On the same day that 21 Wake County school board protesters entered guilty pleas, former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is getting honored by the conservative Civitas Institute.

Margiotta is being praised for his "courage" and "boldness" as he gets tonight the inaugural Civitas Audentia Award at the Conservative Leadership Conference. Civitas also praises Margiotta for promoting "reforms."

Here is today's Civitas press release:

March 2 could be a memorable day for former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

In the morning, Margiotta will be in court as a potential witness in the case against the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP, who was arrested on charges of disrupting school board meetings in 2010. In the evening, Margiotta will receive the Civitas Institute's inaugural Courage in Leadership Award.

"We need to respect politicians who do the right thing in the face of criticism and hostility," said Francis DeLuca, president of Civitas, about the conservative group's award to Margiotta.

Cash Michaels is speculating on Debra Goldman becoming the new Wake County school board vice chairwoman and lists three actions that he says the new Democratic majority must do.

In this week's issue of The Carolinian, Michaels writes that the new majority must revise the student assignment plan "to ensure that no more high poverty schools are created, and that low performing students have access to high performing schools." He also says the new majority will "also have to prioritize the removal of several acts by the current GOP board."

"First, they must cancel any contract the board has with the conservative Civitas Institute, the right-wing think tank funded by conservative activist Art Pope that was hired to train new Wake School Board members," Michaels writes. "Their services are clearly not needed now."

Will Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo be able to turn things around today thanks to the help of some outside political advice she picked up after the runoff?

After Losurdo only picked up 40 percent of the vote on Oct. 11, the campaign reached out to Jack Hawke to be a consultant for the runoff. Hawke is a longtime figure in state politics, having been the former chairman of the state Republican Party, a former president of the conservative Civitas Institute and a consultant to presumptive GOP gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory.

"I knew we had to change things," Hawke said. "She was 10 points down (as of Oct. 11). I'm proud of what she's done but we had a lot of ground to make up."

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is officially stepping into the Wake County school board elections with this campaign mailer that was sent this week urging people to vote in the runoff contest.

The mailer says "Do this one thing for all our children...vote in the runoff election for the District 3 school board seat!" In addition to GSIW, the mailer's other sponsors include a pair of liberal groups in Common Cause NC and the N.C. A Philip Randolph Institute, which is an arm of the AFL-CIO.

The mailer doesn't tell you who to vote for because GSIW isn't officially allowed to give endorsements. But a number of GSIW members have individually worked for and donated money to the campaigns for the Democratic school board candidates.

Additionally, the mailer points voters to WakeElections.com. As previously reported by the Civitas Review, the weblog of the conservative Civitas Institute, that website was set up by a number of liberal/left-leaning advocacy groups.

Now who are Ann and John Campbell, the people who've donated some $50,000 to help elect the new Democratic candidates to the Wake County school board?

As noted in today's article by John Frank, the Campbells aren't talking. Neither are their friends or associates.

"Their involvement is more about policy than politics," said Dan Blue III, a close friend of John Campbell who used to work him. He refused to talk more about the Campbells, calling them "private citizens" who don't want the spotlight.

Is Planned Parenthood working behind the scenes to help elect the Democratic candidates for Wake County school board?

That's the implication of this post published last week by the Civitas Review, the weblog of the conservative Civitas Institute. The blog was looking into wakeelections.com, a website listed on mailers sent to voters in District 3 and 8 by Common Cause and an arm of the AFL-CIO.

After not finding any information on the website about who's involved in the group, Civitas clicked on the Take Action button. Civitas says the contacts for an automatic message when you sign up to volunteer include WakeUP Wake County, Blueprint NC and Planned Parenthood Health Systems.

Civitas Action is entering the Wake County school board election fight by sending out mailers asking people to thank candidates Heather Losurdo, Ron Margiotta and Donna Williams.

Civitas Action, affiliated with the conservative Civitas Institute and backed by Art Pope, paid for mailers describing the three candidates as "dedicated to fighting tax increases" and a "bloated bureaucracy." It doesn't mention next week's elections, but the timing of the pieces received in mailboxes over the weekend is unmistakable.

Here's the front of piece sent in District 6. It says Donna Williams is "protecting parents, protecting taxpayers."

UPDATE

Civitas Action reported spending $6,063.99 on the mailers.

Here are two different perspectives on who is being "silent" about backing Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's efforts to recruit more minority teachers.

In a blog post Wednesday for the conservative Civitas Institute, Bob Luebke questions why teachers who've shown up at board meetings to expound on the importance of diversity in student assignment are now "strangely quiet" in backing diversifying the teaching ranks.

But in an article in the latest issue of The Carolinian, Cash Michaels quotes from an e-mail message from school board member Keith Sutton blasting his colleagues for not speaking out in support of Tata's recruiting efforts.

Does the drawn-out vote to elect a new Wake County school board vice chair on Tuesday signal a start to restoring unity among the Republican board members?

That's the hope coming from supporters of the GOP board majority and from at least some of the board members. They're focusing on the hug that outgoing board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman gave to incoming vice chairman John Tedesco after she finally voted for him after 56 rounds of balloting.

"It took a bunch of ballots to accomplish the latter election (of vice chairman), but the pictures on the tv news told the real story as previous chair Debra Goldman and John Tedesco hugged," said Wake County GOP Chairwoman Susan Bryant in Wednesday's issue of the Elephant Express newsletter.  "It’s nice to see the united Republican team in action!  Congratulations to all the Republican School Board members!  Now we need to elect Heather Losurdo this Fall to join this distinguished group!"