Wake County school board members Deborah Prickett and Debra Goldman sounded off today about student assignment and the behavior of the public.

During her board member comments, Prickett said she felt she had to respond to today's "irresponsible" press release from "the small fringe group" Great Schools in Wake Coalition. She argued that GSIW's "Let's Find a Better Way" campaign failed to acknowledge that a catalyst for the new student assignment plan was how parents were fed up with the "archaic node assignment system."

"We’ve gone from a controlling do as I say system to families having a choice," Prickett said.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The return of Wake County school board standing committees begins this week.

School board chairman Kevin Hill has assigned the other eight board members to be a chair or vice chair of one committee and to serve on another committee. This comes after former school board chairman Ron Margiotta drew complaints when he assigned majority members to as many as five committees while putting Hill on only one committee.

All the committees have two Democrats and two Republicans. But Hill is an ex-officio member of all the committees so he could attend to break a tie.

Here's the dolphin email exchange between Wake County school board member Susan Evans and the leadership of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition that was referenced in a recent Triangle Politics column.

For the backstory, Allison Backhouse forwarded to board members and staff a March 7 email that was sent to Evans, fellow school board member Christine Kushner and several GSIW leaders. One sentence included how an 8-year-old wrote that "a dolphin breaths through an a--hole on the top of its head."

Evans replied back via her personal email account that "I think TT may be a dolphin :)," referring to Superintendent Tony Tata.

Email records show a high degree of behind-the-scenes tension during the first two months of the new Wake County school board.

Board members were complaining about each other and staff in the email exchanges. The emails, part of a public records request, covered messages sent by board members to each other and to Superintendent Tony Tata between Dec. 6-Jan. 25.

I'm off the rest of the week and won't be updating the blog or responding to questions. But I'm sure you guys will be kept busy by reading and commenting on the emails.

It's not official, but it's looking pretty clear that the Wake County school system will not get an $8.8 million increase from county commissioners this year.

As noted in today's article, members of the Republican majority on the board of commissioners are talking about how hard it would be to give the $8.8 million when the total increase in county revenue is less than that amount.

"Realistically, it going to be awfully tough to come up with the money," said Phil Mathews, vice chairman of the board of commissioners. "I’m really hoping they can tighten things up so it doesn’t come to it."

Tonight's Wake County school board member comments had everything from prayer to complaints about the new student assignment plan to questioning the demographics of the groups at Pieces of Gold.

School board member Jim Martin said that the student groups performing at Pieces of Gold were more segregated than he had ever seen. He also said the performance showed the disparity in resources for arts programs at schools.

Later, school board member Susan Evans said she had to voice the concerns she was hearing from her constituents about the first round of the school selection process.

Should the Wake County school board open meetings with a prayer?

Email records indicate that the Republican board members are more receptive to the idea of having prayer to open meetings. Democratic board member Jim Martin, who was sworn in on the U.S. Constitution instead of a Bible, cautioned against the idea.

The conversations started when school board member Debra Goldman emailed the board and board attorney Ann Majestic on Jan. 19 asking what Wake's policies were in relation to prayer at meetings.

Could the Wake County school board make one more change to the student assignment plan for this fall?

The only change the board made last week was to accept the staff recommendation to increase the percentage of magnet seats at Poe Elementary School. But school board member Jim Martin unsuccessfully tried to call for a vote on having staff keep magnet schools within their projected percentage of magnet seats.

Wake has divided the magnet schools into three groups.

Supporters and critics of Wake County's proposed math placement policy both sought the moral high ground during this week's school board discussion.

Critics of the policy argued that using too low a placement standard would do students a disservice and give them a weak math foundation. Supporters of the policy argued they were trying to promote equitable access to rigorous courses.

School board member Jim Martin got the discussion going Tuesday when he proposed a motion to indefinitely postpone the policy in favor of implementing this charge.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Should the Wake County school board go back to meeting at 3 p.m. for action meetings?

The school board will vote Tuesday on first reading of a policy revision to restore the use of two action meetings a month, which would both offer public comment. The prior board majority cut it to one action meeting a month with the second meeting becoming a work session with no public comment section.

The board is also going back, at least for tomorrow, to its old regular/action meeting time of 3 p.m.