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RALEIGH - Tuesday afternoon the Wake County Schools' Reassignment Task Force presented more information about the new student assignment proposal.

The plan allows parents choices of where their children will go to school; a base school close to home or send their child to a farther school that offers a specialized program.

“What we're trying to do is get down to the real brass tacks of numbers of magnet seats, percentages of magnet seats, what we need for achievement schools and other options for students who may not be able to go to their most proximate school,” said Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata.

Under the plan, the school system would keep all existing magnet schools and possibly even add a couple more. The plan also sets each elementary school in a single feeder pattern for middle and high school.

Some board members feel it's a good compromise between neighborhood schools and busing for diversity.

“We've all had to give a little bit on the proximity piece. We've all had to give a little bit on the diversity piece,” said Board Member Keith Sutton. “I think we're all going to have to share and give up something in order to achieve some level of sufficient consensus amongst the entire community.”

More than 21,000 parents took part in an online trial run of the new assignment plan earlier this summer. One of the most important things administrators learned from that data is parents overwhelmingly chose to send their children to schools close to home instead of higher achieving options farther away.

Administrators say that will allow them to more accurately estimate transportation costs, school occupancy rates, and other critical details.

But some people say the proposed plan is too complicated and has too many unanswered questions.

“How much is it going to cost us to execute this plan,” questioned Patty Williams with the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, “because a lot of those costs are going to be taken from the classroom and potentially used for transportation. So I have concerns until I see the full plan and the costs and the supposed benefits laid out.”

The Student Assignment Task Force plans to present a final draft of the plan to the school board in September or October. Tata says the school board will seek additional public feedback before the plan is approved.

If approved, it would go into effect in the 2012 - 2013 school year.