The Wake County legislative delegation should expect to hear more today from people opposing bills that would change how Wake County school board members are elected and take away their control of school construction.

WakeUP Wake County is urging people to show up again like they did at the March 25 public hearing. The new hearing takes place before the Wake school board will discuss during Tuesday's work session supporting the current election districts instead of going to the ones in S325, the school board election bill.

With WakeUP Wake, the Great Schools in Wake Coalition and the Wake County Democratic Party urging people to show up March 25 to oppose the school bills, you can guess what the turnout was like. Here are some of the comments from the March 25 hearing.

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition and other supporters of the Democratic school board majority turned their attention Monday on the Republican majority on the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

During the public comment section, several speakers criticized the commissioners for asking for state legislation to take over ownership of schools, to be able to give money to help build charter schools and to change the way school board members are elected. It also came with a warning.

"I hope that the Wake County Commissioners don't want to radicalize lots of middle-class parents," said Robert Siegel. "But if you do start messing with our schools, we're going to respond the same way we responded to the extremist school board of 2009. I don't think you want Wake County to become a national disgrace again."

Former Wake County school board member Beverley Clark wasn't the only speaker firing bombs at Tuesday's school board meeting.

As noted in today's article, critics of the new choice-based student assignment plan and supporters of magnet schools made up much of the turnout for public comment. Several speakers urged the board to make major changes to the new assignment plan.

Speakers also defended the magnet school program, downplaying the data indicating they have larger achievement gaps than non-magnet schools. They also denied that magnets were schools within a school as terms such as "social justice" and "diversity" were often mentioned.

Was Tuesday's adoption of a new Wake County student assignment plan the culmination of years of study and discussion or a rushed decision?

As noted in today's article, school board members and administrators defended the vote as being necessary to avoid delaying implementation of the plan. But critics, particularly during the public comment section, urged the board to hold off adoption until the newly elected members have their say on the plan.

"The voters spoke," said Robert Hyman. "You lost the election. In effect, the chair of this board has been fired. You owe it to the new board to discuss it with them before you completely lose your moral authority and your legitimacy.”