It's going to take another month before Wake County school board members begin exerting a say on controversial proposed grading changes such as dropping the use of extra credit and limiting the penalty for work handed in late.

The school board's policy committee was set to begin discussion Tuesday about what grading issues to move from R&P and into board policy. This would allow the board to cut back or potentially block staff from implementing some proposed changes.

The committee ran out of time and agreed to discuss the grading policy and R&P on Aug. 28. But there were again some sharp discussion between board members and staff about the grading changes.

Future plans for a ninth-grade center to control overcrowding at Panther Creek High School are back on hold again.

The Wake County school board voted last week to direct staff not to spend any additional money on design work to place modular units for Panther Creek's ninth-grade center on the M-16 campus. The vote was made possible because of the absence of two Democratic board members, giving Republicans a temporary majority.

Whether the Democratic majority will let that stand at next week's meeting remains to be seen. At least some GOP board members want to return to the original plan of leasing an office building on Pleasant Grove Church Road in Morrisvillle.

Common core, professional development and expanded learning opportunities could be on the agenda at today's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.

The agenda hadn't been finalized as of Friday, but committee chairwoman Christine Kushner expected the meeting would include a discussion about the new common core curriculum in math and language arts. Kushner said she'd like to discuss how they're providing teachers with professional development on the common core and how they're explaining the new curriculum to parents.

Professional development has changed since the school board scrapped the use of Wake Wednesdays/Wacky Wednesdays in 2010. Instead of dismissing an hour early every Wednesday, schools are now supposed to find the time for professional learning communities to meet in some other way.

As for expanded learning opportunities, it's an outgrowth of an idea from school board vice chairman Keith Sutton to look at the academic benefits of extending the school day or school year. Kushner said she'd like to discuss what after-school learning opportunities are available and what more could be added.

It looks like one consequence of Wake County's controlled-choice student assignment plan is that it's impacting the racial balance at schools

As noted in today's article, an analysis of projected kindergarten enrollment data for this fall indicates kindergarten classes at 23 schools will see their percentages of white students increase by at least 10 percentage points over the 2011-12 school year. Meanwhile, the proportion of black students at schools with predominantly minority kindergarten classes will rise as well, but not as sharply.

"There were no diversity guidelines,” said education consultant Michael Alves. “Pretty much what you are looking at is the result of parental preference.”

UPDATE

For those who are having trouble viewing the Excel files, I'm adding PDF links. Click here for the 2012-13 projected white kindergarten enrollments. Click here for the 2012-13 projected black kindergarten enrollments.

Funding for Wake County magnet schools is a volatile topic.

Supporters of the magnet program say the $12 million spent annually, which doesn't include transportation costs, is only 1 percent of the district's budget. Critics say that money could be used to help the non-magnet schools.

The issue flared up during the school board's magnet review session earlier this month.

Is the Wake County school board taking a budget gamble by hopefully only temporarily using up the fund balance to keep a pay raise for teachers?

David Neter, Wake's chief business officer, said that they're expecting to receive enough additional state money to offset getting $4.9 million less than requested from county commissioners. For fiscal purposes, Neter recommended today temporarily pulling a proposed $5.2 million pay raise for teachers and then retroactively restoring it once the state budget with the additional dollars is adopted.

But during the work session, the staff recommendation was rejected 5-4. Board members said it would send the wrong message, even temporarily, to drop the pay raise.

UPDATE

After the motion to use up the fund balance failed at the regular board meeting, the board went back and approved the staff recommendation to temporarily remove the teacher pay raise. Board members reiterated they plan to restore the raise if, as it appears, they get more state funding than expected.

Is this the right time for Wake County to scrap the new choice plan and move to a base school assignment plan starting in the 2013-14 school year?

As noted in today's article, critics say problems have developed in the choice plan to warrant directing staff today to begin developing the switch back to an address-based plan. But supporters of the choice plan say it hasn't been given enough time to work.

"It's arrogant of them to do this and to disregard the parents who had problems before," said Republican school board member Chris Malone.

How much of the proposed changes in Wake County's grading policy should be decided by the school board as opposed to the staff?

As noted in today's article, questions about what's a board decision and what's a staff call permeated Thursday's discussion at the student achievement committee meeting. It's making it look like that if the grading policy is changed, it will have more of the board's input into how it will be implemented.

Click here for the revised grading policy and revised R&P presented at the meeting. Click here for a handout showing grading practices in other districts.

Is it redundant or unfair to make student achievement as part of the guiding principles of Wake County's magnet school program?

As noted in today's article, a bipartisan group of board members rejected Wednesday including student achievement in the guiding principles. Only school board member Keith Sutton voted for its inclusion while board members John Tedesco and Deborah Prickett were absent.

The proposal on the table was to amend the current first guiding principle to say that magnets "reduce high concentrations of poverty, support diverse populations and increase student achievement."

More to come later, but the Wake County school board voted today against making student achievement one of the principles of the magnet school program.

Democrats Kevin Hill, Jim Martin, Susan Evans and Christine Kushner were joined by Republicans Chris Malone and Debra Goldman in not supporting its inclusion. They argued that student achievement is already part of the system's mission statement and that it's unnecessary to add the wording just for magnets.

Only Democrat Keith Sutton voted for including it in the principles.

The board preliminarily agreed to keep the principles of expanding educational opportunities and maximizing use of school facilities. No decision was made on the principle of keeping schools diverse after Goldman objected to having the vote without all the board members present or getting public feedback first.