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Board of Education Approves Student Assignment Changes for 2010-11

March 24, 2010 - At its March 23 meeting, the Board of Education approved some changes to the school system three-year assignment plan.

The board approved the following changes:

The board approved the following guidelines for grandfathering of students impacted by reassignment.

Board policy 6203 governs requests by parents for their child to attend a school other than the school assigned by the Board of Education. Transfer requests are accepted and evaluated by staff each year following official notification of school assignment for the subsequent year. (Note that Policy 6203 stipulates that no transportation will be provided for approved transfer requests.) It has been the past practice of the Board of Education to establish special consideration for transfer requests from families impacted by the reassignment of the nodes in which they live. On February 3, 2009, the Board of Education approved the following special consideration for families impacted by changes in school assignment (both base school assignment changes and calendar application changes) contained in he Growth Management Plan for 20090-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12.

Transfer requests will be automatically approved if the following three conditions apply:

If they are submitted during the annual transfer application period (In 2010 the transfer application period will occur between May 14 and June 1.)

And

If the application is for a student who has been attending a WCPSS school and the Board’s action has changed the student’s assignment for the subsequent year to a school and the Board’s action has changed the student’s assignment for the subsequent year to a school different from the current school

And

If one of the following statements is true:

  • The student is rising into grades 4 or 5 (and is reassigned to either an existing or a new school), or
  • The student is rising into grades 7, 8, 10, 11, or 12 and the change in assignment is from an existing school to an existing school, or
  • The student is rising into grade 8 and the reassignment is to a new school

Two new middle schools will open in 29010 and 2011 with all three grade levels (6, 7 and 8). One new high school will open in 2010 with only two grade levels (9 and 10). Transfer requests will not be approved by staff for students rising into grades 6, 7, 9 or 10 if the Growth Management Plan assigns the student to a newly opening school unless the request is for a younger sibling of a rising 8th grade student or the younger sibling of a rising 11th or 12th grade student and that younger sibling has already attended the same school as the older sibling during the year preceding reassignment.

Younger Sibling Transfer Requests

A transfer request to remain at the current school will be automatically approved if it is for a student who will be impacted by district assignment decisions twice within a three-year period. For example, if a student was in School A as either a base or a calendar applicant and board action changes that student’s assignment to School B and then subsequent board action would change the student’s assignment to School C after less than three years in School B, a transfer request for the student to remain in School B would be automatically approved.

Green Hope Elementary
The conversion of Green Hope Elementary to a traditional calendar form a year-round calendar in 2010-11 creates a special circumstance. Students were reassigned from Morrisville YR Elementary to Green Hope YR Elementary in 2007 in grades 103. When Green Hope changes to a traditional calendar, Carpenter Elementary will be the year-round application school for Green Hope nodes. For some children who want to stay on the year-round calendar, this could mean a third school to follow a year-round calendar in their elementary years. A transfer request to return to Morrisville will be automatically approved for the students who previously attended Morrisville. Because of projected crowding at Morrisville, transfer requests for younger siblings who did not attend Morrisville will not be automatically approved. Such requests will be evaluated by staff based upon crowding at the school.

Mills Park Elementary, Leesville Road Elementary and Leesville Road Middle
A similar situation may exist at other schools, Mills Park Elementary, Leesville Road Elementary and Leesville Road Middle that are converted from traditional to year-round calendars or visa versa. Students who are kindergarten year-round or calendar applicants at an application school and were brought back to their base school in 1st grade when it changed to a calendar choice school may be impacted in 3rd grade by reassignment from their base to another school. Staff will give special consideration to families that are in this situation and will make an effort to approve transfer requests to remain at the current application school if the request does not lead to overcrowding.

The adoption of a multi-year student assignment plan creates a situation in which parents may want to request a transfer to a school other than their base school because that school will become their base school in a future year. Staff will give special consideration to requests for transfers that are made in anticipation of a new assignment in a future year. Such requests will not be automatically approved because the requested school may not have space for additional students prior to the year in which assignment changes are scheduled to occur. However, if school crowding is not a problem, staff will normally approve such requests.

Per Board Policy 6203.8, high school students on transfer waive the right to participate in athletic activities for 365 days. If a student is approved for transfer under the grandfather provisions, however, the student is not required to appeal for athletic participation. If growth management allows the student to stay at the previous school due to grandfathering, then the student is eligible for athletics.

Article updated 3/25/10 to reflect node 539.0 assigned to Turner Creek Elementary as base beginning 2010-11

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