RALEIGH — East Wake High School needs better communication and has difficulty with scheduling between the four schools and student access to advanced placement courses, a Wake County school board member said last Tuesday.

“I just want to know exactly what we are going to do — where the buck stops,” said board member Lori Millberg.

Millberg made the comment at a committee meeting of the Wake County Board of Education as members discussed whether to continue the schools at East Wake High School.

East Wake High School was divided into four schools of 400 students each beginning in 2005 after it was awarded a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant. That grant will expire June 30, 2010. The plan is for small student to teacher ratios to result in relationships that boost achievement at the low-performing school.

Millberg said she would go along with the recommendation of Wake County Schools Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens and Chief Area Superintendent Danny Barnes to give the four schools at East Wake High School until Dec. 2010 or January 2011 to show improvement. But she said problems at the school needed to be resolved sooner.

Hargens said an audit was being conducted in the School of Integrated Technology and she and Chief Area Superintendent Danny Barnes proposed conducting audits at the three other schools. The audits are to identify what needs to be improved at the schools.

Millberg said she was impressed by the showing last month of more than 50 supporters of the high school who spoke at a school board meeting with emotion-filled pleas to keep their schools in tact.

But she also said she heard from parents and teachers afterward who weren’t so pleased with the operations of the school. She said lack of coordination between schools created problems with scheduling, knowing when and where student events were to be held, and even the carpool line.

Millberg said when there are problems with class schedules at the semester’s start, students often don’t get them fixed for two weeks. She said sometimes students have difficulty getting the classes they need to graduate.

She said she heard from a teacher who couldn’t find out where a graduation awards ceremony was the day of the event and if she should have nominated someone.

“We’ve got to do better with this type of thing,” she said.

Board members Patti Head and Ron Margiotta also asked the county staff to provide information on how much money having four schools instead of a comprehensive high school costs the system.

Several board members asked when they could see end-of-year test scores. Hargens said it will be July or August.

The staff will report back to the school board on East Wake High School issues at its meeting on June 16.

Contact Denise Sherman at 269-6101 or dsherman@nando.com.