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In just 15 days, Wake County voters will elect four people to serve on the Board of Education. The two candidates for the District 7 seat say they both are hearing from constituents who are fed up with reassignment and year-round schools, but they differ in their responses.
Both Deborah Prickett and Karen Simon are parents of students in Wake County schools, but that may be where their similarities end. Prickett is a longtime educator who is part of the movement for change in school board policies and a return to neighborhood schools.
"The diversity policy we have been using for 10 years is failing," she said in a forum Tuesday at the Morrisville Chamber of Commerce. "Students need to be able to remain in a familiar school."
Simon is a military veteran who now works for the N.C. Governor's Crime Commission. She supports the system's socioeconomic diversity approach and the use of year-round schools to control construction costs.
""I know, and I hear the frustration of some parents when they talk about the multiple student assignments or the year-round calendar year that disrupts families," she said. "But unfortunately, these are unintended consequences that stem from growth."
While reassignment and mandatory year-round schools have taken the lion's share of attention in this year's school board race, they are not the only issues candidates are bringing to the table.
Both Simon and Prickett call for higher academic standards for students, citing a need for more AP and honors classes. At Tuesday's forum, Simon suggested a county-wide academic competition she called an "Academic Olympics" to bolster student achievement.
Prickett drew on her experience as an educator and counselor to take Wake County to task for rising dropout rates.
"Wake County schools have lost their focus," she said. "We're spending time, money and resources on the wrong things. We must reset and make education job number one."
Like most of the candidate forums sponsored this month by the Wake Education Partnership, attendance was low. Morrisville Mayor Jan Faulkner was in the group of about 20 who came to learn more about the candidates.
"I'm not familiar with either one of the candidates for the board of education, so I wanted to learn more about where they're coming from, why they want to serve in that capacity," she said.
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By Julie Henry on 09/22 11:30 PM
Thanks for the correction on the District number. My apologies to Ms. Simon and Ms. Prickett. District 7 is western Cary, Morrisville and the Briar Creek/Leesville Rd. areas; District 9 covers the rest of Cary.
By jenman on 09/22 10:09 PM
solid and EQUAL? That's a laugh. WCPSS discriminates against lower income children and children assigned to high poverty schools when it comes to acceptance to magnet programs. WCPSS sees nothing wrong with reassigning low income children to schools 18 miles away. According to Horace Tart and Chuck Dulaney, they won't participate no matter how close to the school they are.
By lookingforsolutions on 09/22 09:12 PM
• A 2005 Wake County report on a two-year socioeconomic diversity study showed mixed academic results. Low income students reassigned for socioeconomic diversity purposes scored higher in reading, but lower in math than a comparison group. School board members refuse to do further studies of the policy and claim to “just know” that it is working. • By reassigning students between schools, Wake County can avoid sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law and avoid requirements to offer parents school transfer options with transportation provided.
By lookingforsolutions on 09/22 09:11 PM
The Truth About Wake County Schools http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucAMr7qngN8
By lookingforsolutions on 09/22 09:09 PM
Wake County has higher academic achievement gaps between white and black students and economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged students than any school district in North Carolina. • Halifax County public schools, excoriated by Superior Court Judge Howard Manning as committing “academic genocide” for doing such a poor job of educating students, had a 67.1% four-year graduation rate for economically disadvantaged students in 2007-08, compared to only 56.0% for Wake County. • Healthy schools policy? In 2008-09, Wake County had a lower percentage of schools achieving Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) than other large school districts in North Carolina. Wake’s percentage was 62.8% compared to 68.7% for Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 70.6% for Guilford County, and 64.2% for Forsyth County. • End-of-Grade and End-of-Course test results show that since Wake County adopted its forced busing for socioeconomic diversity policy in the 2001-02 school year, academic performance relative to state average has declined. • In 2006, the year the last school construction bond was proposed and passed, Wake County officials estimated 2009-10 school enrollment to be 151,324 students. This school year that projection has been revised down to only 139,726 students. The 2006 estimate was over 11,500 students off. With growth much slower than projected, why do we still have overcrowding and many students in trailers?
By Venita Peyton on 09/22 09:01 PM
If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got. Wake County cannot move forward by continuing to look backward! Vote for parents who care for a change! Prickett 7, Malone 1, Tedesco 2, Goldman 9
By lookingforsolutions on 09/22 08:29 PM
could you at least TRY to get the District right next time? This is District SEVEN's race...
By loriac on 09/22 08:24 PM
Growth is not the reason behind all the reassignments - otherwise why all the shuffling in DIstrict 7 that is largely built out? The shuffling is not about helping kids - it's about keeping schools 'healthy'. WCPSS shuffles low performing kids around to hide the low scores - there's no other explanation for some of the arbitrary reassignments. Let's focus on education - vote Prickett!
By loriac on 09/22 08:17 PM
This should be District 7, not District 9.
By NCparent on 09/22 07:48 PM
Status Quo candidates will build upon 30 years of progress!! WCPSS has a great foundation layed...some tweeking needed but solid and EQUAL nontheless. I vote for the Status Quo!
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