Vote Oct. 6 for Tedesco, Prickett, Goldman & Malone for School Board!

Election day is drawing near and we have the opportunity to make positive changes to the Wake County School Board. Four seats are up for election this year and there is a clear choice for each of those seats. If you are unsure if you live in one of the districts up for election, you can find out at www.sboe.state.nc.us. As a member of the Wake Schools Community Alliance, I am proud to endorse the following candidates:

District 1 (Wake Forest, Rolesville, Knightdale, Zebulon & Wendell): Chris Malone
Chris Malone is the only candidate in this 3 person race who has a real grasp of the issues. Malone supports community based schools but recognizes that they aren't a magic bullet to fix all of our system's problems. He wants to implement new approaches to reachstruggling students because merely busing them around hasn't worked. He supports expanding magnet opportunities and believes that the current discriminatory magnet selection process is wrong. He also believes that year round schools should be voluntary.

Malone's opponents are Debbie Vair and Rita Rakestraw. Although Vair agrees with Malone on many issues, her entrance into this race seems to be motivated mostly by her oppposition to the proposed high school on Forestville Road. Rakestraw doesn't seem to understand the issues of her district at all. She believes that there are no mandatory year round schools--that everybody has a traditional and a year round option and they go to the one they want. She is a supporter of the current diversity policy even though it has actually harmed Eastern Wake county. Eastern Wake has a high percentage of low income students yet WCPSS has stated many times that there's little they can do to lower the poverty percentages at Eastern Wake schools. The two solutions suggested by WCPSS so far have been to 1)wait for I-540 to bring higher income residential development to the area and 2)further reduce the number of magnet seats available to children in the area. Rakestraw is heavily supported by central Raleigh politicians and business leaders who are concerned with the health of central Raleigh schools and care little about Eastern Wake. Its easy to brag about the health of Wake County's 'urban' Raleigh schools if you keep the red-haired stepchild out of view. Rakestraw's support of the current diversity policy will further harm her district and will keep Eastern Wake 'left behind'.

District 2 (Garner, Fuquay-Varina): John Tedesco
John Tedesco is a dynamic man with fantastic ideas who can also bring those ideas to fruition. John grew up in poverty and changed schools frequently so he has a real understanding of what our lower income students need in order to achieve. He also works in a leadership role with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization and mentors at risk youth. John supports the community schools model which is advocated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Most importantly, John believes that low income students CAN achieve and that their families can be engaged.

Tedesco's opponents are Horace Tart, Carlene Lucas, and Cathy Truitt. Tart, the incumbent, is not troubled by the long distances traveled by many of our low income students. He believes that distance is not a factor in parental participation for low income families. They just won't participate no matter how close they are to a school so it doesn't matter how far we bus their children. This elitist attitude is also shared by Chuck Dulaney, director of Growth Managment for WCPSS. Instead of looking for ways to actually engage low income families and improve academic achievement, he's satisfied with just busing their kids around and wiping his hands clean of them. Low expectations for low income children are the norm for WCPSS and Tart will do nothing to change that. Lucas's controlled choice model is really just more of the same that we have now. Parents can apply for the school they want but acceptance is still based on low income percentages. When I first heard Truitt speak, I thought that if Tedesco wasn't in the race she'd be my pick. Since then, however, she has engaged in attack ads on her opponents that make me question what her primary motivation for seeking this office is.

District 7 (Northwest Raleigh and Morrisville): Deborah Prickett
Deborah Prickett is a Raleigh native and former teacher and school counselor who supports community based schools as a way to provide stability and increased parental involvement. Prickett supports voluntary year round, which is a big issue in this district which includes the Leesville schools. She is also in favor of getting the school board out of the land buying business so they can concentrate on actual education issues.

Prickett's opponent, Karen Simon is backed by the status quo and it shows. Much of what she says is just parroting what WCPSS's PR department says about itself. We're one of the top school systems so let's keep doing what we're doing, blah blah blah. Simon supports mandatory year round assignments and claims that they are necessary because of growth. Considering that Leesville ES is located right between 2 very underenrolled year round schools (Brier Creek & Sycamore Creek) and near 2 underenrolled traditional schools (York & Hilburn), I think she should rethink her answer. Simon would also make no changes to the magnet system as it currently exists. I guess that giving kids who live in the right neighborhoods and attend the right schools better access to the best WCPSS has to offer is ok with her.

District 9 (Cary): Debra Goldman
Debra Goldman understands that students need stable assignments in community schools in order to succeed. Like the other candidates I endorse, she favors placing resources where they are needed rather than just busing children around. Goldman also favors voluntary participation in year round schools and believes that WCPSS is too top heavy.

Goldman's opponent, Lois Nixon is clueless when she states that mandatory year round schools have saved the taxpayers $350 million dollars so far. Year round schools don't save any money unless they are at capacity and most of our newly built and converted yr schools aren't anywhere near capacity. She is even more clueless when she states as she did in one forum, that the children in her neighborhood have 27 different schools they get to choose from. She obviously doesn't understand how the magnet selection process works. Her neighborhood is assigned to Reedy Creek middle school so they actually have the least likely chance of getting into a magnet middle school. Nixon also touts the use of our schools as an 'economic tool' and how we don't want to "kill the goose that laid the golden egg". This is particularly disturbing to me and is a trend of all 4 candidates who are supported by the status quo.

Business leaders are very much behind the diversity policy not because it actually helps disdvantaged kids (it doesn't) but because it is good for business. It gives them bragging rights to say that all of the schools in the 'urban' core are good, but they ignore the fact that we still have those not so good schools. Since they are not in central Raleigh, however, it doesn't matter. They are invisible to companies looking to do business here. When the status quo candidates refer to the schools as economic tools it shows us that their number one priority isn't student achievement, it is about appearances. We all deserve better than that.

What Did MYR Conversions Do To Your Chances?

I was struck by a few of the converted schools that were so underenrolled that they didn't qualify for any of the rounds in the magnet lottery. Since they had F&R low enough to qualify, I wondered how the conversions affected their chances.

This year's criteria were very similar to last year's. The only differences were Round One going to the 4 demagnetized schools and the capacity figure of 85% used in later rounds. Last year's capacity figure was 90% for the later rounds. Following is a table that shows the earliest round that each converted elementary was eligible for last year as well as this year. I adjusted this year's rounds by removing the special consideration for the demagnetized schools. So Rounds 2-5 became Rounds 1-4 this year to make the comparison more in line. As you will see, not all of the schools were affected but Baucom, Green Hope, Middle Creek and Wakefield were the most negatively affected by the conversions.

Decision Time

Are we in a capacity crisis in our schools? WCPSS and the BOE say yes, but their actions say no. Sure, they converted 22 schools to the year round calendar, but even before Judge Manning's ruling they denied applicants to voluntary year round if it didn't suit their diversity goals. After Manning's ruling, when families could opt out of year round and WCPSS found many of their year round schools underenrolled, they still refused to allow students into the year round seats.

My husband and I applied for year round for our two elementary age sons. After being initally rejected, we pursued it all the way through the appeals process. We offered to attend any track at any of the four year round schools located within five miles of our home. We were denied those schools but were offered one 11 miles away, which we turned down. After the latest figures were released showing two of our choices at less than 80% capacity we made some additional phone calls asking them to please reconsider our applicantion, but they still turned us down. I asked Growth Management why and the answer was "We're leaving those seats open for new growth".

Only 13% of applicants were accepted this year at our year round option, Durant Road Elementary, which is severely overcrowded. Even though Durant has been overcrowded and hard to get into for several years now, the BOE voted to assign a new higher income node there for next year. Why would they do this when that means there are even fewer seats available to applicants? I asked Growth Management when they were going to offer families in my area a true year round option. The answer? If we do that, then too many higher income families will apply and the F&R numbers will increase at surrounding schools.

WCPSS and the BOE caused upheaval and lost the trust of some families with the year round conversions, but now they are blatantly squandering this new resource that they've fought so hard for. They continue to whine and blame Judge Manning's decision for the underenrolled year round schools and overcrowded traditional schools, but they only have themselves to blame. Its decision time, WCPSS. Which is the most pressing issue, finding seats for all of our students or trying to balance the F&R rates? It seems you can't do both.