said reassigning those 60 students wouldn’t have much of an impact.
The board also approved a change from vice chairman Chris Heagarty to drop the reassignment of Panther Creek High students to Green Hope High. Heagarty said that those Panther Creek families live next to the school.
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 11:40 AM with the headline "Wake will reassign 3,000 students to different schools. Is your child moving?."
