It only seems to be a matter of time and not a question of if the Wake County school board will renew the district's contract to use Blue Diamond through the end of the school year.

The item was pulled from Tuesday's school board meeting agenda to give staff more time to get the backup information needed for the vote. The contract will likely come back before the board in January.

The contract was discussed previously by the board in closed session for legal reasons. School board members and administrators aren't saying why it was discussed behind closed doors but that usually means someone threatened legal action.

It looks like one of the first changes the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board wants to make is restore use of the Blue Diamond assessments.

The just-released agenda for Tuesday's board meeting includes approving a contract renewal with Blue Diamond Information Solutions, LLC  based on a pro-rated amount for the remainder of the school year. The former Republican majority voted in July to not pay $209,000 to renew the contract for the 2011-12 school year.

There's no discussion on student assignment in either the work session or regular meeting agendas.

Middle school math placement, the Khan Academy and a policy on equity will be discussed at today's meeting of the Wake County school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

School board vice chairman John Tedesco, chair of the task force, said staff will provide a detailed report on 2011-12 middle school math placement efforts. There was skepticism that some schools weren't being as diligent as others at using the new EVAAS-based criteria to place more students in advanced math classes.

Tedesco said they'll also watch a video from the non-profit Khan Academy, which has more than 2,000 videos available on YouTube. The videos cover a variety of topics to teach people math and other concepts.

UPDATE

Click here to view the handouts from the meeting.

Here's a recap of the rest of today's Wake County school board work session.

The board asked interim Superintendent Donna Hargens to come with a recommendation next week on whether to restore any of the nine parent counselor positions cut from Project Enlightenment. No specific number was set but the board is looking at three to five positions.

The board also asked Hargens to come back with a recommendation on whether any of more than a dozen senior administrative positions identified by the board can be cut.

Wake County school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman is publicly sharing her displeasure at staff for not getting the information she's asked about on the budget.

In a post on her blog today, Goldman said she hasn't gotten the answers she's asked for since January about the budget. Much of her post focuses on the district's 3,600 cell phones and Blackberries but she also complains about "many instances" of staff asking the board to approve things at the last minute.

"Where are the details to the spending that I have requested ad nauseam since early this year?" Goldman writes.

Suspension and dropout rates and Blue Diamond assessments will be on the agenda for today's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.

The majority of today's meeting is slated for a discussion of Wake's suspension and dropout data and an overview of the dropout professional learning team. Click here for the handout from the last meeting.