New School Locations, Growth Management Timeline and Year-Round Plans

WCPSS Growth & Planning and N.C. State University's Operations Research and Education Laboratory (OR/Ed) presented maps of proposed new school locations at the school board's Committee of the Whole meeting yesterday.

The Blueprint for Excellence 2006, the school system's new building program, includes 17 new schools and land and design start up for 13 future schools. All 30 sites are represented on the proposed maps.

The school system contracted with OR/Ed in fall 2004 to create a data-driven process to better determine long-range student enrollment projections and locations for future schools.

OR/Ed's data reaffirmed the locations that WCPSS has already identified. The circles represent the general area where a new school is needed based on future land use plans, enrollment projections and filling schools as efficiently as possible. Many of the new schools' opening dates are marked "to be determined" because our needs in different areas may shift -- we know we need all the schools, but whether one elementary school needs to open before another is being analyzed.

Also during the meeting, the school board reached consensus on a draft 2007-08 timeline for year-round track assignment, magnet and calendar applications. There will be separate applications for magnet schools and for calendar options (either into year-round from traditional calendar or into traditional calendar from year-round). All applications would be completed online to provide faster processing and notification to families. Lots of support will be provided to those who need it.

Caroline Massengill in the year-round office updated the board on the plan for converting the 22 schools to the year-round calendar in 2007-08. Planning for potential conversion actually began last winter. Before the vote to transition to year-round, optional meetings were held with principals. A Year-Round Advisory Committee, made up of 30 members representing every area of central services, has already met twice regarding policies/practices that will be affected by year-round. In addition, each new year-round school has been paired with an existing year-round school for additional help and guidance. Various training sessions have already begun to help ease the transition.

There's additional information on the Year-Round Schools Resource Center.

Posted by Kristin Flenniken at 04:08 PM on October 04, 2006 | Leave Feedback

What Do You Think?

Have an opinion about this article? Let us know, using the form below.

Your Feedback: