The strategic plan, improving board communications and honoring students and employees will be on today's Wake County school board agenda.

The board will open today's retreat by spending two hours discussing the strategic plan that AdvancED wants the district to complete. The board had a lengthy discussion on it at the December retreat.

The next two hours of the retreat will be spent on board communications and protocol, detailing what should happen between board members and board members and staff. The tense exchanges in recent months are what prompted school board chairman Kevin Hill to make his call for proper decorum last week.

Should Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata have questioned new school board members Susan Evans and Christine Kushner about their ties to the Great Schools in Wake Coalition?

As noted in today's article, Tata emailed both board members on Saturday questioning whether they were involved in Great School's Friday press release on the bell schedule changes and the new assignment plan. Tata repeatedly questioned their affiliation with a group that's been critical of him and staff.

In their response, Evans and Kushner denied any current involvement with Great Schools or the press release. They also accused Tata of making a public attack on them because the email message is a public record.

(The text of the email messages is later on in the post.)

Allison Backhouse now has her own blog and her focus today is on AdvancED's  accreditation investigation of the Wake County school system.

Backhouse criticizes the "ridiculous complaint" by the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP that led to the review. Noting the recent positive AdvancED report, she writes that the organization's concerns were addressed "due to the hard work of the previous Board and Supt. Tata."

"But, what has really changed – besides the political majority on the School Board?" Backhouse writes. "Are our high schools and their students better in some way? Even the Wake Education Partnership came to the conclusion that accreditation is just a public perception issue. We think it’s important only because we’ve been told it is."

Should the Wake County school board move quickly to extend Superintendent Tony Tata's contract?

As noted in today's article, Tata is generally getting good reviews as he hits the one-year anniversary mark of his tenure on Tuesday. But he also faces some challenges, including potentially from members of the new Democratic school board majority.

Republican school board members are talking about wanting the board to take action next month to extend Tata's contract past the June 30, 2014 end date.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is getting a lot of credit for AdvancED upping the accreditation status of the school district's high schools.

As noted in today's article, AdvancED said in its new report that the school system has made "significant" progress to address the issues it had raised in its March report. Throughout the report, AdvancED cites Tata as being a major factor for the change.

"A common theme during interviews was the significance of the Superintendents’ influence on the direction of the system in providing governance and leadership focused on student learning and system effectiveness," according to the report. "Described as a 'calmer' Board, stakeholders attributed this change unequivocally to the Superintendent’s leadership."

The timing could have been better, but Wake County school board member John Tedesco officially announced today that he's running for state superintendent of public instruction.

In his press release, Tedesco cited issues such as the state’s high suspension rate and poor test scores for minority students in his announcement.

“Our children can no longer wait as a failed education system robs them of the promise of tomorrow with each passing day,” Tedesco said in his announcement.

AdvancED has upped Wake's accreditation status to accreditation advised.

Click here to read the report. More to come...

Wake County school board member Debra Goldman says she's taking on the role of board "watchdog."

During last week's board meeting, Goldman, a Republican, repeatedly raised concerns about the way she felt the new Democratic board majority was operating. She accused the board of committing several policy violations and not passing the "smell test" on email discussions.

"You’ve referred to me as the watchdog and I will pick up that mantle and go forward with it," Goldman said during the meeting.

Interested in learning how to save money at the grocery store? Or do you feel like you need a refresher course in couponing?

I'll be teaching a coupon class on Saturday, Jan. 28, covering basic and advanced coupon techniques that will teach you to save at least 50 percent, if not more, on your grocery bill.

The cost of the class is $15, which you should easily recoup in your first trip to the grocery store.

We've also also got some nice freebies lined up for you to take home with you.

The issue of Michael Alves' unannounced private meeting with the new Democratic members of the Wake County school board won't seem to go away.

The issue was revisited with some heated comments during Tuesday's board meeting. The discussion, more of which is detailed later in the post, shows the continuing wariness between the Republican and Democratic members.

More recently, Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, brought up the issue in a Thursday blog post.