You guys may want to say hello to Gerald Grant, who viewed the blog Thursday before speaking at Quail Ridge Books & Music on his new book "Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh."

In front of around 100 people, Grant forcefully articulated his support for Wake's diversity policy. Citing a February article, he took Dana Cope, leader of the Children's PAC, to task for saying, "how dare they use my children for a social experiment that has gone wrong and needs replacing."

"The experiment has not gone wrong as Dana Cope says," Grant said. "It doesn't need to be replaced. It needs to be replicated."

Dana Cope is showing how serious he is about keeping his kids at Lacy Elementary School.

Cope has put his Inside-the-Beltline home for sale so he can look for a new place that's still in Lacy's attendance area. Cope's neighborhood, near Glen Eden Drive, is being reassigned to help reduce crowding at Lacy and reduce the percentage of low-income students at Stough Elementary.

Cope said he realizes he'll probably take a hit because he only purchased the home a year ago. Cope is chairman of the Children's PAC and executive director of the State Employees Association of N.C.

Things are getting pretty nasty now.

More than a few people interested in school issues have been asking for a blog post about Dana Cope's recent legal problems. As reported in today's paper, Cope and a neighbor were cited by Raleigh police for fighting on Sunday.

For those who don't get the North Raleigh News or Midtown Raleigh News, there's a Q&A today with Dana Cope about the new Children's Political Action Committee.

Cope has got some big goals for the PAC. In particular, he thinks the PAC's ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to run third-party advocacy ads in this fall's school board elections could have a major impact.

While it might not be the best analogy, imagine a Swift Boat-like ad campaign being mounted against certain candidates this fall.

What could tear away a lobbyist from the opening festivities for the General Assembly?

The answer it seems is Wake County student reassignment. At least three registered lobbyists, all Lacy Elementary parents, were at Wednesday's work session to see if the moves to Stough Elementary would be dropped.

Dana Cope, executive director of the State Employees Association of N.C., was working the room to promote his new group, the Children's Political Action Committee.

UPDATE

Link for Children's PAC flier now at end of the post. 

The school system could regret making a new enemy in Dana Cope.

Cope, one of the Lacy parents facing reassignment, said a new group called the Children's PAC will be formed to help elect school board candidates "who will listen to the facts" and not make "politically expedient decisions."

As noted in today's article, school board member Beverley Clark is asking the board to revisit the Lacy moves on Wednesday. But Cope said parents have become so disgusted by the reassignment process that they're going ahead with the PAC no matter what the school board does now with Lacy.

UPDATE

Cope says the paperwork for the PAC was filed this afternoon.