While it looks like the Wake County school board has narrowed down the list of candidates for superintendent, today's election results could impact the process.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta said they're still taking more applications for superintendent. One potential source for new candidates, he said, could be people looking for new jobs across the country after today's election results.

Still, board members are saying they're thrilled by the candidates they looked at Monday.

The Wake County school board's superintendent search committee is now in closed session looking at candidates and discussing salary and benefits packages.

The search firm of Heidrick & Struggles has been charged with bringing the top five to 10 applicants to the search committee. The committee will whittle down the list to three to five finalists for the full school board to review.

In addition, committee chairwoman Debra Goldman said they'd discuss today in closed session what the salary and benefits would be for the new superintendent.

UPDATE

School board member Chris Malone, a member of the board’s search committee, said they’ve narrowed down the list of top candidates but haven’t yet gotten down to naming finalists yet.

"It was an embarrassment of riches," Malone said of the top candidates identified by the committee. "We'd be lucky to have any of them."

School board chairman Ron Margiotta, who attended today's meeting, said he’s optimistic that they can hire a new superintendent by January.

Malone and Margiotta said all the applicants now being given strong consideration have both education and management experience but aren’t all superintendents. The board had eliminated the requirement that the superintendent be an educator.

No decision has been made yet on the compensation package.

Will the "base option" in the student assignment plan being developed by Michael Alves be enough to win over a majority of Wake County school board members?

As noted in today's article, Alves is not calling for have a guaranteed base school assignment in the model he's developing. Instead, you'd get a "base option" that you could apply to but wouldn't necessarily get in the selection process.

School board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman had cited the lack of base assignments as one reason she broke with the majority to kill the 16-zone plan being developed by board member John Tedesco.

It looks like we can forget about calling them the Wake County school board majority for now.

As noted in today's article, four of the five members of the old Republican majority say the recent actions by board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman mean the coalition is dead when it comes to student assignment. They say that it will take next year's elections to bring about a new majority to implement community-based schools.

“Right now those who believe in forced busing and socioeconomic engineering have found a new ally,” said board member John Tedesco.

Is trying to build consensus a sign of leadership or weakness when it comes to developing a new student assignment model in Wake County?

As noted in today's article, both major factions on the school board have radically different takes on using consensus to develop a new model to replace the defunct zone plan. Consensus is being stressed by the school board members who had fought the elimination of the diversity policy.

The process presented last week by school board member Kevin Hill stresses "consensus decision making."

Does being "deliberate" mean being thorough or mean slowing things down until the next Wake County school board election?

As noted in today's article, those are the two perspectives being mentioned for school board member Kevin Hill's proposal to slow down the process for developing he new student assignment model. Perhaps not surprisingly, reaction largely split along partisan lines.

"It's a deliberate approach," said Democratic school board member Keith Sutton. "We are going to have some inclusion and some consensus building."

Wake County school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman could find herself being grilled by other board members today on what to do next following the recently passed board directive on student assignment.

Goldman had joined the four Democrats on the board on Oct. 5 to back the resolution written by Kevin Hill and Keith Sutton to end all work on the zone-based plan. But there are a lot of questions about where the directive leaves the district.

“Mrs. Goldman and Mr. Sutton need to tell us what they intend to do next,” said Republican school board member Chris Malone. “They can’t simply say what they don’t want.”

Wake County school board members will be out and about at different community events this evening.

The most media attention will likely be placed on the forum that board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman will hold at Cary Town Hall at 6:30 p.m. to hear residents talk about student assignment. Board member Deborah Prickett, who got into a heated exchange with Goldman last week, said she'll also attend.

There's word that board chairman Ron Margiotta may also be in the audience to hear Goldman tonight.

The quick upshot of today's Wake County student assignment committee meeting is that the process is now stalled following last week's vote scrapping the community zones.

School board member Chris Malone complained that the district is back to square one. Board member John Tedesco, committee chairman, said that while they looked at a lot of good information today they don't have any direction on how to use it now.

In this vacuum, board member Deborah Prickett proposed a bunch of changes for her district today, including:

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR HANDOUT ON PRICKETT'S PROPOSED CHANGES

Click here for Wednesday's article about the meeting.

The impact of last week's resolution scrapping work on the zone plan is uppermost on the minds of people at today's Wake County student assignment committee meeting.

School board member John Tedesco, chairman of the committee, opened the meeting by saying he was going "to address the 800 pound gorilla in the room" caused by last week's vote.

Tedesco said that the implications of the resolution are still being reviewed. He said he was going ahead with the previously scheduled discussion on equity and school funding issues because they're still relevant.