Wake school leaders float new magnet schools, changes at existing ones

Wake County school administrators are eyeing four schools for new or different magnet programs.

Officials presented those proposals, those did not request a vote, to the Wake County Board of Education during a work session Tuesday afternoon.

A vote could come in January, based on the district’s planned timeline. The funding for the transitions would come from a federal grant.

The proposed changes would be:

• Centennial Magnet Middle School altering its focus from “University Connections and Leadership” to “Environmental Science and Engineering”
• Adding an enhanced arts theme at East Millbrook magnet Middle School
• Making Wake Forest Elementary School a “Center for STEM & International Studies”
• Making Wildwood Forest Elementary School a “Center for Visual and Performing Arts”

The district has more than 50 magnet schools and nearly 200 schools overall.

Application-based magnet schools have long been a tool to circumvent neighborhood segregation and desegregate schools, economically and racially. Decades ago, they were formed to attract white families from outside of Raleigh into Raleigh’s heavily Black city center.

In recent years Raleigh’s city center has gentrified, adding more white and more affluent families.

The district’s goals for magnet schools are to reduce high concentrations of poverty, promote diversity through school integration, maximize school building usage, and expanding and innovating educational offerings.

The four schools the district is contemplating changing farewell below capacity and have far higher percentages of students considered socio-economically disadvantaged. The share of students passing Enlgish language arts and math tests are below district averages for those same grade levels.

On Tuesday, board members discussed the potential benefits of and future of magnet schools.

Board Chairman Keith Sutton suggested the district develop a rubric to measure whether magnet schools are achieving their goals.

The district should retool its approach if a magnet school isn’t attracting the population intended, for example, he said.

“I think that would help the board, give us an opportunity to weigh in in a more impactful way,” he said.

Superintendent Cathy Q. Moore said the district is overdue for a magnet school review.

“It is a history-laden conversation when it comes around to doing it,” she said, adding that the discussion will “put that seed in place there, and we’ll talk more about it.”