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RALEIGH -– Wake County school leaders have a busy several months ahead as they start the transition towards community-based school assignments. It's a move that some community groups said has been a long time coming.

"For so long, we've had a school board that hasn't responded to the demands and needs of parents and families in the community to bring stability to the assignment process, and they are moving in that fashion," said Joey Stansbury, a member of WakeCARES.

Administrators presented a tentative timeline to school board members last Tuesday. It included 12 pages of action items to be taken on by staff, the student assignment committee and the school board. School officials have planned to review countywide enrollment projections in the coming months. They also plan to collect data about growth and crowding. Meanwhile, the new geographic zones and regions are expected to be drawn by the fall.

Then starting in the last quarter of the year, administrators expect to work with the student assignment committee to develop a model for the assignment process with the selection priorities, and a preliminary draft could be ready by the end of the year.

Moving forward into 2011, there are plans for community input, discussions about a bond package for building new schools, and a final plan that could be presented to the full board in the fall.

Anne Sherron, a citizen advisory member of the assignment committee who's worked on previous assignment committees, said the timeline would be “aggressive.” She hopes the community has enough time to provide input and understand what's ahead.

"This plan changes four school board districts that have not been, for the most part, upset,” she said. “There's been pockets of frustration, but for the most part, they've not been upset. And now, they're going to see massive change."

School board members said they still need to review the timeline and discuss many issues before deciding whether it's right for them. School administrators had been planning to fully implement the new assignment plan by the fall of 2012. But, some board members have expressed a desire to speed up certain aspects of the timeline and leave open the possibility of implementing the new assignments by the fall of 2011.