Big changes are underway for Wake County Schools.
The school board voted to cut 174 secretarial and clerical jobs. Some are open positions that will not be filled, but there will still be 95 layoffs as of July 1.
The board has also approved new voting districts. Every 10 years the districts are redrawn, to reflect the population. Tuesday afternoon the board voted five to three in favor of a new plan that attempts to split the districts into about 100,000 people each.
The town of Knightdale's mayor is worried that the new redistricting plan will separate students, putting their homes in one district and their schools in another.
Lawyer Kieran Shanahan, who authored the redistricting plan, says it could help the town.
"I really believe that if I can call three people to be my advocate from the full board I'm better off than one, so I think it's a net positive," Shanahan said. "Now people can disagree on that. But I think that Knightdale will come out ahead in that process."
Some parents and grandparents watching the school board meet hoped the board would consider other options that would keep municipalities in the same district.
Yvonne Brannon is with the Great Schools in Wake Coalition and has grandchildren in Wake schools. She called the board's decision "a tragedy."
"This was a great opportunity for the public input and for the board to work collectively together, and they bypassed it," Brannon said.
With a party line vote, the members passed the new districts. The one that will change the most is District 6 in Central Raleigh, which will pick up about 28,000 people.
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