Parents spoke up on Wake student assignment plan, but district didn’t make changes

Despite extensive lobbying by parents, Wake County school administrators have not made any changes to a plan that would move thousands of students to different schools next year.

Wake school administrators released Tuesday the second draft of a plan for filling schools for the 2024-25 school year. Unlike in past years, administrators said that the feedback they received from parents was considered but didn’t lead them to make any changes to the first draft they released last month.

“There are no significant changes included in this second draft, and we want to own that up front,” Susan Pullium, senior director for student assignment, told the school board.

Two weeks ago, a large crowd of parents from the Kitts Creek and Providence Place communities in Morrisville spoke out at the school board meeting against being reassigned to their town’s Pleasant Grove Elementary.

The parents complained it will force families to change calendars and split some households between year-round and traditional-calendar schools.

“You’re seeing the level of frustration,” Mohit Dia, a Providence Place parent, told the board during Tuesday’s public comment session. “We put in so many comments. A lot of members of our community came last time and to see there has been no change whatsoever just so disheartens her and frustrates her.”

Student reassignment has historically been a contentious topic in North Carolina’s largest school system. Last year, some families fought a plan that moved 1,769 students for the 2023-24 school year.

View the assignment plan

The public can view the plan at wcpss.net/2024enrollmentproposal. People can search whether their address is affected at osageo.wcpss.net/enrollment-proposal-2425-draft2.

Parents can go to my.thoughtexchange.com/scroll/906292074 to provide comments.

The school board will hold a public hearing Nov. 8. The final draft of the plan will be presented on Nov. 21 for a vote that day.

“Know that Draft 2 is not the final plan,” board vice chair Chris Heagarty said at the board meeting. “We are still continuing to work on that.”

Many of the moves involve filling the new Woods Creek Elementary School opening next year in Holly Springs.

Some moves, particularly in Raleigh, involve sending students to schools closer to where they live to cut down on the number of buses needed.

“We need to use this tool in order to balance the schools and effectively utilize all of the capacity that we have,” said Glenn Carrozza, assistant superintendent of school choice, planning and assignment.

Pleasant Grove calendar change?

The draft plan calls for moving a large portion of the neighborhoods assigned to Pleasant Grove Elementary to fill the empty seats at Brier Creek and Leesville Road elementary schools in northwest Raleigh.

This in turn would let Wake relieve overcrowding at Alston Ridge Elementary in Cary and Parkside Elementary in Morrisville by moving Kitts Creek and Providence Place to Pleasant Grove. Both Alston Ridge and Parkside are on a year-round calendar, while Pleasant Grove is on a traditional calendar.

“Pleasant Grove would be the closest school with the available capacity that can provide that sustainable relief,” Pullium told the board.

Some families facing reassignment have asked Wake to convert Pleasant Grove to a year-round calendar. Administrators said they’d review the idea.

Board members asked student assignment staff to contact Pleasant Grove families about the possibility of a calendar change.

Stability transfers

Once the plan is approved, Wake will open a “stability transfer period,” or what used to be called “grandfathering.” This is an option that allows some students who are being moved to stay at their current school in exchange for losing bus service.

“Certainly we don’t want to move people, but we do offer the option of stability, and we’re trying to do it the most effective way we can, which does mean transportation isn’t offered,” said board member Monika Johnson-Hostler.

The proposed stability rules will vary depending on what school a student is trying to avoid attending next year.

▪ Rising fourth- and fifth-grade students being reassigned to Woods Creek Elementary can stay at their current elementary school if they provide their own transportation. In addition, their younger siblings will be able to stay with them at their current school.

▪ The proposed Woods Creek transfer rules would also apply to students who are being reassigned into or out of Pleasant Grove Elementary.

▪ Excluding Woods Creek and Pleasant Grove, all other students who are being reassigned can stay at their current school if they provide their own transportation. Rising kindergarten, sixth-grade and ninth-grade students can also request to stay with their sibling to avoid being reassigned.