The Wake County school board announced principals Tuesday for five schools.

Robert James was promoted from assistant principal to principal of East Wake School of Arts, Education and Global Studies in Wendell. James, who has been at East Wake since 2010, will now receive a salary of $70,812.

Eric Fitts was promoted from assistant principal to principal of Brentwood Elementary School in northeast Raleigh, Fitts, who has been at Brentwood since 2011, will now receive a salary of $80,814.

Ken Branch is retiring as principal of Brentwood Elementary School in North Ralegh just a few months after being named the Wake County School System's 2012 Principal of the Year.

Tonight, the school board appointed Teresa Abron, a retired principal, to be Brentwood's interim principal starting Dec. 3 and running through May 31. Board members said they were surprised by Branch's retirement.

In other principal appointments:

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS

Congratulations tonight to Ken Branch of Brentwood Elementary School being named the Wake County school system's 2012 Principal of the Year and Ruth Ann Freeman of Bugg Elementary School being named Assistant Principal of the Year.

An interesting note here is that Brentwood is one of Wake's Renaissance schools, which have come under fire lately from members of the school board's Democratic majority.

Before his firing, Superintendent Tony Tata had repeatedly touted the academic gains at the Renaissance schools. A sore point, for the majority members, is the use of merit pay at the Renaissance schools.

The Wake County school system has announced the finalists for the 2012-13 Principal of the Year and Assistant Principal of the Year awards.

The finalists for Principal of the Year are Kevin Biles of Pleasant Union Elementary in Raleigh, Kenneth Branch of Brentwood Elementary in Raleigh, Paula Trantham of Millbrook Elementary in Raleigh,  Brian Pittman of Holly Ridge Middle in Holly Springs and Ericka Lucas of East Wake School of Arts, Education and Global Studies in Wendell.

The finalists for Assistant Principal of the Year are Teresa Caswell of Lead Mine Elementary in Raleigh, Ruth Ann Freeman of Bugg Elementary in Raleigh, Travis Shillings of Brassfield Elementary in Raleigh, Wynette Martin of East Cary Middle and Matthew Rice of Enloe High in Raleigh.

The finalists were nominated by their peers. The winners will be announced at a celebration on Oct. 11 at 6 p.m. at Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh.

Which Wake County magnet schools, if any, should be worrying about losing their magnet status?

During Tuesday's school board work session, Deputy Superintendent Cathy Moore said the determination on demagnetization is a longer more drawn out process that they weren't going to discuss yet. She wanted the board to focus on the adoption of the magnet principles and which schools to include in the magnet grant.

But this color-coded chart showing how the existing magnets fare under the magnet principles could give an indication of which schools might be at higher risk. Green indicates strongly aligned with the magnet principles, yellow is moderately aligned and red and white both mean not aligned.

Eyes around Wake County are focused on how the four Renaissance Model  schools will do this year.

As noted in today's article, the four Renaissance schools got additional resources, such as the money that was used to have a quartet from the N.C. Symphony work with students at Barwell Road Elementary School on Monday.

“We want to focus on everything we can to bring enrichment to their lives," said Barwell Road Principal Sandy Barefoot. “It certainly opens up the world to them.”

Here's the quick summary of the new academic audit done of Wake County schools.

Wake still outperforms the state on state exams but the gap is narrowing with the rest of North Carolina growing at a faster rate. Wake’s low-income students aren’t growing as fact academically as their more affluent peers and higher poverty schools are on average not showing as much growth as more affluent schools.

A finding that drew discussion was the one in which, in general, schools with high percentages of free and reduced lunch students have lower rates of growth in reading and math exams than schools with low percentage of free and reduced lunch students.

The Wake County school board appointed five principals tonight while moving four principals to assistant principal posts.

Gregory Butler was named principal of North Garner Middle School with a salary of $92,707.68. He has been an assistant principal at Southeast Raleigh High since 2009.

Carmen Graf was named principal of Banks Road Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina with a salary of $73,803.68. Graf has been an assistant principal at Timber Drive Elementary since October.

UPDATE

Click here to view the bio sheets.

The Wake County school board announced tonight they had replaced three principals who are part of a new program to help struggling schools and had also chosen a new leader for Southeast Raleigh High.

New principals were chosen for Barwell Road, Brentwood and Wilburn elementary schools while the principal of Creech Road Elementary was allowed to keep her job. They’re all part of the Renaissance Schools program, a new effort targeting additional resources at Wake’s four lowest-performing elementary schools.

The principals and teachers at the four Renaissance schools had to reapply if they wanted to keep their jobs, which comes with a hiring bonus and merit pay. Those who aren’t hired back or don’t want to stay are transferred to other schools.

SEE END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS FOR THE PRINCIPALS

Here's some more details about the Renaissance Model being used to turn around the Wake County school system's four lowest performing elementary schools.

The quick description is that additional resources, including new technology, signing bonuses and performance bonuses, will be used at Barwell Road, Brentwood, Creech Road and Wilburn elementary schools. All four schools happen to have high poverty levels but they were chosen because their passing rates were below 60 percent on state exams last year.

The issue has gotten more attention this week because the school board voted Tuesday on a $950,000 a year bonus plan for the schools using federal Race to the Top money.