The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children and Martin Street Baptist Church are getting distinctly political tonight with a showing of a documentary attacking the Koch brothers.

In a Sunday email message on the CCCAAC listserv, CCCAAC President Calla Wright invites people to attend the screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed" that's being sponsored and shown at Martin Street Baptist.

Liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald has produced a series of short documentaries, now compiled into one long one, attacking the conservative Koch brothers. Greenwald came out with a film last year that tried to link the 2009 election of the Republican majority to the Wake County school board to Charles and David Koch.

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.

The proposed move to "standards-based" grading will be the main topic at today's first meeting of the reconstituted Wake County school board student achievement committee.

Ruth Stedinger, senior director of middle school programs, will give the committee an overview of the grading review and the recommendations that have been made. Recommendations such as reducing the value of homework, counting retests and letting students hand in work late caused the prior board to put the idea on hold.

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children has been advocating Wake to implement the recommendations.

The grading review has gained new attention since the Panther Creek High cheating scandal. Panther Creek has been one of the schools that been pursuing the grading changes on its own, such as not giving zeros and allowing students who've cheated to take alternative exams or assignments.

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children says that all Wake County students deserve the same second chance that's been given to the Panther Creek High School students who were caught cheating.

In this press release today, CCCAAC points to school officials having called the Panther Creek students who were allowed to take an alternative exam instead of getting a zero "good kids." The CCCAAC asks "how many children have received 0’s when caught cheating and failed the class for the year because they were not given a second chance?"  

The CCCAAC alleges racism in Wake not moving ahead with the grading review, writing that "discrimination, SEGREGATION occurs when students do not receive the same opportunities for achieving mastery and equity when being evaluated on graded activities."

"Are these students at Panther Creek more deserving of a second chance because they are from an affluent family and viewed as UPPER Middle Class students who attend one of the top schools in the nation?" the CCCAAC writes. "...All students deserve the same opportunities even if CAUGHT CHEATINIG (sic)!!"

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children is calling a community meeting for Thursday to complain about "the inaction of" the Wake County school board's student achievement committee.

In a Tuesday night press release, CCCAAC calls it an "an inexcusable dereliction of duty" that the student achievement committee hasn't met for a year. The standing committees were suspended by the Republican board majority but have been restored by the new Democratic majority.

The CCCAAC specifically focuses on how the grading policy has been put on hold. The CCCAAC charges that putting the policy on hold "has resulted in our children being retained at alarming rates and failing courses that are needed for graduation.

Will the Wake County school board require changes in the way school resource officers operate in order for them to continue to patrol the district's high schools and middle schools?

The school board will vote today on these contracts with Raleigh and Cary to provide school resource officers for the 2012-13 school year. The vote comes amid lobbying efforts by several advocacy organizations to get the school system to cut back on the role of SROs, from what they're armed with to what interaction they can have with students on discipline issues.

In an email Monday to school board members, Jason Langberg of Advocates for Children Services wrote that approving the contracts "without more careful consideration of the >issue of SROs in WCPSS would be irresponsible, undemocratic, and arguably, a violation of multiple Board policies."

UPDATE/CORRECTION

Click here to view the email sent to board members on Monday. Corrected post to say letter from N.C. Juvenile Defender.

The school board voted 5-4 to table the Cary SRO contract. it went along party lines with the Democrats voting yes and the Republicans voting against tabling.

The board also voted to table the Raleigh SRO contract.

The Coalition of Concerned Concerned Citizens for African American Children is backing creation of a new career and technical education high school for Wake County, but is also saying they "are concerned about how this program is being designed and implemented."

In this press release sent late Monday, the CCCAAC questions whether the former Coca-Coca Bottling factory on Wilmington Street is the right location. The group asks "would the Gov. Morehead site be better, or perhaps a site closer to eastern Wake?"

Using the Gov. Morehead School could prevent it from also housing students from the single-sex leadership academies, a program that CCCAAC has opposed.

How long will it be before the Democratic majority on the Wake County school board revisits and revises the student assignment policy to include wording on diversity?

As noted in this Carolinian article by Cash Michaels, school board vice chairman Keith Sutton told the audience at last week's Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children meeting that the new majority will go back and look at Policy 6200. This comes after the former Republican majority removed wording about socioeconomic diversity from the policy.

"Long-term, there will be an effort by this board to go back and look at Policy 6200…,” Sutton said in the article, adding, “…and see how we can address not just issues of diversity, but looking at how we can balance and strengthen the policy by looking at specific targets with regard to not only the magnet populations, but also racial compositions and student achievement as well, and see how we  can balance that."

It looks like fears that Wake County's two new single-sex leadership academies would become predominantly African American schools have turned out to be unfounded.

Figures released last week by the district show that white students are projected to have a plurality at both leadership academies. Critics of the academies had raised concerns that Wake's schools are modeled on two largely black single-sex schools in Guilford County.

Wake's data shows that the Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy's enrollment is projected to be 42 percent white, 27 percent black, 13 percent Asian and 11 percent Hispanic. The school will also have 43 percent of its students receiving federally subsidized lunches.

Wake County school board vice chairman Keith Sutton will face the heat as a guest at tonight's community engagement meeting sponsored by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Agenda topics will include an update on Walnut Creek Elementary School, bell schedule changes, the impact of round one of the student assignment plan on Southeast Raleigh and the school-to-prison pipeline.

The meeting comes after Sutton has faced criticism from some CCCAAC members about the demographic composition of Walnut Creek's enrollment.