Wake Schools' new district maps out of line, some say
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Wake County school board members met Tuesday night to discuss several upcoming changes for Wake County students and families.
BELL SCHEDULES
Changing some bell schedules by about 45 minutes was up for discussion during the Wake County School Board work session Tuesday evening.
RELATED: See the full proposed bell-schedule change
Under the proposed bell schedule, six schools would see changes. Enloe High School and Fuquay-Varina Elementary start and end times would shift by five minutes, but bigger changes are on the table for four other schools.
Green Elementary, Lufkin Road Middle and Wendell Middle schools could see their start and end times shift by 45 minutes later. While Knightdale High School could see start and finish times shift 40 minutes earlier. It's a change Wake County School System staff members say the school requested. The reasoning behind the change, they say, is to allow for more after school activities such as sports, clubs or part-time jobs.
Though board members overall seem to support the new schedules, they chose to table the discussion until they hear more from the public.
DISTRICT MAPS
We already experienced the push-and-give the drawing of new voting maps had on a statewide level, now we're seeing it trickle down to the Wake County school district.
"My kids go to school in one and I vote and live in another, it's highly frustrating to parents," said Wake County School Board member, Dr. Jim Martin.
He said parents find it frustrating as does the board. Members spent the majority of Tuesday night's work session trying to make sense of the new district lines.
Issues they find include the splitting of school communities. For example, Knightdale Elementary is in the new District 1, while all other Knightdale schools are in District 4.
RELATED: Take a look at maps for each district
The lines also split board members from the districts they serve.
"In the past, up until this change, parents knew their local board member and they attended the schools roughly in that district," said board chair Tom Benton.
The board does have some power to do some readjusting, but that won't come without changes to policies. What those changes will be, they don't know just yet. But they hope to come back to the table with plans to put in place by July 1.
