The Cary era of the Wake County school board officially starts this afternoon with the first meeting at the Crossroads I Building.

The new board room and conference at 5625 Dillard Drive both hold more seats than the former digs at Wake Forest Road. But there are also sight-line issues so monitors have been placed around the board room for people who will have a hard time seeing the board table.

The work session agenda appears to be much meatier than the regular meeting agenda with topics such as student assignment, the Hilburn Elementary conversion, the new middle school math placement policy and school bus travel times.

SEE UPDATE ON HILBURN AND REJECTION OF THE LAND SALE AT END OF POST

The Wake County school board will act today on, depending on your point of view, a major folly of the old board majority or the new board majority.

The school board is scheduled to vote today on declaring the abandoned Forest Ridge High School site as being surplus property. This would allow the school system to sell the property to recoup some of its costs.

The new board majority had directed that the site be sold after voting February 2010 to abandon Forest Ridge. But the issue got some impetus last month when staff left in its future building plans a proposal to still build an elementary school on the site.

UPDATE

The board voted 6-2 to declare the land surplus with Carolyn Morrison and Keith Sutton voting no.

Wake County school board member Carolyn Morrison says she's not endorsing school board chairman Ron Margiotta in his re-election bid even though she appeared at his campaign kickoff event.

Morrison said she attended Margiotta's July 18 event as a sign of respect to the board's longest serving member. She said he respected how he persevered as a member of the board's minority for several years.

But Morrison said she's not planning on endorsing Margiotta, his District 8 opponent Susan Evans or any other candidate in this fall's races. She said she might change her mind if there are run-off contests.

Wake County school board members Keith Sutton, Kevin Hill and challenger Susan Evans were among the first to file today for office.

None of the three names were surprises as they had announced their plans to run ahead of time.  Hill is running for re-election District 3. Sutton is aiming to win the District 4 seat he was appointed to in 2009. Evans is running in District 8.

The filing period for school board candidates runs until noon on Aug. 12.

UPDATE

Click here for Morgan's application from 2009.

Christine Kushner filed today to run for the District 6 seat.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta filed today for re-election in District 8.

Cynthia Matson filed today for District 5, becoming the eighth and last school board candidate of the day.

It was with a smiley face on her ballot that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman finally ended the 2 1/2 hour struggle on Tuesday to name a new vice chairman

A look at the 56 rounds of votes shows that Goldman voted for herself 48 times, in all but one case being the lone vote. She voted seven times for other people, usually Chris Malone or Carolyn Morrison, before finally going for John Tedesco in the 56th round to break the stalemate.

“Our chairman keeps saying somebody holds the key here and it's pretty obvious through the vote," Goldman said before the final ballot. "I’m going to cast my vote different this time because this is number 56, which is the year my parents got married and for me that's a good number because it showed unity and it showed commitment and it showed values. I am going to cast my vote this time and take myself out of that position.”

A compromise may be found today over who should hear recommendations for long-term suspensions for Wake County students.

School board member John Tedesco said he's talked with school board attorney Ann Majestic about having retired Wake teachers volunteer to be in a pool of people to serve on hearing panels. As volunteers, they wouldn't be paid.

Additionally, Tedesco said the fact they're former Wake employees means they wouldn't have federal privacy issues with them hearing the cases.

UPDATE

It would be open to a wide range of people from administrators to teachers to guidance counselors.

The school board approved the discipline policy changes by a 6-2 vote on first reading with Carolyn Morrison and Anne McLaurin voting no.

All the dissenters had concerns that the changes didn't adequately address concerns raised by youth advocacy groups. But Tedesco was willing to approve on first reading and to work out the changes between now and second reading on July 12.

It looks like, for now, high schools in Cary and Raleigh will still have police officers assigned to them for the 2011-12 school year

After a lengthy debate, the Wake County school board unanimously agreed tonight to continue their contracts with the Raleigh and Cary police departments for school resource officers for the high schools. As part of the vote, Superintendent Tony Tata was directed to come back in three months with a review of the SRO program.

But before the vote, some board members talked about delaying the vote and what would be necessary should they terminate the deals.

It looks like we now have the person who will emerge as the standard bearer in District 6 for supporters of the old diversity policy.

Christine Kushner, a longtime school volunteer, magnet parent and member of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, announced today that she would seek the District 6 seat on the Wake County school board.

Her press release hits on the same themes echoed by other critics of the board majority. She talks about the need to make data-driven decisions and avoiding creating low-performing schools.

Wake County school board member Carolyn Morrison announced today that she won't run for the District 6 seat this fall.

In her press release, Morrison listed four reasons for not running for office. She cited how much further the new Central Office in Cary will be from her Raleigh home, her desire not to be in a partisan campaign, the desire to spend more time with her family and wanting to devote her time to governing instead of campaigning.

"Removing myself from candidacy and campaigning will allow me more freedom and flexibility to devote my time and energy to the more important issues affecting our students, families, and staff:  a new reassignment plan; budgetary issues; updating the composition of the Board Advisory Council for District 6 due to the recent approval of the redistricting plan; and assisting our new superintendent whenever/wherever needed," Morrison wrote.

We don't know yet who will run for the District 6 Wake County school board seat but at least we know who won't be doing so.

Raleigh attorney Neil Riemann says he will not run for the District 6 seat. He didn't provide a reason.

Riemann had been considering a run in District 5 only to have his precinct moved to District 6 as part of this year's redistricting process.