Wake mulling new magnet school programs in eastern part of county

Wake County school leaders are considering turning two more schools into magnet schools.

East Wake High School would specialize in science, technology, engineering, the arts and math (known as “STEAM” curriculum), and Wendell Middle School would focus on arts and design.

That would be part of a magnet theme restructuring for two elementary schools and two middle schools in Zebulon and Wendell that eventually feed into East Wake High.

Wake County Public School System leaders project growth in suburban areas in the eastern half of Wake County. At the same time, the district faces increased competition in those areas from private and charter schools.

That’s created an opportunity to draw more students to existing schools on the county’s eastern side that are below capacity, according to Kimberly Lane, district senior director of magnet and curriculum enhancement.

Families are moving into “shiny new homes” eastern Wake County, Lane said. “But our schools are not shiny and new.”

Private and charter schools have opened in the eastern half of Wake County, drawing students away from system schools. The new magnet programs would not be application-based. Rather, they’d only be for students already living in the schools’ base attendance zones.

That’s appealing to some school board members, who lamented the feeling of a “school within a school” that magnet schools can have when they accept both base area students and application students.

Board Member Monika Johnson-Hostler, whose daughter attended a district magnet school, said parent-teacher groups are often not accessible to many parents, which seemed intentional. At her school, the meetings were at 8 a.m. on weekdays.

“We created a culture to diversify our schools, the intent was great,” Johnson-Hostler said of magnet programs. “The reality is, we’re 20-plus years into people seeing magnet as status.”

She and several other board members urged the district to reach all magnet school families with tours and other ways of making them feel welcome, especially at times likelier to work for working families.

Before adding or changing any magnet schools, the school system plans to apply for federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant funds that would pay for adding the specialized academic programs. Before the district can receive that money, the school board must approve its application for the grants. Magnet program conversions costs, on a average, a few million dollars per school.

The Wake County Board of Education will finalize the proposed changes later this month, voting to apply for funding as soon as Feb. 21.

If the grants are approved, the schools’ themes would change over the course of the next five years.

In the proposal, Zebulon Magnet Elementary School and Zebulon Magnet Middle School, currently “gifted and talented’ schools, would further specialize in science, technology, engineering and math. They would also add “academically and intellectually gifted” basic courses.

Wendell Magnet Elementary School, current focusing on arts and science, would become an arts and design school.

The school system surveyed parents, including parents who had enrolled their children in charter schools, and a panel of businesses, finding that science, arts and academically and intellectual gifted programs were among the most desired magnet school themes.

Charter school parents would consider returning to the school system if they had more opportunities to send their children to nearby schools offering more rigor and opportunity, Lane said.

“They also talk about safety,” she said.

Magnet programs originated as a way to draw students to schools farther away from them and facilitate integration of schools.

Since its first magnet school in 1978, the Wake County Public School System has gradually expanded it magnet programs to 50 elementary, middle and high schools, seven early colleges and Crossroads Flex — making up for more than a quarter of its nearly 200 schools. Enrollment has stagnated in recent years.

Nearly all magnet schools have been funded by grants from the Magnet School Assistance Program.