Let's take a look now at Ann Clark, one of the three finalists for Wake County schools superintendent.

Clark is the deputy superintendent for the Charlotte-Mekcklenburg school system. Although she's the only finalist who doesn't have superintendent experience, she is the no. 2 person in the 141,000-student district that's comparable to Wake in size.

"She has a lot of experience even though she’s never been a superintendent," said Wake school board chairman Keith Sutton.

It's clear the Wake County school board's Democratic majority got what it wanted based on the list of three finalists for superintendent.

As noted in today's article, all three finalists are veteran educators with between 19 and 40 years in education. It's the opposite of former Superintendent Tony Tata, whose prior experience was 18 months as chief operating officer of the D.C. Public Schools.

Board members had listed education experience as one of the top traits they wanted in a superintendent.

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is continuing his efforts to justify the board majority's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

As noted in today's article, Hill met Friday with N&O editors and reporters to list out issues such as concerns about Tata's relationship with board members and staff and his handling of taxpayer dollars. Some of it's similar to what he said at Tuesday's board meeting but he went into more detail.

Hill also went into how he wants to handle the superintendent's search and the timing of the next school bond issue.

UPDATE

Click here to view the letter to the editor from Kevin Hill that will appear in Tuesday's paper in response to Tata's point of view column.

Officially, the Great Schools in Wake Coalition has been silent about the firing last week of Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata.

But individually, GSIW members have been writing letters to the editor praising the Democratic school board majority's decision to fire Tata. Click here, here and here for examples of letters to the editor written by GSIW members such as Karey Harwood, Sharon Eckard, Swain Wood, Heather Koons and Adrienne Lumpkin.

One piece was written by GSIW member Jason Langberg, an attorney for Advocates for Children's Services. His piece appeared Friday on the website of Parents Across America, a national group that supports diversity and opposes the expansion of high-stakes testing and charter schools.

UPDATE

Swain Wood says he's not a member of Great Schools. He's on Yevonne Brannon's email action list and is the husband of GSIW activist Karey Harwood. He worked on board member Susan Evans' campaign last fall and was the lead attorney in the Open Meetings lawsuit filed against the school board in 2010.

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition accused Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata of scapegoating Don Haydon for the bus problems and said he's the one who should be relieved of his duties.

During the public comment session at Tuesday's school board meeting in which speakers were repeatedly warned not to discuss specific personnel, several GSIW members lamented the senior staff who've left Wake since Tata became superintendent.

Lynn Edmonds complained about Wake's longtime staff being replaced by people with no experience working in school systems. who come from the "free market or the corporate world," or being graduates from the Broad Superintendents Academy.

For now, it looks like Judy Peppler will not be leaving her job as the Wake County school system's chief transformation officer.

The Reno Gazette-Journal is reporting that this morning the Washoe County school system's board of trustees named Pedro Martinez as the new superintendent. Peppler was one of five finalists for the job of running the 62,000-student district in Nevada.

The wild card here is that Martinez, the deputy superintendent of Clark County schools in Nevada, is also a finalist for superintendent of Philadelphia schools. Martinez faced scrutiny in Washoe after media reports had him saying he'd prefer the job with the much larger Philadelphia schools, which have 146,000 students.

During her interview on Wednesday, Peppler told the Washoe board of trustees that she considers herself to be a West Coast person and would like to return to that part of the country. Before attending the Broad Superintendents Academy and coming to Wake, Peppler was the state president of Qwest Communications in Oregon.

Another one of Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's top administrators may be leaving for another job.

The Washoe County school system announced today that Judy Peppler, Wake's chief transformation officer and chief of staff, is one of five finalists for the superintendent's position. Located in Nevada, Washoe has 62,000 students.

The Wake school board hired Peppler in September. Like Tata, Peppler is a non-educator who received training at the Broad Superintendents Academy.

Peppler was brought in to oversee the newly created Office of Transformation, which has overseen the controlled-choice student assignment plan that looks to be on the way out. To save money after Terri Cobb left, Peppler was also given the job of chief of staff.

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.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata and three school board members are heading to Pittsburgh this weekend to see what education lessons they can learn from the Steel City.

The Wake school contingent is among a group of local elected officials, government officials, business people and community leaders who are participating in this year's Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce Inter-City Visit and Leadership Conference. The group will meet with different Pittsburgh leaders to see how the city has transformed itself.

On the education side, the part of the trip that will most likely be relevant is a discussion about The Pittsburgh Promise Program. Students who graduate from Pittsburgh Public Schools or local charter high schools with at least a 2.5 GPA and 90 percent attendance record receive up to $40,000 in college scholarships for in-state schools.

SEE UPDATE/CORRECTION ON HOW COSTS OF TRIP ARE BEING COVERED

Is the Wake County school system undergoing "militarization" under the tenure of Superintendent Tony Tata?

That's a charge leveled in this Dec. 16 article by Jason Langberg and Lewis Pitts from the liberal Advocates for Children's Services. The article points to Tata's military career, the requirement of Junior ROTC for the new single-sex leadership academies and Wake's recent involvement in cybersecurity competitions.

The authors start by calling the Occupy Wall Street movement an "education justice movement." The piece charges that public education has "undergone a corporate coup" with the "mega-buck mafia’s buyout of public education."