I’ll admit, I really haven’t followed the issue here in Wake County, NC, regarding the plan to change schools from regular to year round. I assume this is something that is happening all over the country. I have no stake in the game, except for the taxes they yank from my paychecks for their crazy plans. But, this decision intrigues me
Raleigh — The Wake County school system cannot convert 22 schools from traditional calendars to year-round schedules this fall, a judge ruled Thursday.
Superior Court Judge Howard Manning’s decision throws the district’s plans for the 2007-08 school year into chaos, with only three months to find classroom space for an expected 8,000 new students.
Now, a ton of students and families were going to be affected by the initial plans, which go hand in hand with the absurd and constant moving students from one school to another.
…a group of parents, organized as WakeCARES, sued to block the move, contending that forcing them to switch schedules would be unfair to their children and would disrupt family life.
"The school board may not require the attendance of students at year-round schools without parental consent," Manning ruled.
About 20,000 families would have been be affected by the conversions.
It really mattered little to the Wake County Board of Education that there would have been disruptions, just like they have cared little for moving students around, busing them far from home to meet people that they live to far away with to make good friends with, spending all that time in transit, etc.
Now, I always wondered how a year long school would be able to add more spaces
Year-round schools can handle more students because students are separated into four groups with rotating schedules, with three in class and one on break at all times.
Here is an idea: stop spending so much money on all the extra absurdities, such as all the extra administrators, upscale classrooms and buildings, and, oh yea, busing students all over the county. Be responsible with the money. Really, do we need 50% administrators to teachers in schools? What do they actually do? The idea of schools is to educate (yea, I know, liberals), not provide a warm and cozy environment with cool decorations! Strip them down, and spend responsibly. Also, hit all the parents moving in to the county for some extra bucks.
Oh, and maybe teach children the 3 R’s, rather then social indoctrination and how to put condoms on cucumbers.
More: listening to the pundits, and really thinking about this ruling, the importance of it is understated. Think about what the judge said: parental consent. The school board was assigning children to full time schools without any parental consent. Heck, they were doing it against the wishes of the parents. The parents who could end up with children on the regular schedule and children on the year round schedule. One word. Nightmare. As it is, with the reassignments the school board keeps handing down, parents can have children not only in different schools, but schools that aren’t even near each other.
The judge is in effect telling the school board that the parents are the ultimate deciders for their childrens schooling. That really is huge in todays government run school systems.
Furthermore, there are tons of parents who do want their children in year rounds. Why not make the decisions based on what the parents want, not the apparently completely unresponsive school board?
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Here’s an interesting thought on this: if the judge has decided that the schools cannot make this change without parents concent how does that jibe with recent rulings that allow schools to teach controversial subjects without parental knowledge, let alone consent?
I live and work in Wake County. The School Board has threatened to put schools on a split shift in order to accommodate Judge Manning’s ruling. This would have some kids on a 7:00 AM to 1:30 PM schedule and others on a 1:30 PM to7:00 PM schedule, all to maintain the traditional calendar. Oh, yeah. That’s MUCH better.
Heck of a good question, Jim. I would love to see this ruling spread out to give parents more control over their education in schools.
Sarc, it could be that the school board needs to stop dictating and instead to listen to the needs of the students and the parents. There are plenty who want to send their kids to year rounds, let them do it, instead of the ones who do not.
Also, they can increase seat availability by not allowing the children of illegals and migrant workers seats at the schools. They are not Americans, so why are they going to our schools?
Blackbeard – Had to $hell out $$$
for our kids to receive quality educations in our parochial school system because the public schools here are a travesty, over crowded
and they have teachers that are UNQUALIFIED and not CERTIFIED!
Yeah – we PAID for quality educations but our kids were worth it. We feel for the families that suffer due to unaccountabilities. Yeah – we live in a socialist blue state!