Wake County Schools reassignment fight continues

WAKE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- On Tuesday, Wake County School board members got their first look at the third draft of the highly contested reassignment plan.

"We're going to continue to take things into consideration," said Monika Johnson-Hostler, chair of Wake County School Board. "The good thing about this is that all of us have met with these communities individually over the past two months and so it's been a lot of personal contacts. I think the families that are impacted know that because we've all been open to meeting with them."

Parents from Cameron Pond have shown up in droves making their case to the school board for their kids to not be moved out of the Mills Parks schools for weeks.

The school board said it has to deal with overcrowding and trying to fill seats in four new schools. They also said they have to get in line with the mandated class size reductions for K-3.

Some notable changes from the second draft included removing the recommendation to assign some Poe Elementary students to Southeast Raleigh Elementary. They are also removing the recommendation to move some Davis Drive Middle School students to East Cary Middle School.

Wake County Schools said a portion of the Reedy Creek Middle School base proposed to attend West Cary Middle School will now be proposed to attend East Cary Middle School.

The grandfathering rules for middle school students are also proposed to change. Under the third draft, 7th and 8th graders assigned to an existing school (i.e., not new Alston Ridge Middle School) would be eligible to grandfather.

Wake County school staff also continues to recommend that Parkside Elementary and Alston Ridge Middle School open as multi-track year-round schools to provide additional student capacity in a heavily populated area.

There is a public hearing on the reassignment plan on November 7.

A final vote is expected on November 20.