Lawmakers in North Carolina are considering separating the Wake County public school systems. Wake County is the fifteenth largest school system in the U.S. and holds roughly one-hundred and sixty-thousand students, as of 2017. For an official documentation and history of this bill, click here.

The separation could have many adverse effects for schools in Wake County including loss of diversity, higher taxes, and less educational opportunities. The split seems to be opposed by Democrats. Wake County commissioner John Burns tweeted about the issue saying that there would be “far higher taxes, far more segregated and disadvantaged schools, institutional inequity, and declining results.”   

On the other side, most republicans seem to be for the split, but Wake County representative and republican Chris Malone said, “I would oppose any legislation to split up Wake County,” and “It’s a well-run school system, and it doesn’t need to do that right now.” However, in saying this, he alludes to a possible split or other changes in the future. Over the course of the next few weeks lawmakers will be studying ways to break up Wake County for better or worse.

Sophomores Darius Pickney and Dylan Setner said the split would be a bad thing due to the possible splitting up of friends and people who attend schools from other parts of Wake County. Pickney also said that there would be a loss of academic opportunities because not all schools have the same array of classes. Sophomore Jo Trujillo Gayosso said that it would be bad because it would lead to less diversity in schools as well as increased travel time to and from school. Apex High School German teacher Herr Maseman said that the split would be a “terrible idea” as it would separate the rich from the poor and as a result; the poor-er schools would see a drop in scores due to students being less inclined or all together not able to go to school which would lead to the schools being defunded. Sophomore Shannon Schmalzbauer was torn as she said she would be happy that we would not miss as many snow days but also unhappy of the possibility of some of her friends being forced to go to a different school. An anonymous commenter said that the idea of the separation was to keep white, wealthy students from other students. They also said that since some districts are by city not by county, the people that live in these cities tend to be richer, whiter people, who only want their kids going to a school with students of the same wealth.

What do you think of this change? Tell your Wake County commissioners by clicking here.