At last night’s school board meeting, the Wake County Board of Education voted to approve a $1.06 billion construction plan that will likely convert between 16 and 20 elementary schools to a year-round calendar. The original plan would have converted over 50 schools to a year-round calendar at a cost of $998 million.

The board was swayed to reduce the number of year-round schools by a very vocal, organized, and small group of parents calling themselves “Wake Families for School Choice.” The group held a rally right before the school board meeting, complete with little kids chanting, “I want my summer!” They got their wish, for now.

In addition to reducing the number of schools on the year-round calendar, the school board pledged to make assignment to these schools as voluntary as possible. Of course, the school board was short on details, which will lead to serious problems down the road. For example, the school board has yet to determine which schools will be converted and how many of those schools will come with mandatory student assignment. If they were wise, they would defer discussion of these details until after the November vote, but clearly, the school board created another series of problems for itself just to appease (temporarily) one group of parents.

Put simply, the school board has failed, yet again, to demonstrate any forward thinking. The public will lose even more confidence in the school board when they try to sort out the promises they made last night.