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Citizen Q&A: Horace Tart

By Paul Tambasco
City Editor

Wake County Public School Board member Horace Tart is running to keep his seat this fall. The only incumbent (of four) seeking reelection to the scrutinized board, Tart says he needs more time to bring his plans to fruition.

Horace Tart

Tart sat down last week with our City Editor Paul Tambasco to discuss his plans for a vocational high school in Wake County, what reassignment has meant for Garner, and whether some local school employees on terminating contracts will have jobs come July.

PT: In recent months, three other board members announced that they will not seek reelection when their terms end this fall. Why are you running again?

HT: Well, I have worked very hard over the last few years to accomplish something for the schools in Garner and District 2. I have taken the lead in getting a Career Technology Education high school in the county and I have got it to the point where the board is discussing it and…I feel like it is going to take another term to get it going so that it’s going to make a real difference for not only District 2 but all of Wake County. I have also enjoyed working with families to resolve issues that they’ve had and they seem to really appreciate what I as a board member have done for them.

PT: What are your priorities for another four years?

HT: I’d like to improve that [Garner High School's International Baccalaureate Magnet program] to the point where there are lots of application students. Another thing I’m working on is getting a cabinet-making course…They already have the woodshop there, they just don’t have the program. I’ve actually talked to Donna Hargens [WCPSS's chief academic officer]. As soon as the new principal gets settled, we are going to pursue that.

We want to improve [Smith Elementary School, which received magnet status late last year] that too. We want it to become a good application school and get the F&R rate [percentage of free and reduced lunch students] to an acceptable level.

PT: In your opinion, what is acceptable?

HT: Well, the school system’s criterion for healthy schools is 40 percent. Right now, it is over 70 percent [at Smith]. When I got here, they were overcrowded. It was about 120 percent of capacity with 75 percent on free and reduced lunch. So the crowding has been relieved and we’re in the process of getting that F&R number reduced and that is going to take help from the system and help from the community.
(Editor’s Note: In the 2003-2004 school year, the year before Tart arrived, 61 percent of Smith students were eligible for free and reduced lunch. The percentage rose until it peaked last year at 71 percent. This year, 68 percent of Smith’s students are considered low-income. Regarding capacity, Smith went from 129 percent in 2003-2004 to 75 percent this year.
Source: Wake County Public School System.)

PT: If you’re reelected, your next term would end in 2013. Will you get the F&R rate at Smith to 40 percent by then?

HT: It is going to be a slow process. It’s actually been lowered at North Garner Middle. At Aversboro, Vandora Springs and some of the other schools, though, the F&R rates have increased. We’ll work through reassignment and the community to lower the rates.
(Editor’s Note: At North Garner Middle, 44 percent of students were low-income in 2003-2004. That number peaked in 2006-2007. This year, 39 percent of the school’s students are considered low-income. Source: Wake County Public School System.)

PT: In recent months, a number of groups have mobilized in anticipation of October’s school board elections. Dissatisfied with reassignment, these groups are favoring community schools. Are you in favor of keeping Wake’s diversity policy in place?

HT: I think reassignment always needs to be improved. We need to look at the situation and see where we can improve it. Through reassignment, contrary to some’s beliefs, the Garner schools have been improved.

See, the thing people need to understand is the needs of Garner and the needs of District 2 are different than the needs over in District 8 or District 9 [Western Wake].

PT: How so?

HT: Well, they are higher socioeconomic, higher income. They don’t have the needs that we have. Garner is in the part of the county with more F&R students. Policies that may help Garner, may not be liked by people in the most prosperous part of the county. There must be some balance in the county. So the needs in District 2 are much different than the needs in higher-income districts and I believe those people just don’t understand the needs in our district.

PT: So you are in favor of keeping reassignment?

HT: We need to look at the policy and improve it as we can. The other thing I’d like to say is that reassignment has actually helped some of the Garner schools in the last 2 years. I’m gonna say this – but don’t print this – there have been a lot of Southeast Raleigh students reassigned out of Garner – the real low-income students assigned out of Garner and high-income students reassigned in. Reassignment has helped Garner in many cases.

PT: Why would you not want that included?

HT: That is a sore subject to a lot of people, you know. Garner feels that there have been so many low-income students moved from that area into Garner that it has adversely affected schools through the years and the F&R rates have been high. The schools’ performances have been low. There needs to be a more equitable distribution of F&R students and I think some of that is taking place in the last year.

So as far as the reassignment plan, we need to continue to look at it and improve it where we can and keep people as close to home as we can.

PT: How can reassignment be improved?

HT: There is a lot of misinformation out there and things are driven by misinformation.  But I’m going to get more detailed information. At our board advisory committee, our growth and planning director Chuck [Dulaney] told us that over 90 percent of the students assigned to a school live within a five-mile radius of that school. Now how bad does that sound? Sounds pretty good? [Laughs] In the last reassignment plan, about 4,000 students who are not even in the system yet were included. The grandfathering policy has been improved too included siblings. Also, there is an appeal process, which will allow many students to remain at their school. We are always looking for improvement. Reassignment has become much more family friendly. When new schools are built, it is necessary to reassign to fill these schools and this has a ripple effect on several schools.

PT:  I think that data would help people better understand reassignment.

HT:  Well I’m trying to get it. A large percentage of students that attend the school live within a one-mile radius of that school and we’ve got data to back it up. But all you hear about is these people that say ‘Well, that student travels 20 miles to school’. People make decisions on so much misinformation and they don’t really know what they’re talking about.  Don’t put that in there, either.

They don’t have the facts. Of the others that live outside the radius, lots of people go to a school because they choose to. For instance, you’ve got students in Knightdale going to school in downtown Raleigh. Well they’re not assigned to go there, they chose to go there. You’ve got students in Fuquay going to school in downtown Raleigh. So in giving choice, either for magnets or year-round schools, there is going to be more distance for students. But that is one of the costs of having a choice.

What do you do when you’ve got two schools within a five-mile radius or three schools or four? Do you know how many schools are within a five-mile radius of Garner? A whole bunch. So what do you do? There aren’t enough students here to fill those schools so you’ve got to change the base to get the schools populated. The school situation and the school system are so much more complex than they look from the outside. When you look at one group and you do something positive to help one group, you adversely affect another. So you’ve got to look at the whole thing. It’s not that we’d rather accommodate this group or this group but when you look at the whole picture and you put everything on the table, everybody can’t get what they want.

Just like in Fuquay, we’re opening Banks Road Elementary and Herbert Aikens Elementary. Why build them if you are not going to put students in them? You know what I mean. So somebody has got to move out of their school to fill the school.

And when you take students out of this school which may be the nearest school, you’ve don’t take them out of the same school. You take some from Fuquay, some from Garner, some from Willow Springs, then you’ve got empty seats and you’ve got to bring somebody from further over to fill those seats. It’s a ripple effect and people don’t understand it and a lot of them don’t want to understand.

PT: What do you think of the idea of community schools? What do you think about people buying a home in Fuquay or Garner and expecting to send their children in that town?

HT: I’m for community schools so long as we can make them work. See if you’ve got four or five schools within a five-mile radius, those schools are going to take more students than what the community will provide. So students from other areas will need to come in.The other thing I’ve heard from groups is ‘All you’ve got to do is put the schools in the neighborhood and parents are going to participate.’

Barwell Road Elementary is as close to a neighborhood school as you can get in Wake County. I visited a PTA meeting recently, you know what their biggest problem is – lack of parent participation but it’s a community school. I think that parent involvement is based more on socioeconomic status than the proximity to school.

So I’m for neighborhood schools, if there is a balance. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. Like Garner – Garner has more seats than kids here to fill them.

PT: Given the revenue shortfall the state is facing, it appears likely that some programs or employees will be cut in an effort to reduce expenses. What do you say to the nearly 1,500 local teachers and staff on terminating contracts including some in Garner who are unsure about whether they will be rehired come July?

HT: Well that [notice] goes out every year, but it has not been taken seriously because we didn’t have a budget shortfall. This year it had to be taken more seriously. We did a 5 percent cut across the board.

People don’t understand how much our budget is dependent on the state. About 62 percent of our funding comes from the state and goes to salaries and benefits. And this year our governor has added more than 5 percent to the budget for schools.

Now it is in the hands of the legislature, so it is up to them. If they give us that 5 percent, these people will have those jobs. But I don’t know when that will be. I know there is a lot of upheaval but I just hope that it won’t be as bad as it sounds.

Related articles:

• Wake County schools face budget cuts, new challenges
• WCPSS proposes stark cuts to avoid layoffs
• WCPSS: Search for new principal underway

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