School Board Finalizes Year-Round Criteria, Adds Public Hearing
July 18, 2006 -- At its Committee of the Whole meeting today the Board of Education finalized criteria to guide the conversion of some elementary schools to the year-round calendar, and extended the timeline for converting schools to allow for additional community input.
| Final Year-Round Criteria |
Based on community feedback, the board elevated the importance of whether a school’s base population was growing and the need to minimize reassignment in the decision to convert schools. They also recognized the importance of maintaining a quality instructional program and the importance of keeping all tracks healthy.
From June 20 to July 17, the school system gathered 534 comments from the website, and on July 13, held four focus groups of teachers, principals, parents, and board advisory council chairs.
On August 15, staff will present a list of schools to convert based on the criteria that board members approved today.
The board decided to add a public hearing on August 28 and take comments online regarding the specific schools. Board chair Patti Head said this will give the board and the public time to digest the information as it relates to specific schools before the board makes a final vote September 5.
Originally, the school board was planning to give preliminary approval to a list of schools to convert on August 22.
The new building program that seeks to ease crowding and provide classrooms for the thousands of additional students moving into Wake County includes converting enough schools to the year-round calendar to gain 3,000 elementary school seats. Schools on the multi-track year-round calendar can hold 20-33 percent more students than those on a traditional calendar because one of four groups of students is on break at any given time.