Lori Millberg responds

Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 10:56 AM
Subject: RE: position statement
It would be my strong preference to not force year-round attendance on any student. …
However, I am aware that there are many parents who believe that year-round is the best for their children, and would love to honor their desire to have their children attend on that schedule. …I would love to be able to tell you that if elected, I will make sure that no child will ever be forced to attend school on a year-round schedule, but I can't.   It has already happened to some extent and right now Wake County has a couple of schools in a crisis situation, as the number of students greatly outnumbers the available seats in the schools.   The students are spending a good chunk of their day standing in long lines to get lunch and use the bathroom.  The only options immediately available to create more seats in those schools are either 1.) make the schools year-round or 2.) have students attend on split shifts.  During the elementary years, most parents feel that the use of year-round schools is the more manageable option.  Therefore, we may be forced to look at converting our most overcrowded existing schools to year-round.  If that happens, I believe it would be ideal to be able to identify one or two nearby schools to partner with the newly created year-round programs for purposes of attendance.  This could allow students assigned to the partnered traditional calendar schools who would like to attend on a year-round calendar to transfer to the newly created year-round programs, and students who do not want the year-round schedule to transfer into the partnered schools keeping the traditional calendar. About 60% of the children who apply for year-round each year are turned away. We can make great improvements in our crowding problems by creating enough year-round programs for the children who want them.

Please keep in mind, forced year-round anywhere it happens, happens only because the school system has not received adequate funding to build schools in time to meet the demand. Voters opposed to forced year-round need to insist that our County Commissioners submit a bond to adequately fund our building program, and then work to be sure it passes. … Wake County is #2 in the state in our ability to pay (per capita income); yet 10 counties out spend us on schools. I believe that it is time to make our children a priority and build enough schools to continue allowing students to attend on a traditional calendar.

Thank you for your interest,
Lori Millberg
Candidate for Wake County Board Of Education
District 1