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.

Could the development of feeder patterns be more of a hold-up on the new Wake County student assignment plan than coming to an agreement on achievement-choice schools?

As noted in today's article, staff's update on the student assignment plan included discussion on achievement schools and a presentation on sample feeder patterns. During the meeting, board members said zilch on the achievement schools but went into detail on the feeder patterns.

"We know this is contentious," Superintendent Tony Tata said to board members in response to the feeder pattern concerns. "This is high stakes. We want your feedback to make this right."

The Wake County school board appointed one new principal and one interim principal tonight.

Michael Armstrong was named principal of Bugg Elementary School with a salary of $74,439. He has been an assistant principal at Combs Elementary since 2008.

Charles Langley was named interim principal of Middle Creek Elementary with a salary that would be equivalent to $113,972 over a full year. Langley has filled in across the district since retiring at principal of Willow Spring Elementary in 2008.

UPDATE

Click here for the bio sheets.

By a 5-3 vote, the Wake County school board has preliminarily agreed to go with the staff recommendation to open Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh as a traditional calendar.

Keith Sutton, Anne McLaurin, Kevin Hill, Chris Malone and Debra Goldman voted to open Walnut Creek as a traditional-calendar school. John Tedesco, Deborah Prickett and Carolyn Morrison voted to open it as a year-round school, which was the original staff recommendation three years ago.

Supporters of making it traditional cited the childcare costs on the low-income families that will make up the majority of the families at Walnut Creek. Supporters of year-round focused on the additional capacity the calendar would provide.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Magnet schools are becoming an important part of the 2011-12 Wake County student reassignment plan.

As noted in today's article, school board members are facing requests for new magnet programs while also balancing how to provide both community schools to Southeast Raleigh students and enough seats at magnet schools.  The decisions the board finally makes will be heavily scrutinized.

Let's start with the calls from parents at York Elementary School to become a magnet school. They're talking about having a global leadership and science theme.

Tempers flared and words were shouted Tuesday over the possibility of reassigning thousands of Southeast Raleigh students to schools closer to where they live.

The most friction came during an exchange between school board member John Tedesco and one of the community members of his student assignment committee, Anne Sherron. She accused him of misrepresenting her words during a debate about whether there's academic benefits of going to a school closer to where you live.

But before we get there, you need some background.

Schools in Wake County and across the country will be celebrating American Education Week starting on Monday.

American Education Week is an effort from the National Education Association to promote recognition of teachers and public schools. The week is marked by daily activities such as encouraging parents to visit schools, honoring support staff and substitute teachers and encouraging community leaders to serve as educators for a day.

Wake NCAE has encouraged individual schools to hold events.

The elimination of socioeconomic diversity in filling Wake County's magnet schools and year-round schools had immediate results this year.

As noted in today's article, the acceptance rates shot up for both magnet schools and year-round schools. You had 812 more people accepted into magnet schools as hundreds of seats that had previously been left vacant for diversity reasons were filled.

(There's a long list of links at the bottom of the post for numbers crunchers.)

CORRECTED BAD LINKS FOR THIS YEAR'S SCHOOL-BY-SCHOOL TOTALS

Wake has announced its finalists for principal and assistant principal of the year.

The Principal of the Year finalists are Mary Page of Bugg Elementary, Annice Williams of Barwell Elementary, Teresa Winstead of Durant Road Elementary, John Wall of North Garner Middle and Edward McFarland of Fuquay-Varina High.

The Assistant Principal of the Year finalists are Melissa Blackmon of Willow Springs Elementary, Lisa Brown of Leesville Road Elementary, Edna Fay Jones of Forest Pines Elementary, Christopher Coby of Wendell Middle and Robert Matheson of Apex High.