NAACP protests Wake County board 're-segregation' plan

The Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s is a major part of what students learn during Black History Month.

But all the efforts of integration may be unraveled in Wake County, , in Raleigh.

Feb. 12, thousands of protestors took to the streets of Raleigh with the NAACP and 90 other organizations as a part of the "Historic Thousand on Jones St." campaign. The aim of the campaign is to show their disdain for the proposed plan for students to attend schools in their neighborhood.  

For 30 years, the Wake County School Board considered socioeconomic group and race for school assignments. The newly-elected, more conservative school board moved last March to start going back to students attending neighborhood schools.

The school board did a survey last year and 94 percent of parents wanted the system to stay as it is.

"Neighborhood schooling would drastically reduce school diversity and roll back years of progress," said Leila McDowell, vice president of communications for the NAACP.

Clayton Bennett, a sophomore elementary education major from Raleigh attended the protest.

"It is despicable that this is even a consideration," Bennett said. "The proposal doesn't even make sense."

The school board began its attempt to dismantle the nationally acclaimed integration system almost a year ago.

"I have personally benefitted from the way Wake County buses students," Bennett said.

"I don't think I would have graduated high school or gone to college if I went to school with the students from my neighborhood."

The Century Foundation, and many other researchers agree with Bennett. Research says that the best thing you can do for a student from a low-income household is assign them to a middle-class school.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, which is less than half the size of WCPSS, uses a choice system for school assignment.

"Elementary and middle schools are placed in zones," said Theo Helm, the director of the department of marketing and communications for WSFCS.

"Parents are guaranteed a spot in the resident school but have the option to send their child to one of their top three choices."

High school students are assigned to schools based on where they live.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were reassigned to neighborhood schools in 2005. Prior to this, parents and students were no longer allowed to choose which school they attended. Instead, students attend neighborhood schools.

No final decisions have been made, but the Wake Education Partnership and the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce presented the school board with a proposal that is a compromise between the board and the people who oppose them.

The proposal would give parents some choice of where their children attend school.