Meetings Across The County Focus On Wake Co. Schools

Across Wake County Thursday, schools were the focus of community meetings. One took placed in Eastern Wake County, the other in Western Wake.

At the Knightdale meeting, the talk was of magnet schools. A group called the Knightdale 100 is working to get a magnet school in that community, and it sponsored the Wednesday session at Knightdale Town Hall.
"Chris Malone has asked us to give him a recommendation as to what type of magnet we would like in Knightdale if that looks like a possibility," said parent Katherine Dameron, who was one of the estimated 75 people in attendance at the session.
At the Cary meeting, the concern was about what would happen to Wake County Schools now that socio-economic diversity is no longer the way kids will be assigned.
That session was sponsored by the group Great Schools in Wake County, which favors the diversity policy.
"I just want more information about the direction the school system is moving in," said parent Shawn Woods, who was one of about two dozen people at that meeting.
The man who used to do the planning and assignments for Wake County told the Cary meeting that the direction Wake schools are taking is misconceived.
"Trying to compare the distance students travel to school to whether or not we're getting the kind of success rates we want -- particularly with at risk students -- is a misnomer," contended Chuck Dulaney. "The two have nothing to do with each other."
But for school board members like John Tedesco, the debate over busing is now irrelevant.
"I understand some people are still living in the past," Tedesco said. "We're moving forward into the future, and we're building a new plan."
Referring to the meeting in Knightdale, Tedesco said, "We're here with city leaders and parents who are going to take our good schools and make them great."
Tedesco says the debate over school assignments may be over; but for groups like Great Schools in Wake, the debate has yet to be completed.
That group is planning another forum on May 27 in Raleigh, again to discuss what its speakers say are the disadvantages to neighborhood based schools.