With few details available about Wake County's new student assignment plan, only sparse crowds of parents attended the recent informational sessions.

At Cary High School, about 20 people showed up for Thursday's meeting. Across the county in Holly Springs, it was a similar story with only two dozen parents in attendance.

Many details of the plans remain unknown, including which of the two approaches Schools Superintendent Tony Tata intends to recommend to the school board for a vote on June 21.

Tata hopes to have the entire package, with definite choices or school base zones, ready by October. It would go into effect for the 2012-2013 school year.

Starting June 13, parents will be able to take part in a dry-run test of the system online, where sample middle and high school choices will be added to the elementary school names already available.

Those who came to the sessions were deeply interested in learning more about the new approaches to determining where students go to school.

The parents posed questions broad - How would the school system balance student populations? - and narrow - Which students get priority at certain schools? - in meetings with school district staff that last about an hour.

Parents submitted written questions and even asked a few from the audience. Tata said the time for public hearings will come after a plan goes to the school board. The primary purpose of the 10 meetings across the county last week was to hear from people who don't have Internet access to review the plans and submit questions, he said.

In Cary, parents wanted to know about everything from how their property values would be affected to how a new assignment system may address a student with autism.

David Ansbacher, senior director of Wake's magnet program, described what's known now about the "blue plan," which allows families to choose among as many as six options, and the "green plan," which is more similar to the system now in place.

Cary parent Laura Toombs, who has three children in the system, generally supports the "blue plan," but worries about whether the system will have what it takes to carry it out.

"I worry about the allocation of resources, the commitment to class size, which is now a disaster, and the ability to weed out bad teachers," Toombs said.

The Cary session drew not only people from the immediate area, but also activists such as Yevonne Brannon, head of the grassroots organization Great Schools in Wake Coalition, which is supporting the "green plan."

Brannon said newcomers could wind up out of luck under the blue plan, if they move to town after slots in all the desirable schools have been snapped up.

"I think the newcomers built Wake County," she said.

Just after the meeting in Holly Springs, friends Julie Willis and Amy Kiser paused to talk in the parking lot.

Neither fully supports the proposed changes, but they came to the school to learn more and comment.

"The meeting was way better than them not asking our opinion for anything," said Willis, a Holly Springs mother of a Washington GT Magnet Elementary School student.

"They didn't ask our opinion," said Kiser, who felt there wasn't enough interaction at the meeting. She's a Cary mother of an elementary school student.

"I'm glad they at least came," Willis replied.

Kiser feels that the policy changes are inevitable. But she said she is happy that the new models aim to minimize school reassignments.

Willis said she simply hopes the changes won't affect magnet school students.

"Perhaps we'd be better served to improve what was already there instead of spending tons of money to fix something not broken," she said.

Staff writer T. Keung Hui contributed to this report.