Some Wake students could move to other schools in 2023. Are your children affected?

Hundreds of Wake County students could be moved to different schools next year even though the district isn’t opening any new schools.

Wake County school administrators presented Tuesday the first draft of a student assignment plan to fill schools for the 2023-24 school year. Even though no new schools are opening next year, administrators said some reassignments are needed to make changes such as easing crowding at some schools and improve transportation efficiency to reduce the number of buses needed.

“Overall, we anticipate that only a very small percentage of students will be affected by this proposal,” the district says on its assignment plan website.

The public can view the plan at wcpss.net/2023enrollmentproposal.

People can search if their address is affected at osageo.wcpss.net/enrollment-proposal-2324-draft1. So many people were going online Tuesday afternoon that the website went down. School officials assured families though that they would have received an email if their address was affected.

People can provide feedback at an online forum (wcpss.net/draft1feedback). School officials say they’ll use the feedback to help make changes for a second draft that will be released Oct. 18.

The school board will hold a public hearing Nov. 10, with a final vote scheduled for Nov. 15.

Reassignment fights

Student reassignment has historically been a contentious topic in North Carolina’s largest school system. Last year, some families fought a plan that moved up to 3,000 students for the 2022-23 school year.

Historically, much of the annual plan has involved filling new schools. Wake won’t open new schools until 2024.

School administrators said they balanced four factors (operational efficiency, proximity, stability and student achievement) in developing the new plan. Student achievement is part of Wake’s longstanding efforts to try to balance school populations.

Wake says no factor is more important than the other. This means that Wake has been moving students to closer schools, thereby reducing the number of buses needed at a time of rising driver shortages.

But Glenn Carrozza, assistant superintendent for school choice, planning and assignment, said they look at both the diversity of the sending and receiving schools when they recommend moves.

“We definitely did not want to negatively impact the school by creating higher concentrations of poverty,” Carrozza told the board.

Enrollment caps

The district now has fewer students than it did before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. But some parts of the county are still seeing growth at the same time that state lawmakers have lowered class sizes for K-3 classrooms.

In response, the school board in February approved putting enrollment caps on 25 crowded schools for this school year. Enrollment caps are a way to shift the burden of reducing school overcrowding onto newcomers.

When a capped school reaches an enrollment limit, families who weren’t living in the attendance area by a certain date are assigned to a more distant school that has space.

But enrollment caps are unpopular with newly arriving families. The caps also exacerbate the bus driver shortage due to the additional bus routes that are needed to send students to the overflow schools.

The plan would reduce crowding at some capped schools.

Stability transfers

Once the plan is approved, Wake will open a “stability transfer period,” or what used to be called “grandfathering.”

“But because there are no new schools at play, we do have some pretty generous recommendations,” said Susan Pullium, senior director for student assignment.

All existing students impacted by the proposed assignment changes are eligible to remain at their current school if they file a transfer request and agree to provide their own transportation.

Students who are entering kindergarten, sixth grade or ninth grade can avoid being reassigned if they’ll be attending the same school next year as an older sibling.

Wake says more details about the process for requesting a stability transfer will be provided in the second draft of the plan.