By a 5-3 vote, the Wake County school board has preliminarily agreed to go with the staff recommendation to open Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh as a traditional calendar.

Keith Sutton, Anne McLaurin, Kevin Hill, Chris Malone and Debra Goldman voted to open Walnut Creek as a traditional-calendar school. John Tedesco, Deborah Prickett and Carolyn Morrison voted to open it as a year-round school, which was the original staff recommendation three years ago.

Supporters of making it traditional cited the childcare costs on the low-income families that will make up the majority of the families at Walnut Creek. Supporters of year-round focused on the additional capacity the calendar would provide.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

By a 6-2 vote, the Wake County school board has voted today to fully cooperate with the AdvancED accreditation review.

The four Democrats were joined by Republicans Debra Goldman and John Tedesco. Before the vote, Tedesco read a statement urging the board to vote unanimously to welcome AdvancED in and show the community is more united than it is divided.

But Chris Malone and Deborah Prickett voted no. They objected to the scope of the review.

UPDATE

Click here to read Tedesco's statement.

For now at least, the Wake County school board still plans to hold two half-day work sessions on Feb. 4 and 9 on board member Kevin Hill's consensus-building approach to student assignment.

On Tuesday, school board chairman Ron Margiotta suggested "holding in abeyance" the work sessions. But the board agreed to go ahead with them after vice chairwoman Debra Goldman and the Democrats objected.

Margiotta suggested postponing the meetings until after a Feb. 15 meeting with Laura Evans, senior director of growth and planning, and the Feb. 25-26 board retreat with new Superintendent Tony Tata.

Wake County school board members will hold a two-day retreat with new Superintendent Tony Tata on Feb. 25-26.

School board chairman Ron Margiotta said Tata had requested the retreat. Margiotta said Tata will provide a trained facilitator.

Margiotta said he doesn't know for sure what will be discussed. But he said he thinks Tata will cover all the concerns the board has, including student assignment.

Is it the Wake County school system or AdvancED that is being unreasonable and uncooperative in the accreditation review?

As noted in today's article, both sides insist they've been cooperative and that the other party has been unreasonable. There has been plenty of finger pointing over the process, which is putting at risk the accreditation of Wake's 24 high schools.

"All said, the history of communication reflects that the school system has been cooperative and that AdvancED has not," writes school board attorneys Ann Majestic and Jonathan Blumberg in Thursday's letter to AdvancED. "Collegiality is a two-way street, and the school system wants to restore constructive dialogue and good faith to this process."

Wake County school board member Deborah Prickett has released a statement about last night's AdvancED vote in which she accuses the accreditation agency of engaging in "unacceptable" and "unscrupulous" behavior.

In the statement today, Prickett blasts AdvancED for not allowing school board members and staff to have legal representation during the interviews. She calls it unfair for AdvancED to have a lawyer participate in the interviews when board members and staff can only have an attorney present as an observer.

"Does the public really expect or desire that our school system play by these atypical//unscrupulous rules?" Prickett writes.

The GOP members of the Wake County school board sure love new Superintendent Anthony Tata's military background.

As noted in today's article, board members who supported Tata repeatedly argued Thursday that his 28 years in the U.S. Army were a good match for the school district's needs. In contrast, Tata's critics on and off the school board said being a retired brigadier general wasn't enough to offset his relatively limited experience in the education system.

"Mr. Tata's experience as a military strategist will complement our focus on academic achievement and encourage the implementation of new initiatives for the betterment of the education of our students," said school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

Wake County school officials have locked down today the dates and locations for the five public hearings on the 2011-12 student reassignment plan.

Hearings will be held Jan. 10 at Cary High, Jan. 11 at Millbrook High in North Raleigh, Jan. 13 at Heritage High in Wake Forest, Jan. 19 at Southeast Raleigh High and Jan. 20 at Garner High. The hearings will begin at 6 p.m.

The question is whether it's worth it for the public to go. For at least some school board members, the answer is no.

The Wake County school board expanded the potential scope of the 2011-12 student reassignment plan but still have a lot more to discuss.

As noted in today's article, the board agreed to add for consideration a number of moves not recommended for staff for next year. These are among a list of deferred moves that were brought up in the spring.

That includes the Middle Creek to Garner High moves advocated by board member John Tedesco. Board members took the approach that they'd rather send notice to parents they're considering the moves so as to get input over the next month.

UPDATE

Wake will send notices to parents if they're in the nodes added for consideration on Tuesday. But if you want to check now, click here to find out your node number to see if you're affected.

Wake County school board member John Tedesco says he hasn't given up his quest to bring home to Garner High the students who live in town near the school.

Earlier this year, Tedesco had unsuccessfully proposed the reassignment to Garner High of students who live in historic downtown Garner but who now go to Middle Creek High near Apex. You're likely to see a renewed push at today's board work session.

"I'm asking for hundreds of kids who live in the poorest part of Garner to come back home to Garner and I know what those nodes look like," Tedesco said at last week's board meeting. "They look like 80-90 percent African American families and you know what they say to me all the time, 'Mr. Tedesco I just want to go to school across the street.'"