Node136

1. Population growth is rapid in the Combs base, despite the almost complete absence of new construction, and despite the reassignment of four nodes in the last two years. The eight nodes currently in the Combs base have increased in population from 420 in the 2005–06 school year to 549 in the current school year, an increase of 31% [Table 1].

• During that time, the only new housing construction in the Combs base of which we are aware is the Centennial Village development in Node 042, approximately 72 units. [Actually, that may have opened more than 2 years ago.]

• Three nodes (004, 579.0 and 580.0) were reassigned from the Combs base in 2006. They contained 51 Combs students the year before they were reassigned. One node, 419.3, was reassigned in 2007. It contained 57 Combs students the year before it was reassigned [Table 2].

2. Combs has attracted a lot of attention due to winning several state and national awards, including the 2006 Ronald B. Simpson Award as the best magnet school in America. Population seems to be growing because families are moving into Combs so their children can attend the school. An indication of this is the increasing concentration of elementary students in Combs base nodes [Table 3].

• For the county as a whole, 48.?% of the students are in elementary school.

• But in the Combs base, in Fall 2005, 53.3% of the students were in elementary school.

• In Fall 2006, 54.7% [I need to check this percentage] of the students in the Combs base were in elementary school.

• In Fall 2007, 57.2% of the students in the Combs base were in elementary school.

This means that the Combs base is increasingly attracting elementary students rather than middle- or high-school students. Ostensibly, this is because they are moving in because of the elementary school. Effectively, new families that move in are forcing old families out, as six of 12 Combs base nodes have been reassigned to other schools in the last three years (including this plan).

3. Of all the Combs nodes, the one that has experienced the most in-migration in the last two years is Node 045.0. Since 2005, it has gained 57 elementary students but only 12 middle- and high-school students [Table 4, population growth by node and grade in Combs base]. Over the past two years, its elementary population has been growing at 25%/yr. In the past year, its elementary population has grown 35%. Currently, 64% of the students in Node 045.0 are in elementary school, the highest in the Combs base. Omitting small nodes with fewer than 60 students, Node 045.0 is in the 95th percentile of all Wake County nodes in percentage of population in elementary school [Table 5, a summary of the data that Matt Evans put together]. It seems clear to us that many families have moved into Node 045.0 so their children can go to Combs. We base this on the statistics as well as anecdotal evidence, like the mom overheard in a supermarket saying that she found an apartment in the Combs base because she saw a segment about the school on Oprah.

Node 045.0 is also the most prone to future growth because it contains about 2600 apartment units [Map 1]. The density of elementary students in these apartments is still quite low, about one student for every 18 apartments [will have to check this number too]. There is ample room for future, and accelerating growth in Node 045.0.

Growth Management projects next year’s enrollment by taking the number of students from a node who are enrolled at a particular school this year, subtracting the fifth-graders who will not be there next year, and adding a number of kindergartners that is based on the current kindergarten enrollment, adjusted by the one-year K-12 growth rate for the node. We believe that this produces misleading results for schools such as Combs and nodes such as 045.0 where the bulk of the population growth is in elementary students. If we scale kindergarten enrollment by the K-5 growth rate for each node, we obtain a projection of 187 elementary students in Node 045.0 next year, and these students will constitute a staggering 46.5% of the Combs base population [Table 6]. Because it does not reassign Node 045.0, we believe that the draft reassignment plan does not adequately address the problem of population growth in the Combs base.

4. Instead of reassigning Node 045.0, the draft plan proposes to reassign Node 136.0 to Dillard. In addressing the problem of future growth, this will be less effective than reassigning Node 045.0 for the following reasons:

• Node 136.0’s elementary population is growing at only 13%/yr. over the last two years instead of 25%.

• Node 136.0 has only 830 housing units [check] compared to 2800 in Node 045.0, and the density of elementary students in these housing units is 3 times as high as in Node 045.0 [I will have to look up the exact numbers.]

• The number of Combs students in Node 136.0 is 120 as compared to 161 in Node 045.0.

(I propose creating a table [Table 7] comparing the two nodes along the following lines.

• total base population

• elementary population

• F&R percentage

• growth in elementary population (#)

• growth in middle/high-school population

• percentage growth in elementary population

• percentage growth in middle/high-school population

• percentage of students in elementary school

• mimimum distance to Combs (0.8 mi. for 045.0, 0.7 mi. for 136.0, I believe—check)

• number of housing units

• number of apartments

• density of elementary students per housing unit

• density of elementary students per apt. (estimated)

• minimum distance to Combs

• maximum distance to Combs

• minimum distance to Dillard

• maximum distance to Dillard

With each entry we would explain the significance for reassignment. For example, density of elementary students per housing unit is a measure of the potential for growth of elementary population.)

5. If Node 045.0 remains in the Combs base, it will probably grow fast enough that more reassignments will be needed next year. Of all the nodes in the Combs base (after the reassignment of 136 and 419.2), Node 045.0 would be far and away the most distant from Combs—as well as containing almost half of all base students). So any realistic reassignment would have to include all or part of Node 045.0. Leaving Node 045.0 in the Combs base this year lures apartment-dwellers to move there, in the false hope that their children can attend Combs long term. By contrast, leaving Node 136.0 in the base will result in less growth because it has many fewer housing units, a slower 1- and 2-year growth rate, and the density of Combs students per housing unit in the node is already much greater.

6. While Node 045.0 presents a growth problem for Combs, it likely would not present a growth problem in the Dillard base. Once the lure of Combs is gone, families are not likely to move into 045.0 because of its elementary school. Consider the nodes reassigned from Combs in 2006 (004.0, 579.0 and 580.0). In Fall 2005, they contained 59 elementary students. By Fall 2007, their elementary population had fallen to 42, a 29% decrease … at the same time that the elementary population in the 8 nodes that stayed in the Combs base was rising from 420 to 549, a 31% increase. The data for Node 419.3, reassigned last year, is less striking, but still supports our hypothesis that reassignment away from Combs blunts elementary population growth. From Fall 2006 to Fall 2007, Node 419.3 grew from 82 to 89 students, an increase of 9%. However, the eight nodes that remained in the Combs base went from 478 to 549 students, an increase of 15% [Table 8].

7. We realize that there may be situations where families in Node 045.0 may have limited resources and it would be a hardship for them to be reassigned due to the greater distance to Dillard, childcare issues, and other special needs. Since fewer students would remain at Combs if Node 045.0 were reassigned compared to if Node 136.0 were reassigned, there would be seats available at Combs to accommodate special situations for Node 045.0 families than there would if Node 136.0 were reassigned. 8. Growth that requires reassignment of more than half of a school’s base within a few years is disruptive to the school and bad for school achievement. Reassigning Node 045.0 does a lot more to stop this growth than reassigning Node 136. [This is based on the writeup of relevant educational research that Andrea Dvorak-Grantz did.]