Солтүстік Каролинадағы біріктіру саясаты және білім беру жүйесі

School district in North Carolina, United States

The current school system is the result of a 1976 merger between the previous (historically largely white) Wake County school system and the former (historically largely minority) Raleigh City schools. The merger was proposed initially by business leaders in the early 1970s out of concerns that continued "white flight" from Raleigh's inner city schools would negatively impact the county's overall economy. Political and educational leaders also hoped that merging the two systems would ease court mandated desegregation. The proposal proved initially unpopular with residents, however, who rejected it by a 3 1 margin in a nonbinding referendum in 1973. School and business leaders instead convinced the North Carolina General Assembly to force the merger. The district since has become notable for its integration efforts. Schools in the system are integrated based on the income levels reported by families on applications for federally subsidized school lunches, with the goal of having a maximum ratio of 40% low income students at any one school. Consequently, thousands of suburban students are bused to magnet schools in poorer areas—and likewise, low income students to suburban schools—to help maintain this income balance. Magnet schools are characterized as being public schools that specialize in a particular area, such as science or the arts, to encourage desegregation by drawing students from multiple neighbourhood and districts to the same school. Professor Gerald Grant of Syracuse University used Wake County as a metaphor of hope in his 2009 book Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh. Grant says, "The research is very clear that having the right mix of kids socioeconomically, as Wake County does, has enormous benefits for poor kids without hurting rich kids." The county's residents are divided in their support for the system's integration program due, partially, to some of the means of achieving that integration, such as long bus rides for many students and a lack of neighborhood schools. Despite improved integration, test results among poorer students continue to lag; for the 2007–2008 school year, only 18% of the district's schools met the adequate yearly progress goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, with only 71 percent passing state standardised tests. Due to the recent U. S. Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of race in assigning students, Wake has been cited as a model for how other school systems can still maintain diversity in enrollment. In the effort to maintain economic diversity and keep up with rapid growth in its student population, Wake routinely reassigns thousands of students each year to different schools. Many parents object to this annual shuffle. For the 2008–09 school year, for example, the school district has stated that it will reassign some 6,464 students in order to affect a new system wide policy designed to help schools in the same geographic area achieve similar economic demographics. This wave of changes will require the reassignment of many low income students to schools that have greater proportion of higher income students. In February 2009, the school board approved a plan that would move 24,654 students to different schools over the next three years). The newly elected board gained a 5:4 Republican majority and was successful in overturning the integration policy that had been operating in Wake County for years. Currently, 171 public schools are in the system, consisting of 104 elementary (K 5), 33 middle (6 8), 26 high (9 12), and four special/optional schools. With numerous new schools opening each year, the school board names new schools for a geographic feature (such as Holly Ridge) or for road where they are located (such as Athens Drive and Leesville Road) or for the geographic area they serve (such as Holly Springs High, Apex High, and Garner High). The board, however, has recently tried to avoid naming schools after nearby subdivisions because such names may lead some residents to believe that the school is the "neighborhood" school. Unlike earlier times, schools are no longer named after people, which has proven to be controversial in the past. Schools named prior to the current naming policy, however, retain their existing nongeographic names.

The WCSS implemented year round education through its magnet school program (application by choice) in 1992. The first four magnet schools were Morrisville Elementary (opened in 1991); Durant Road Elementary, and West Lake Elementary and Middle schools (opened in 1992.) By 1999, The Wake County School System saw 11,000 of its 93,000 (12%) students enrolled in one of the district's 10 year round schools. That year there were 3000 applications for 1000 available seats. The Wake County Public School System made headlines in 2006 and 2007 for converting 19 elementary schools and three middle schools to a mandatory year round calendar. It put more than a third of the elementary schools on the year round calendar starting in July 2007. The decision was unpopular with some families who argued that the calendar switch should've been voluntary. The switch to a year round calendar in many schools has led to some unanticipated needs. For example, PTA chapters at some of the affected schools have considered the purchase of sun shades for playgrounds to provide shelter for students during North Carolina's hot and humid summers. A group of parents sued to block the school system from converting the schools. In May 2007, Judge Howard Manning ruled that the school system may offer a year round calendar, but that it must obtain informed consent from a student's parents before assigning the students to a year round school. Around 9% of the affected students did not consent and were assigned to a traditional calendar school. As a result, many year round schools have empty seats and many traditional calendar schools remain overcrowded. In May 2008, the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned the lower court decision, ruling that Wake does not need parental permission for students to attend year round schools, but the State Supreme Court School agreed to hear the case and stayed the appellate decision until it makes a ruling. District leaders sought consent for the 2008–09 school year but did not plan to do so the following year (2009–10). In October 2008, the school board voted to convert Baucom Elementary in Apex and Green Hope Elementary in Cary back to the traditional calendar, citing a less than expected increase in enrollment. Salem Elementary in Apex was also considered for conversion back to a traditional calendar, but that move was voted against by the board. Also at that same meeting, the board voted to convert Leesville Road Middle in North Raleigh to a year round calendar. In May 2009, the state Supreme Court ruled that parental consent is not needed to send students to year round schools. As a result, the school board decided to no longer seek consent. But the election of new school board members in October 2009, who said they opposed mandatory year round schools, caused the district to go back to asking parents for permission.

National controversy arose in 2010 over the 5–4 decision of the Wake County School Board in March to switch from the socioeconomic diversification policy it had followed for a decade to a system that focused on neighborhood schools. The prior plan, under which the public schools of the county were to "have no more than 40 percent of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch" was set aside for concerns over long student bus rides, but immediately raised comments among the public and the NAACP that the outcome of the shift would be to "resegregate" schools. and to the resignation of the superintendent of Wake County schools. The NAACP lodged a civil rights complaint with the office of the United States Department of Education, which began an investigation into the matter. The complaint also prompted one national accreditation agency, AdvancED, to evaluate the schools to see if the decision would impact the school's accreditation standing. In January 2011, The Washington Post featured a story on the controversy, The situation was also lampooned on The Colbert Report. According to The Washington Post, the decision has been backed by prominent members of the Tea Party movement.

In May 2022, a teacher in a preschool classroom at Ballentine Elementary School (part of the Wake County Public School System) in Fuquay Varina was revealed to have shown her students LGBT themed flashcards to teach them the colors of the rainbow, with one of the flashcards depicting a pregnant man. The flashcards were removed from the school. A Wake County spokesperson stated, "An initial review determined that flash cards were not tied to the district's Pre K curriculum, did not complement, enrich, or extend the curriculum, and were used without the principal's review, knowledge, and/or approval." The teacher later resigned.