School Board Middle School decision Thursday night
Howard Partner
Durham school board rejects Lucas Middle School magnet proposal
DURHAM The Durham school board voted Thursday night to open Lucas Middle School in northern Durham next school year as a traditional middle school.
The board voted 4-2 in favor of opening the school with a population based on its location, rather than following the superintendent’s recommendation to open it as both as a International Baccalaureate magnet and traditional school.
Vice Chair Heidi Carter, Natalie Beyer, Leigh Bordley and Nancy Cox voted in favor of opening Lucas as a traditional middle. Those board members expressed concerns about pulling students away from other middle schools and investing money in the IB program. They also said they wanted to take their time, listen to the community about whether and what type of magnet program the community is interested in.
Superintendent Eric Becoats recommended that 30 percent of Lucas be populated as a magnet school. Becoats said that the magnet program would provide a rigorous academic opportunity for all students at the school and increase economic diversity. Board members Minnie Forte-Brown and Omega Curtis Parker voted against the traditional middle school option. Frederick Davis wasn’t present at the meeting because he was out of town.
Lucas will serve sixth and seventh grade in the 2012-13 school year, and add eighth grade the next.
Board members also voted unanimously to start phasing out the year-round magnet Chewning Middle, but allow rising eight graders to attend in the 2012-13 school year if at least 100 students indicate they are interested staying. The school would follow a traditional calendar.
Board members also unanimously voted to phase out gifted and talented magnet W.G. Pearson Middle, but allow rising seventh and eighth graders to stay until they graduate into high school if at least 100 students want to remain.
Gwen Gilbert Yueh
And a more comprehensive article from the Durham Herald-Sun
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/16803776/article-Lucas-to-open-as-traditional-school-?
Lucas to open as traditional school
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By Melody Guyton Butts
mbu...@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM – Durham’s school board on Thursday elected to open Lucas Middle School in August as a traditional school, rejecting a recommendation by the district administration to open the school with an International Baccalaureate program.
Before a 4-2 vote, those who voted in favor of the traditional school option – Leigh Bordley, Natalie Beyer, Heidi Carter and Nancy Cox – expressed concerns about the costs associated with implementing another IB program and about the potential to hurt Shepard Middle School, the district’s existing IB middle.
Board Chairwoman Minnie Forte-Brown and Superintendent Eric Becoats pushed for the IB option, suggesting that opening the school as a magnet would create diversity, would help attract families to the district and would help to prepare more students for the IB Diploma program at Hillside High School.
Joining Forte-Brown in voting against the traditional option was Omega Curtis Parker. Absent from Thursday’s meeting was Fredrick Davis, who was at an event at the White House.
Lucas, located on Snow Hill Road in northern Durham, will open to sixth- and seventh-graders in August 2012.
Those who voted in favor of the traditional school option spoke of a desire to strengthen all schools rather than putting resources that could be spread among all schools into another magnet.
“The fact is that we have a magnet school that we haven’t supported, that we have a recommendation tonight to close, on the same night that we want to open one in the northern region of our county,” Beyer said, referring to the plan to close W.G. Pearson Middle School. “This is not the time to do this, this is the time to slow down, really listen, like we said we would, to our community.”
At a work session Monday, board members asked the district for information on how much the IB program would cost. Bordley said during Thursday’s meeting that the board members were told that professional development for the program would cost $34,000 a year. Added to that would be an unnamed figure for an IB coordinator’s salary.
One reason that was previously cited for making changes to the district’s magnet programs is a goal of applying for a federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant. Noting that the grant’s qualifications stress increasing diversity, Bordley expressed concerns about the ability of the district to win the grant over and over again.
“I don’t know how long we could stretch the grant,” she said. “I’m concerned that we would take resources from the system as a whole to do this program. I’m concerned that we don’t have the money.”
At a recent meeting of the district’s Budget Advisory Committee, officials reported that the district is facing at least a $14 million deficit for 2012-13.
However, Becoats implored the board to trust that he and his administration will keep the district in sound financial shape. They’ve done well in the year and a half that he’s been at the helm of the district, he said, pointing to awards that the finance office announced it had won earlier in the night.
“We cannot let financial decisions guide what we do if we’re serious about improving Durham Public schools,” he said.
Children in the northern part of the county “deserve an IB program,” Forte-Brown said.
Under the IB option rejected by the school board, Lucas’ population would have been 70 percent students from the school’s attendance zone and 30 percent students chosen through a lottery. Students interested in applying for a lottery for an IB magnet would have been directed to either Lucas or Shepard, based on where they lived in the county.
Also Thursday, despite concerns about remaining students’ access to sports teams and about the environment that would go along with having smaller student bodies, the board voted to phase out Chewning Middle School next year – only allowing eighth-graders to remain – and begin phasing out W.G. Pearson Middle School, a gifted and talented magnet, next year, allowing seventh- and eighth-graders to remain.
It’s important for each school to have a minimum of 100 students, Becoats said, because that would allow the district to support a principal there, so parents of remaining students will be asked to sign letters this spring if they intend for their children to remain next year.
Board members also expressed concerns that with W.G. Pearson’s already-small population, there will not be enough seventh-graders there next year to support a principal. The board agreed to revisit the issue in a year to consider the possibility of closing the school at the end of the 2012-13 school year.
Before the board began its discussion Thursday, 11 students, teachers and parents spoke, many of them representatives of Hillside High School who urged the board to make use of school improvement teams as it explores a magnet overhaul this spring.
Read more: The Herald-Sun - Lucas to open as traditional school