Articles
Say "No" to Mandatory Year Round Schools
By: Paul Stam, Representative of the 37th District
September 14, 2006
Mr. Ron Margiotta
Member, Wake County Board of Education
7800 Secluded Acres Road
Apex, NC 27502
Re: Mandatory Assignments to Year Round Schools? No
Ron:
I oppose mandatory assignments to year round schools. I also oppose mandatory assignments to traditional calendar schools. Generally I oppose all mandatory assignments. There are thousands of parents who were not able to get their children into year round schools last year. While offering expanded options for these parents the school board errs in forcing students to attend these schools.
Wake County has hundreds of schools. For any family there should be several choices within a reasonable distance. The school board brings on itself the grief that it causes families by continual reassignment of students to schools that their parents do not wish for them to attend. A modified open-enrollment process would avoid much of that.
Some school board members justify this by their desire to balance each school on an economic basis. There is a much simpler solution that would find that balance without disrupting families:
“Teachers and principals should be paid, retained, and promoted based on the quality of their work, not on the length of their service… All highly qualified teachers and principals in low performing schools should receive additional pay if their students show academic progress” 2006 Republican Party Platform (found at www.ncgop.org.)
I suggest that we attract students to low performing schools by assigning excellent teachers there and paying them appropriately.
We have discussed several ways for the Board of Education to more appropriately spend money to educate our children well without disrupting families. I wish you the best in convincing your colleagues to think outside of the box.
Representative Paul Stam
P.O. Box 1600
Apex, NC 27502
Tel: 919-362-8873
Email: pauls@ncleg.net
The writer represents Southern Wake County in the North Carolina House of Representatives.
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