Wake County school board member Anne McLaurin wants to see what lessons future boards can learn from this year's redistricting process.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, McLaurin submitted this list of draft recommendations that the school board might use in 2021 the next time districts are revised. While the Republican school board members were more skeptical than the Democrats, they all agreed to have McLaurin continue working on her suggestions.

One recommendation that drew discussion was the one saying that if a law firm is hired for restricting it should be a non-partisan firm.

It was with a smiley face on her ballot that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman finally ended the 2 1/2 hour struggle on Tuesday to name a new vice chairman

A look at the 56 rounds of votes shows that Goldman voted for herself 48 times, in all but one case being the lone vote. She voted seven times for other people, usually Chris Malone or Carolyn Morrison, before finally going for John Tedesco in the 56th round to break the stalemate.

“Our chairman keeps saying somebody holds the key here and it's pretty obvious through the vote," Goldman said before the final ballot. "I’m going to cast my vote different this time because this is number 56, which is the year my parents got married and for me that's a good number because it showed unity and it showed commitment and it showed values. I am going to cast my vote this time and take myself out of that position.”

It may be possible for Wake County schools to get its state waiver without having to add in the 10 extra minutes each day into the 2011-12 school year.

The Wake school board voted tonight to tack 10 minutes to the end of the day for all schools as part of the waiver request to the State Baord of Education. But Chief Academic officer Donna Hargens said that they're hoping the State Board will say the extra time isn't need to get a waiver.

Wake isn't sure how the state Board will handle requests from districts who want waivers from the new requirement that the school year be extended by five days and that 25 more instructional hours be added as well.

Monday's discussion about the blue and green plans offered a lot more detail about how either option could work, particularly when it comes to the issue of using student achievement in Wake County schools.

Let's start with this handout that was presented to school board members. You're going to want to read the rest of the post.

To avoid making an overly long blog post, I'll focus this one on the green plan. I'll do the blue plan discussion in a different post. Just realize there's bound to be overlap between the two posts.

It took a compromise to get to the point where Wake County school board members agreed Tuesday to send a letter to the General Assembly asking for more money.

It all started with Chief Business Officer David Neter giving the board an update on how they still plan to recommend cutting pay for teacher assistants to deal with a loss of state funding. The idea is to not pay teacher assistants for teacher workdays.

Neter told the board that while legislators are touting that the budget doesn't call for cutting any teacher assistant positions, that doesn't factor a $12.5 million discretionary reduction that Wake now faces.

The Wake County school board voted 5-4 tonight to give final approval to policy changes that cut back on the role of PTAs on board advisory councils.

Among the changes, board members no longer have to consult with the PTAs before nominating BAC members for each school. The policy also no longer says that BAC members should be placed on the boards of their local PTA.

Before the vote, some speakers urged the board to consider a compromise.

CORRECTED TO REMOVE REFERENCE THAT DULANEY WAS ON OLD STUDENT ASSIGNMENT COMMITTEE

In an almost surreal moment, Wake County school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman raised concerns tonight about a new policy affecting bus transportation for students receiving administrative transfers.

The board is considering changes affecting administrative transfers, meaning those approved by the superintendent. The policy says admin transfers for board members and the district's top administrators need to be approved by the whole board.

The policy also calls for the elimination of transportation being automatically granted to families receiving administrative transfers. It also says that transportation will be reviewed annually.

It looks like, for now, high schools in Cary and Raleigh will still have police officers assigned to them for the 2011-12 school year

After a lengthy debate, the Wake County school board unanimously agreed tonight to continue their contracts with the Raleigh and Cary police departments for school resource officers for the high schools. As part of the vote, Superintendent Tony Tata was directed to come back in three months with a review of the SRO program.

But before the vote, some board members talked about delaying the vote and what would be necessary should they terminate the deals.

Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant is explaining why they won't endorse Jennifer Mansfield in her bid for the school board or any 'pretend' unaffiliateds.

In the GOP's Elephant Express e-newsletter sent out today, Bryant relates the phone conversation she had with Mansfield earlier this year about the party's endorsement in the District 3 race. Bryant said Mansfield told her she was a registered unaffiliated voter who "leaned more to the Democrat Party" and "really felt more comfortable with many Democrat issues" while also being "a strong advocate for neighborhood schools."

Bryant writes that she told Mansfield they "would be happy to consider her if she would change her voter registration" to Republican. But Bryant writes that Mansfield "immediately responded she would not do that, and I thanked her for calling."

The blue plan appears to be the favorite over the green plan for Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata and several school board members.

During Monday's news briefing on the plan, Tata spent the majority of the time talking about the blue plan. Relatively little mention was made of the green plan.

"The blue plan seems to be a better fit but I don’t want to prejudice anybody," Tata said when asked if he had a favorite. "The public may have a different perspective. "