Groups hoping to unseat the Republican majority on the Wake County school board appear to have a substantial early fundraising advantage.

As noted in today's article, the five Democratic school board candidates and the Wake Citizens for Good Government PAC have reported raising more than $85,000 so far. That doesn't include the donations that the Wake County Democratic Party plans to raise as part of its coordinated campaign.

The biggest donors so far are John and Ann Campbell, who've given at least $40,000. That's $32,000 to four school board candidates and $8,000 to Wake Citizens for Good Government.

Wake County school board member Anne McLaurin wants to see what lessons future boards can learn from this year's redistricting process.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, McLaurin submitted this list of draft recommendations that the school board might use in 2021 the next time districts are revised. While the Republican school board members were more skeptical than the Democrats, they all agreed to have McLaurin continue working on her suggestions.

One recommendation that drew discussion was the one saying that if a law firm is hired for restricting it should be a non-partisan firm.

It was with a smiley face on her ballot that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman finally ended the 2 1/2 hour struggle on Tuesday to name a new vice chairman

A look at the 56 rounds of votes shows that Goldman voted for herself 48 times, in all but one case being the lone vote. She voted seven times for other people, usually Chris Malone or Carolyn Morrison, before finally going for John Tedesco in the 56th round to break the stalemate.

“Our chairman keeps saying somebody holds the key here and it's pretty obvious through the vote," Goldman said before the final ballot. "I’m going to cast my vote different this time because this is number 56, which is the year my parents got married and for me that's a good number because it showed unity and it showed commitment and it showed values. I am going to cast my vote this time and take myself out of that position.”

A compromise may be found today over who should hear recommendations for long-term suspensions for Wake County students.

School board member John Tedesco said he's talked with school board attorney Ann Majestic about having retired Wake teachers volunteer to be in a pool of people to serve on hearing panels. As volunteers, they wouldn't be paid.

Additionally, Tedesco said the fact they're former Wake employees means they wouldn't have federal privacy issues with them hearing the cases.

UPDATE

It would be open to a wide range of people from administrators to teachers to guidance counselors.

The school board approved the discipline policy changes by a 6-2 vote on first reading with Carolyn Morrison and Anne McLaurin voting no.

All the dissenters had concerns that the changes didn't adequately address concerns raised by youth advocacy groups. But Tedesco was willing to approve on first reading and to work out the changes between now and second reading on July 12.

Jim Martin officially announced today that he will seek the District 5 seat on the Wake County school board.

Martin has been vocal over the past year in criticizing the elimination of the diversity policy and accusing the school board of engaging in racial discrimination. But the N.C. State chemistry professor and parent of two magnet students, including one at Enloe High, doesn't bring up the diversity issue in his press release.

Instead, Martin lays out goals such as not being politically partisan, pushing for a comprehensive education, lobbying for more school funding and reducing bureaucracy on teachers.

It took a compromise to get to the point where Wake County school board members agreed Tuesday to send a letter to the General Assembly asking for more money.

It all started with Chief Business Officer David Neter giving the board an update on how they still plan to recommend cutting pay for teacher assistants to deal with a loss of state funding. The idea is to not pay teacher assistants for teacher workdays.

Neter told the board that while legislators are touting that the budget doesn't call for cutting any teacher assistant positions, that doesn't factor a $12.5 million discretionary reduction that Wake now faces.

It's official that there will be a new Wake County school board member this fall in District 5.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, school board member Anne McLaurin says she will not run for re-election. She said she felt comfortable leaving now because of the board’s increasing emphasis on student achievement, the development of potentially workable student assignment plans, and a recent decision to ask the state for additional funding.

“The board took a stand on requesting that the governor and the legislature increase the funding for education and that was not something the board agreed to do when we were talking to the county,” McLaurin said. “I think we are in a better place."

It looks like, for now, high schools in Cary and Raleigh will still have police officers assigned to them for the 2011-12 school year

After a lengthy debate, the Wake County school board unanimously agreed tonight to continue their contracts with the Raleigh and Cary police departments for school resource officers for the high schools. As part of the vote, Superintendent Tony Tata was directed to come back in three months with a review of the SRO program.

But before the vote, some board members talked about delaying the vote and what would be necessary should they terminate the deals.

Wake County school board member Carolyn Morrison announced today that she won't run for the District 6 seat this fall.

In her press release, Morrison listed four reasons for not running for office. She cited how much further the new Central Office in Cary will be from her Raleigh home, her desire not to be in a partisan campaign, the desire to spend more time with her family and wanting to devote her time to governing instead of campaigning.

"Removing myself from candidacy and campaigning will allow me more freedom and flexibility to devote my time and energy to the more important issues affecting our students, families, and staff:  a new reassignment plan; budgetary issues; updating the composition of the Board Advisory Council for District 6 due to the recent approval of the redistricting plan; and assisting our new superintendent whenever/wherever needed," Morrison wrote.

We don't know yet who will run for the District 6 Wake County school board seat but at least we know who won't be doing so.

Raleigh attorney Neil Riemann says he will not run for the District 6 seat. He didn't provide a reason.

Riemann had been considering a run in District 5 only to have his precinct moved to District 6 as part of this year's redistricting process.