RALEIGH -- In a 5-4 ruling handed down Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that school systems cannot base student assignment policies solely on race. The court decided that assignment policies in Louisville and Seattle relied too heavily on race. But Wake County schools stopped using race-based student assignment policies in 2000.

"There were some local court decisions in different circuits, and at that time, our Board and our attorneys decided it made sense to move forward in the way we have,” explained superintendent Del Burns.

He said that means using other factors to assign students to schools, focusing on socio-economic diversity instead of racial diversity.

"We'd like to have no more than 40 percent of students in a school who qualify for free and reduced lunch,” Burns explained. “And no more than 25 percent of those students who are not at or above grade level."

The Supreme Court's decision arrives as Wake County struggles with its own student assignment challenges. Parents have sued the school board to protest being assigned to mandatory year-round schools.

A judge has sided with parents, ordering administrators to get parental consent before sending students to mandatory year-round schools. This week the school system lost its bid to halt the judge's order until the school system's appeal is settled.

"We were grateful that the spirit of Judge Manning's ruling is being upheld,” said Dawn Graff, who helped lead the parent group that sued the school board. “Because I think that all families deserve choices, whether they are current families in the Wake County Public School System or the families that are entering the school system.”

But administrators say the school system has little choice.

"We're going to have some schools that are now under capacity and some schools that are tremendously overcapacity because we had to provide informed consent,” said Michael Evans, a spokesman for WCPSS.

In Durham, school leaders said they also do not use race as a factor in their student assignment policy. Administrators say their policy is based on geography -- students get to attend their neighborhood school.