The Wake County Board of Education signaled an end to its busing policy at a controversial meeting March 23. The policy, involving student reassignment through diversity, was ended with a five to four vote.

The national spotlight focused on Wake County’s school board meeting last month, which boiled over into protests and even a few arrests before the vote. Of the three protestors who were arrested, one was a former N.C. State Student senator, Dante Emmanuel Strobino.

According to board member Kevin Hill, who represents District 3, “There is a way to make your voice known, and coming in and disrupting meetings to the point that [it] leads to arrest … is [not] the proper way to get your message across.”

Kevin Hill voted against removing the diversity policy. The new policy will allow students to go to neighborhood and local community schools; the former involved busing children by a student’s race and socioeconomic status.

“We don’t really have a diversity policy per say, we have a student assignment policy and diversity is one of many components of that policy,” Hill said.

Wake County’s Student Assignment policy includes 14 goals the board is trying to reach. Some of those goals include alleviating crowding, filling seats efficiently, retaining good teachers, ensuring consistency across the board and the controversial component of creating and maintaining a diverse student body.

“We were presented with a long list of research and data that goes back over many years showing the positive impacts of having diversity in populations on academic achievements of all students, not just high-need students,” Hill said, “I believe in the research and data that we have. And I think it is important that we try and make decisions that our research and data support.”

Thomas Alsbury, associate professor and program coordinator of educational leadership in the College of Education, said the issue should be the reality of what the policy is currently doing and what the reality of removing the policy will result in. He said it seems to him that they are having a philosophical debate about supporting or not supporting diversity.

Jesse Henderson, a graduate student in natural resource policy, said he has no opinion of the situation, but mentioned that his wife who is a substitute teacher says the schools are better for the diversity policy.

Alsbury, whose area of specialty is the Board of Education, said the protests are citizens way of holding the board accountable.

“What we do see is that the community is going to demand that the school board operates in a way to satisfy it. If it doesn’t, the community will correct it,” Alsbury said.

“Is the board currently acting in a way that is satisfying to the community at large?” Alsbury said while discussing different types of theories about the Board of Education. “If the answer is yes, then we are going to see these policies change next election cycle. We are going to see these board members continue to be re-elected. If the board is currently acting against what the community wants it to do, then we will see a correction. “