From staff writer Jesse James DeConto:

Two confirmed cases of whooping cough at Carrboro Elementary School have prompted the Orange County Health Department to require antibiotics for any students who may have shared a bus or classroom with the infected students.

Sue Rankin, a nurse with the health department, said the new cases, which likely include a third student, are probably not related to another case at the school in December. Rankin said two kindergarteners and a fourth-graders contracted the disease despite having been vaccinated.

“We’re finding that kids who are vaccinated are still becoming infected and developing the disease,” she said. “As children age, their immunity starts to wane. Children who are immune may become infected, but they do not have as severe a case.”

Chatham County had 16 suspected cases last fall. Across the nation, cases of whooping cough have increased more than 10-fold in the past 30 years. Look for more details on this story in tomorrow's News & Observer.

Fifty-seven students dropped out of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools last year, according to a report released today by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. (Read the N&O story here.)

Those 57 students gave the district a 1.53 percent dropout rate, the lowest in the state.

The district's dropout rate did inch upward in 2007-08. In 2006-07, 41 students dropped out, and the rate was 1.12 percent, according to a city schools release. The 2007-2008 rate is similar to the district's results in 2004-05 and 2005-06.

The 57 students were divided among the three high schools and one middle school. Eleven of the 57 left Carrboro High, 14 left East Chapel Hill High and 31 left Chapel Hill High. Attendance problems and the desire to attend a community college program were the most common reasons students gave for dropping out.

In recent years, the district has begun a number of programs aimed at heightening student engagement and providing alternative paths toward graduation. Students may enroll in the Middle College program at Durham Tech to take high school and community college courses simultaneously. All three district high schools have opened themed academies that offer courses in core subjects with a focus on the arts, social justice or international studies.

Gloria Woods-Weeks, assistant principal at East Chapel Hill High School, has been named the North Carolina Assistant Principal of the Year by the N.C. Principals and Assistant Principals Association. 

he National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and Virco, Inc. honor a winner from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense Education Activity schools. From this pool, one national winner will be chosen at NASSP’s national convention on Feb. 28 in San Diego. The national winner will be awarded $5,000, which can be used in their school or for personal professional development.
 
Woods-Weeks is receiving this award due to her proven success in involving the local community in the life of the school, her awareness of current and emerging issues, and her passion in improving the school’s learning environment, according to a news release.
 
“As school districts across the country struggle with filling school administrator positions, both principals and assistant principals, it becomes imperative that we highlight and honor the high fliers in the profession,” said Gerald Tirozzi, NASSP executive director.  

Did you know making a false bomb threat is a felony?

Correspondent Colin Campbell reports in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News that Angelica Desiree Noell, a 16-year-old student at Chapel Hill High School, was charged with a felony Saturday for making a false bomb report.

Other students heard Noell make the call and reported it, Chapel Hill Police Lt. Kevin Gunter said. The call came in at 11:28 a.m. Jan. 8, and the student allowed the school resource officer and school administrators to see her phone and verify that she had made the call, he said.

"It doesn't happen very often," Gunter said. "I can't find a record of it, at least not on a quick search." The department's computerized records go back to 2001, he said, but it's possible a prior incident could have been labeled as a different crime. 

North Carolina stiffened penalties for fake bomb threats after principals and superintendents asked for it following a rash of hoaxes in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

The law makes it a low-level felony, Class H, for people to make school-related bomb threats. A judge could sentence someone to community service, a presumptive sentence of several months jail time and/or a fine, Gunter said.

It also requires an automatic suspension of 365 days, according to a DPI release. Parents or legal guardians will be held liable for costs resulting from the disruption or dismissal of school or school activities, the DPI release says.

The law also requires the Division of Motor Vehicles to revoke the permit or licence of a person convicted of making a false threat.

Brett Webb-Mitchell wouldn’t be the first openly gay person to run for Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board. Gloria Faley broke that barrier some years ago. And she won.

But Webb-Mitchell, the author of “On Being a Gay Parent,” (also the name of his blog) and an ordained Presbyterian minister, says he is thinking about it.

His inspiration? Slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk.

“Yesterday I saw the movie ‘Milk,’ he writes. "The movie is a ‘must’ for not only those of us who are LGBTQ, and straight allies, but for all of those who need the inspiration of moving forward in speaking truth to power, especially in the day and times that the stress is greatest.”

Milk is believed to have been the first politician to win office as an out gay man (and it wasn’t easy, as the movie shows). There are now 600 in this country, including Orange County’s Mike Nelson (a county commissioner and former mayor of Carrboro) and Mark Kleinschmidt (a Chapel Hill Town Council member). Webb-Mitchell could make that three.

(UPDATE: make that four, per Jason Baker's comment below; Lydia Lavelle is a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.)

“I'm thinking of running for the School Board for Chapel Hill-Carrboro Community School System,” Webb-Mitchell writes. “Any campaign managers out there who read this blog?”

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools had 11,737 students Monday, 34 over the district's projection.

The state counts 20th day enrollment for funding purposes. Last year the school district had 11,427 students on the 20th day of school, spokeswoman Stephanie Knott said this morning.

If Monday's enrollment holds, the district will have grown by 310 students or 2.7 percent.

Four of 10 elementary schools are above capacity: Glenwood, McDougle, Scroggs and Seawell.  Seawell remained the most crowded school, at 593 students, or 127 over capacity.

Morris Grove Elementary, the just-opened 10th elementary school on Homestead Road in northwestern Chapel Hill, has 533 students, 52 short of its 585-student capacity.

One of the district's four middle schools and one of its three high schools are over capacity.

Culbreth Middle School has 697 students, 27 above capacity. East Chapel Hill High has 1,578 students, 63 students above capacity.

Carrboro High School, which added its senior class this school year, has 770 students, 30 under capacity. Chapel Hill High School, which Knott said benefited the most from Carrboro's construction, now has 1,373 students, 147 below capacity.

In case you missed our story Sunday about the iPod Touches that might be handed out to all Culbreth Middle School students, here it is.

It's sparked quite the discussion about the merits of this experiment. Feel free to weigh in.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools board of education is slated to take up the proposed program at its Sept. 4 meeting.

A group of parents and others concerned about changes at Carrboro High School has formed an open Google group (that anyone can join) on "the issue of the inequity" at the school.

We reported earlier this week how parents were upset about the sudden ouster of the school's principal, after the school's first year, and about the dropping of several Advanced Placement and honors courses at the school. You can read our story here.   

Carrboro High School's School Improvement Team is holding an emergency meeting tonight to discuss the ouster of Principal Jeff Thomas and the dropping of several advanced courses from the curriculum.

Read the story here.

We also have a letter about the courses in tomorrow's Chapel Hill News (no link available yet). The writer, W.D. Ilgen, says Carrboro High is on the way to becoming the "Cinderella" of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, as in the poor stepsister to Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill high schools.

"The reason given for the omission of these critical courses at Carrboro High is that they are under-enrolled," Ilgen writes. "Why does this now come as a great surprise to the Chapel Hill Carrboro Schools Administration? It should clearly have foreseen and planned for this eventuality in a school that has yet to achieve a full complement of students? Why punish students for what is obviously a serious administrative oversight? They are left with several bad choices: compromising their education by not taking courses that they absolutely need, or scrambling their day by traveling back and forth to one of the other schools where the courses may already be overenrolled."

Reporter Matt Dees is covering this story. If you want to talk with him, please e-mail Matt at mdees@nando.com.