It's time to temper your enthusiasm if you were one of the parents who were happy about the changes announced Monday to the draft reassignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the reassignment picture for high schools is now up in the air due to the school board's apparent desire to remove Broughton High's magnet program. Unless some of the board members have second thoughts before next Wednesday's meeting, Broughton will lose the IB magnet program and another school will get it now.

Demagnetizing Broughton and magnetizing another school is going to require some major revisions to the draft plan. Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said this means that Dec. 20 and not Dec. 16 would now be the likely release date for the revised plan.

Here are the four changes to the draft reassignment plan that were announced by staff at Monday's CEM meeting at Cary High.

One change is to reassign areas along Harrison Avenue to Cary High instead of to Athens Drive High. Administrators acknowledged families, now attending Panther Creek High, who said they should go to Cary High because that’s where they had previously attended.

A second change is to drop the reassignment of 117 students to Cary High from attendance nodes 657.1 and 657.2. Administrators sided with families who argued they should stay at Green Hope High because they live so close to the school and don’t live near areas assigned to Cary High.

Ever thought of reassignment as being a terrorist act?

You might want to read this e-mail message that was sent to the school board. It's written by a Preston resident who is upset about the proposed reassignment of students from Green Hope High to Cary High and from West Cary Middle to East Cary Middle.

Headline:  PRESTON COMMUNITY ROCKED BY MAJOR "BLAST"

It's appropriate that Cary High is the host for tonight's community engagement meeting considering how central it is to many of the groups that will be speaking.

As noted in today's article, one group doesn't want to be reassigned out of Cary High. Two groups don't want to be forced to attend the school. A fourth group wants to be sent to Cary High.

Based on the expected turnout, it's probably a good idea to get there as early as 6 p.m. tonight when the signup sheets are distributed.

If you had taken a poll "which Triangle conference is the weakest?" back in September, the far-and-away winner (or loser, if you prefer) would've been the Tri-Eight.

Not a single team made it through the nonconference schedule without at least one loss. Fuquay-Varina was 3-1, Apex was 2-2 while Middle Creek and Lee County were 1-3. That meant half the conference was 0-4. Yikes.

But here we are. It's the third round of the playoffs and there are just as many Tri-Eight teams as there are teams from the PAC 6, Cap 7 and Greater Neuse. Didn't see that coming did you?

The Cap 7 got all seven teams in, but despite all the hype, teams like Leesville Road and Millbrook couldn't get it done in the postseason.

Now, I'm not saying the Tri-Eight is on the level of the Cap 7. Not a bit. Sanderson, the last place team in the Cap 7, is not the equivalent of Green Hope or Lee County, the two worst teams in Tri-Eight.

But those two were no worse than say, East Chapel Hill, Riverside or Person, all from the PAC 6. Or even Holly Springs and East Wake from the Greater Neuse.

Much like the ACC, the Tri-Eight's fumbling and bumbling out of the gate caused a lot of media outlets to simply dismiss the entire conference.

"Your season will be over fast," reporters told me when I covering the conference and not just the Cary-area teams. "About a week after the regular season you'll have a lot of time on your hands."

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Cary Town Councilman Don Frantz is venturing back into the world of student reassignment.

Frantz sent this letter to the school district to object to the proposed reassignment of 84 students from Cary High to Apex High. He complains it's unfair to move the students, who are mostly from low-income families.

Administrators have proposed moving the students "to allow middle school students to move to high school with their peers." It would also "increase the number of low-income students at Apex High to make Apex High more in line with the county average for low-income students."

Opposition is forming to the draft reassignment plan.

At least two groups will hold meetings on Sunday to rally parents and to help them lobby for changes to the plan. These parents are complaining about moves that would send students out of Panther Creek and Apex high schools.

Click here for a flier for the parents of 119 students who are upset about being reassigned from Panther Creek High to Athens Drive High. They want to go to Cary High, where they had previously attended.

As if getting your name in the paper and getting to play in college wasn't enough, here's the list of LOI signings for the early signing period.

Here's what each of our teams are and could be facing in the game's first two rounds of the playoffs:

APEX (8-2), 7-seed in 4-AA East

The Cougars open at home against 10-seed West Johnston (7-3) of the Greater Neuse conference. These two teams are going in opposite directions. Apex has won six of its last seven. West Johnston started the year 8-0, but has lost their last three and is dealing with some in-house turmoil. Still, it should be one of the better games on the 4-A or 4-AA bracket. The winner plays the winner of (15) Southern Pines Pinecrest (6-4) at (2) Wilmington Hoggard (9-1).

MIDDLE CREEK (4-6), 7-seed in 4-A East

The luck of the draw was the difference in giving the Mustangs a home game in the first round, but their task won't be easy. Smithfield-Selma, also of the Greater Neuse Conference, finished the year 7-4 overall and 3-4 in the conference. Looking at SSS, the upset over Chapel Hill certainly stands out, but so do losses to Knightdale and Clayton - two 4-7 teams that didn't make the postseason. Who knows which SSS team Middle Creek will face, but I'm sure the Mustangs are hoping for the latter. The one who wins this game must play the winner of (15) Cary versus (2) SE Raleigh. Speaking of Cary...

CARY (4-6), 15-seed in 4-A East

The Imps squeaked into the playoffs. There has never been more than 40 guys on the Cary roster, and the lack of depth has hurt a team that has more talent than it's given credit for. Cary had leads on Apex and Sanderson entering the fourth quarter and had lost third-quarter leads against Leesville Road and Athens Drive. Now the Imps will have a rematch on their hands with the Greater Neuse River champion SE Raleigh (9-1), the team that defeated them 27-18 on Sept. 18 at SE Raleigh. In that game, SE Raleigh ran for 232 yards - 231 of them came from Kevin Howell. Howell is still running well, but the Imps were a long ways from rounding into midseason form. That being said, however, it'll be a tall task of any team having to face SE Raleigh in the first round.

ATHENS DRIVE (4-6), 14-seed in 4-A East

Athens also snuck into the playoffs, proving that their last game, a 41-3 win over Green Hope, was an important one. The Jaguars will hit the road to face 3-seed Southern Durham (8-2). Southern Durham is a traditional powerhouse, and this year they finished tied for first in the PAC 6 Conference. Although talented, Southern Durham has been somewhat of a dysfunctional family at times this year. That might be a thing of the past however, as the Spartans have reeled off back-to-back shutouts, outscoring opponents 93-0. If one team can overcome adversity, it's the Jaguars. They've won four games this year with three different starting quarterbacks, and I'm not sure many teams can win even one game with a third-string QB, but the Jags did it. They've rounded into form slowly, as the defense is still working to catch up with the offense. "Catch up" is something the Athens will try to avoid playing with Southern Durham on Friday. The winner advances to play the winner of (11) Fayetteville Pine Forest (5-5) at (6) Durham Hillside (9-0-1).

The playoff draw was something we felt pretty good would happen, so much that we dedicated a web-only to lay out all the possible scenarios and had three games stories posted that night, plus The Cary News was at the draw so we could bring it to you first.

Lewis "Lucky" Owens, Middle Creek athletics director, drew last but still drew the third seed. I need to go to Vegas with that guy -- he drew the No. 1 seed last year while also drawing last.

 At the time, I thought the move meant Cary & Athens Drive had played their last game, particularly Athens Drive.

But instead, all three teams made the playoffs, right behind Apex and Fuquay-Varina.

That's not to say the draw didn't mean anything. Middle Creek gets a 7-seed and a home game against Smithfield-Selma. Athens Drive and Cary must go on the road.

Athens goes to Southern Durham while Cary goes to SE Raleigh.

So instead of having just two area teams in the playoffs, we have four. Athens, Cary, and Middle Creek are in the 4-A playoffs (the smaller 4-A schools) while Apex is hosting West Johnston as the 7-seed in the 4-AA playoffs (larger 4-A schools).