One thing that became clear on Tuesday is that Wake County families really like 8:30 a.m. start times, especially those whose kids go to elementary schools that start at 9:15 a.m.

As noted in today's article, the school board approved Tuesday this revised 2013-14 school bell schedules for each school. A common theme voiced by board members and the public is the concerns families have with continuing to start most elementary schools after 9 a.m.

Wake operates a two- and three-tier bus system in different parts of the district. This means the majority of buses run two or three routes in the morning and afternoon to save money.

Barring any last-minute changes next week, it looks like the new year-round calendar option for Lynn Road Elementary base families will be Wakefield Elementary.

But the discussion on the issue during Tuesday's Wake County school board student assignment work session raises issues about the role year-round calendar options should play in the district. Should Wake continue to not offer year-round options that are considered more attractive than the base school?

The discussion also raised the prospect that the school system may at some point convert Wakefield Elementary back to a traditional calendar.

Is expanding the use of enrollment caps the best way to deal with overcrowding in Wake County schools for the 2013-14 school year?

As noted in today's article, there was a lot of discussion Tuesday about staff's recommendation to put full caps on 12 schools for the rest of the school year and partial caps on 22 schools.

Staff pitched the caps as being an alternative to using reassignment to deal with overcrowding.

The reality of longer bus rides under Wake County's new school transportation plan is setting in now.

As noted in today's article, year-round students are seeing the effects of Wake putting fewer 25 buses on the road for the 2012-13 school year to cut costs. Some year-round students who live within two miles of school are seeing bus rides more than double their prior 20-minute ride times.

"If we're trying to fill up buses, we need to add more stops and add more time to the routes," said Robert Snidemiller, Wake's senior director of transportation. "That's the plan in a nut shell."

Ed Lane, 81, died last weekend. He was a football, wrestling and track coach at Cary High.

How has the Wake County school system determined if a school is "healthy?"

David Holdzkom, assistant superintendent for evaluation and research, gave the school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force a rundown on Thursday as he presented Wake's 2009-10 Healthy Schools Report.

The repot looks at academic performance, school populations, facilities, technology, climate, resources, staffing and programs at individual schools. The report is a carryover from the old days of the socioeconomic diversity policy.

UPDATE

For those who are having problems viewing the PDF links I put up, the ED task force has now posted them on its website. Click here to view the Healthy School Report. Click here to view the report with the staffing data.

Poverty levels are up across the Wake County school system this year with additional schools having more than half of the students receiving federally subsidized lunches.

In this week's issue of In Context, the e-newsletter of the Wake Education Partnership, the WEP reports that the districtwide F&R percentage this school year is 32.4 percent. That's up from 31.2 percent the prior year.

The WEP, using these figures from the school system, also notes that 31 of Wake's 163 schools now have more than half of the students receiving subsidized lunches. That compares to 25 schools the prior year.

It doesn't look like the school system's resolve to turn down year-round applications when it impacts diversity is weakening.

As noted in today's article, Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the school board, said they want to avoid repeating how year-round schools had very low percentages of low-income students when admission was all voluntary.

"You know that year-round schools were elitist before," Gill said.