Magnet Status

As you may know, the school board decided back in May to eliminate the magnet programs at 4 elementary schools: Root, Lincoln Heights, Olds and Wake Forest. A final vote was scheduled to take place at the June 5th board meeting, but upset parents persuaded the BOE to delay the vote. What for? Magnet programs have been under review for a while now and with good reason. The magnet office did a study (although it has some flaws in my opinion), presented that information to the BOE, then the decision was made. In typical wishy washy fashion, the BOE let themselves be influenced by parent groups. The same thing happened with the original mandatory year round plan--we went from everybody converting to some form of year round to 30 schools to the final 22, all in an effort to placate some parents.

So why am I for the 'demagnetization' of these schools? Because they no longer meet the criteria for magnet schools--they are neither underenrolled nor in high poverty areas. Root has an F&R rate of 27.1%, Olds is 23%, and Wake Forest is 14.3%--well under the overall Wake County F&R rate of 32%. Admittedly, I do not know enough about Lincoln Heights and its base area to make a judgment, but I do know enough about the other three. Wake Forest Elementary is an Equity Magnet, meaning that nobody can apply to attend. It is only comprised of a base population that is 14.3% F&R, which is the 12th lowest F&R rate for Wake elementary schools. WFE students enjoy electives such as dance, foreign language, and orchestra in their own neighborhood school--no long bus rides downtown like the rest of us.

Root and Olds are true magnets, but they have large neighborhood base areas and actually bus low income children into their schools from downtown. So not only do they have low F&R rates, but many of the F&R children don't even live in the area around the school. This would be the equivalent of putting a magnet program in at Wakefield Elementary. You can take a look at their base attendance maps here:
Root Attendance Map

Olds Attendance Map

There has been some talk of Olds and Wake Forest finding their own funding so they can keep some of the magnet programs at their schools. Sounds reasonable, right? But what about the other schools that would like to offer extras to their students but are prohibited from doing so? Will the BOE and WCPSS allow any school to offer band, orchestra, or other extras if they come up with the money themselves? No, because then not enough families from those schools will apply to magnets and they want those higher income 'suburban' families to attend magnets. Although I can sympathize with the base families at Root, Olds and Wake Forest, if WCPSS allows them to keep their programs then all schools should be allowed to offer special programs.