Wake County Schools

Wake school leaders want to use Census data to help balance student diversity

To help balance student diversity across schools, Wake County Board of Education members said Tuesday they would like to use county economic health data, including household income, food stamp usage, rent and mortgage rates and poverty levels to help guide their work.

Posted Updated
Wake County Public School System
By
Kelly Hinchcliffe
, WRAL education reporter
CARY, N.C. — To help balance student diversity across schools, Wake County Board of Education members said Tuesday they would like to use county economic health data, including household income, food stamp usage, rent and mortgage rates and poverty levels to help guide their work.

The school system would not collect data on individual students or families but would instead review regional Census data based on where students live to measure socio-economic imbalances in schools.

"That actually keeps us completely legal and takes away privacy concerns," board chair Jim Martin said.

While the board hasn't approved a specific goal yet, the intention is to avoid having schools with extreme differences in poverty and race. Martin said there are many ways to improve diversity and that the public should not see their work as a major student reassignment plan.

"I just want to overemphasize that we are not talking about shuffling kids around like pawns," Martin told reporters after Tuesday's meeting. "Some of that will involve changes in assignment, yes ... I don't think you’re going to see a lot of energy around classic definitions of forced reassignment. You still have to have logical assignment patterns."

Martin said the board plans to examine other ways to balance student diversity, such as access to transportation, before- and after-school care, track-out camps and school staffing.

"There are opportunity gaps, and we’re about opportunity creation. That's what this work is about," he said.

Board members are trying to determine what goals to set for school diversity. On Tuesday, they discussed the following goals but have not formally adopted them:

  • Elementary schools: Overall student population with an economic health index within 20 percentile points of the county average.
  • Middle schools and high schools: Overall student population with an economic health index within 15 percentile points of the county average.

Current data show 26% of elementary schools, 37% of middle schools and 42% of high schools don't meet those targets, according to a presentation shared with the Wake school board.

To track diversity, Wake schools would like to use the following Census data from the Wake County Economic Health Index:

  • Median household income: The median household income in the past 12 months
  • Food stamps: Measured as a percentage of households in each block group.
  • Rent as greater than 30% of Income: Gross rent as a percentage of household income.
  • Home mortgage as greater than 30% of income: Mortgage status by owner cost as a percentage of household income.
  • Persons living between 100%–200% of federal poverty level: Ratio of income to poverty level for whom poverty status is determined between 100 and 200 percent.
School board members have been working with facilitators from RTI International, who are leading the discussions about how to define diversity in schools, what data they can examine and how to get community input as they move forward.

Board members have repeatedly said it will be important to communicate with families about the process, explain why they are setting diversity goals and try to get their support. 

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