How significant, if at all, is it that the gap has narrowed between the Wake County school system's graduation rate and the state average?

It was one of the points of contention during Tuesday's school board retreat as the board reviewed this draft strategic plan. Superintendent Tony Tata talked about how pg. 6 shows the state's graduation rate has risen since 2006 while it's dropped in Wake.

"That’s an alarming trend there where we are flat or marginally decreasing while the state is steadily increasing," Tata told the board.

Jim Huge was mistaken when he said he wasn't trying to make Tuesday's Wake County school board retreat a counseling session.

As noted in today's article, school board members traded heated words with each and with Superintendent Tony Tata. In turn, the superintendent didn't hold back either in his feeling that some board members were trying to undercut staff.

In the end, board members agreed to meet one-one-one with Tata to start things anew. Whether those meetings and the two-hour discussion Tuesday helps remains to be seen.

Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, is mobilizing people to participate in the magnet school survey and to urge the Wake County school board to scrap the new student assignment plan.

In a Sunday blog post, Allison Backhouse posts a copy of a Saturday email that she obtained in which Brannon writes that they "NEED a lot of push as the next school board meeting (JUNE 5) to MAKE A NEW PLAN for 2013." Brannon suggests writing "a lot of" letters to the editor "asking for a directive that stops using the CHOICE proximity model and starts using a RESIDENCEY based assignment plan."

Brannon lists the names of other Great Schools leaders, Patty Williams, Amy Womble and Lynn Edmonds, whom she says can help edit the letters and try to get them published.

UPDATE

Backhouse had obtained the email after it was forwarded Sunday to the Coalition of  Concerned Citizens for African American Children. Here is the email that CCCAAC President Calla Wright sent today, Monday, saying they'll stop forwarding messages:

From: Calla Wright <ccaac_aacca@yahoo.com>
Subject: [CoalitionofConcernedCitizensforAfricanAmericanChildren] Sharing Email Stopped because of the confidential message
Date: May 21, 2012 5:23:34 PM EDT
To: coalitionofconcernedcitizensforafricanamericanchildren@yahoogroups.com
Cc: parentsfordiversity@yahoogroups.com, ybrannon@gmail.com

We have decided to limit the number of emails forwarded to this group because of the confidentail messages that are shared with others who support segregated/neighborhood schools.  It is necessary for us to reduce the number of emails sent and we have decided to only share public information.
Please share this message that all confidential emails will stop.

Does the Wake County school system need a separate school board policy on transparency?

School board member Debra Goldman has been pressing for what she says is a greater need to make the district's website more transparent. School staff has turned her memo into a proposed new school board policy.

The policy has been sent to the school board's policy committee for review. But in the process there was debate both about the need for the policy and changes in the way that committee agendas are now set.

What responsibility does the Wake County school system have in providing transportation to preassigned rising sixth- and ninth-graders who don't have bus service this fall?

As noted in today's article, the school board voted to direct staff to, when possible, modify existing bus routes to accommodate students or to offer them a spot at a school on their proximity list that would give them transportation.

But that motion stops short of guaranteeing bus service to their feeder school. And that motion only extends to students who are receiving bus service this year and would lose it this fall, not transfer students who now don't get bus service.

More to come later but the Wake County school board voted tonight to direct staff to try to provide transportation to the 470 preassigned students facing losing bus service.

The board passed 6-3 this motion: "WCPSS, shall provide transportation, when it can be provided with adjustments to existing routes, to all rising sixth- and ninth-graders currently receiving district transportation, who are pre-assigned without transportation for the 2012-13 school year OR offer that student a seat in one of the schools on his/her proximity choice list with transportation."

The board resisted language that would have required providing transportation, including potentially adding extra buses. The board also resisted amending the motion that would have  added 539 rising sixth- and ninth-graders who are at their current school as transfer students.

Susan Evans, Christine Kushner and Jim Martin were the dissenting votes.

The decision to allow all students in Wake County middle schools and high schools be eligible to participate in interscholastic sports led to some heated rhetoric from the school board.

Under this revised policy adopted two weeks ago, a student at a middle school or high school that doesn't have an interscholastic sports program will now be able to try out at another school designated by the district. The change affects two magnet middle schools, the early colleges, the alternative schools, Hilburn Drive Academy and the two new single-sex leadership academies.

The debate got so heated that school board member Deborah Prickett accused board member Jim Martin of opposing the policy because he personally disliked her, which he denied.  The rhetoric caused board member Christine Kushner and board chairman Kevin Hill to urge their colleagues to show more decorum.

The leadership of the Wake County school board may have changed, but staff is still advocating changes that would eliminate classroom behavior from academic grades.

As noted in today's article, staff came back with the same recommended changes that stalled before the prior board in August. Staff is seeking the new school board's approval to go ahead with this revised grading policy and new R&P.

During Thursday's student achievement committee meeting, board member John Tedesco was the main proponent of the changes. Board member Jim Martin was the main critic.

Should the Wake County school system guarantee bus service to all students who choose to stay on their current feeder pattern?

It's an issue in the new student assignment that the school board has been wrestling with for the past several months. The discussion got personal at times last week with board member Jim Martin, the most outspoken proponent of providing the bus service, taking shots from board members Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett.

For now, staff is continuing to review what bus service can be provided.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The Wake County school board came very close on Tuesday to not having adopted a budget request for the 2012-13 school year.

As noted in today's article, the 6-3 vote in favor the budget proposal was very much in doubt until the roll call vote. Every vote was needed because it took a two-thirds majority to waive a policy that limits Wake from using more than half its fund balance to balance the budget.

Signs of the budget being in trouble came early in the discussion when Democratic board members Kevin Hill and Jim Martin said they couldn't vote yes. They didn't feel that the requested $8.8 million increase from the Wake County Commissioners was enough in light of cuts in recent years.