The X-factor in the year ahead is the role that Wake County school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman will play in the major decisions facing the district.

As noted in Sunday's article, Goldman's former board allies want to pick up seats in the board elections so they won't need her vote. School board member Chris Malone said that Goldman's recent votes on student assignment have created “unpredictability” on the school board.

“We’re having to deal with unpredictability now," Malone said. "It’s the reality we have to live with. We’re going to work as best we can and work for all parents and families.”

How well do you think the new and somewhat fractured majority on the Wake County school board performed this past school year?

As noted in today's article, this past year saw a lot of fire and brimstone on the issue of student assignment and school diversity. While the former majority members say they wish they could have done more, they're pleased overall with what they did accomplish on student assignment and other issues.

“We’ve been doing some good things," said school board member Chris Malone. "We’re moving forward. We’re trying to get student assignment worked out."

I meant to blog about this much sooner. but it's worth noting that two Wake County school board members have taken advantage of the change in policy to revamp their board advisory councils.

Board members Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett have removed some BAC members before the expiration of their terms in order to replace them with new people. In May, the board changed the policy that had previously meant that BAC members served until the end of their terms, which could run up to three years.

Under the new policy, all BAC members require reinstatement once new board members are sworn into office.

Is the Wake County school board still set to adopt a community-based schools plan?

As noted in today's article, school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman repeatedly said during Tuesday's meeting that the board is still moving to community based schools. She said the only question is what plan they'll pick so she backed the proposal from Kevin Hill to have the full board embark on a consensus-building approach.

"You’ve now had a commitment from all nine board members to work on a community-based school plan," Goldman said during the meeting. "It will be a community-based school plan. It needs to go in my opinion, the board can discuss it, and then the board can craft the plan and then the board can vote."

Wake County school board members Chris Malone and John Tedesco got some additional training on Friday, courtesy of the Civitas Institute.

Malone and Tedesco were among a dozen school board members who attended a training session in Raleigh organized by Civitas, according to Bob Luebke, senior policy analyst for the conservative group. School board members are required under state law to get a minimum of 12 hours of training a year.

Friday's session topics included:

The Wake County school system may be paying again for its decision to pack Forest Pines Drive Elementary and North Forest Pines Elementary on the same campus.

At the recommendation of staff, the school board took the unusual step on Tuesday of implementing an enrollment cap during the middle of a school year. The board's action to put a cap on Forest Pines will allow Growth Management to turn away new students this school year from the school's base and send them to either Wakefield or Rolesville elementary schools.

It's the third time that Forest Pines has been capped since the 2008-09 school year.

Is Wake County school board member Kevin Hill's proposed consensus-building approach to student assignment "gobbledygook" or an important step to coming up with a new plan?

As noted in today's article, board members couldn't agree Tuesday on whether to follow Hill's approach so they're going to address it again at next Tuesday's work session. There's still a wide split on the matter with board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman not coming down on either side of the proposal to indicate what might be the outcome.

During the talk, GOP school board members called Hill's proposal a stall tactic. After the work session, board member Chris Malone called it "gobbledygook."

Supporters of the old diversity policy are ramping up the message of "wait 'til next year" in the aftermath of last week's GOP election victory on the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

As noted in Thursday's American Independent article by Ned Barnett, diversity policy supporters say last week's election results shouldn't be seen as a referendum supporting community schools. Instead, they're pointing to the 2011 Wake County school board elections as the true test of public sentiment.

“I don’t think the voters went to the polls and voted the way they did because of what was going on with the school board,” said Karen Rindge, executive director of WakeUP Wake County, the parent group of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition. “But I think we’re going to see a change next year. That’s when we’re really going to see if the public agrees with this board of education.”

UPDATE

In today's article in the American Independent, newly elected Wake County Commissioner Phil Matthews is calling last week's election results a mandate for neighborhood schools.

Wake County school board members Ron Margiotta and Deborah Prickett both said tonight they oppose the use of student achievement as a factor in Michael Alves' controlled-choice student assignment plan.

Both board members were unexpected guests at tonight's Lacy Elementary School PTA forum on student assignment in which Wake Education Partnership Vice President Tim Simmons gave details on the plan that Alves is developing.

Margiotta, the board chairman, said he's willing to look at the Alves plan and that he likes how it's using proximity, stability and choice as guiding principles. But he equated the plan's use of student achievement as a "quota," similar to the use of socioeconomic diversity that the board dropped from the student assignment policy this year.

Republican members of the Wake County school board are calling the GOP sweep of the commissioners races a referendum showing support for pushing ahead with community schools.

As noted in today's article, GOP school board members say that people did respond to the calls from Democrats to turn it into a referendum on the school board's student assignment policy changes. The result, board members say, is a message that they've got the community's support for their actions.

“The people are saying, ‘Leave the school board alone; let them do what they were elected to do on student assignment,’” said school board member Chris Malone. “People want the school board to succeed and do their business.”