It looks like Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill came up with a way tonight to reduce incidents between board members.

Before the start of the student assignment public hearing, school board member Debra Goldman said she wanted to address the crowd now because Hill has told board members not to talk to the crowd during the meeting. Goldman welcomed parents to the meeting in her district and let them know she can relate to them because she too has gone through reassignment in Wake.

This practice of not talking to the public is similar to how assignment hearings have traditionally gone. In Hill's absence Wednesday, board members talked to the crowd after the hearing ended, culminating with the microphone incident between board members Deborah Prickett and Susan Evans.

Wake County school board member Chris Malone issued a statement today announcing he would resign Dec. 31 to take his seat in the state House.

Also in the statement, Malone makes an unspecified apology to those who are disappointed in his personal conduct. That could be in reference to the romantic relationship with board member Debra Goldman that he told Cary police about in 2010 but which she denies.

Here's the statement:

The start of the Keith Sutton era as Wake County school board chairman is expected to begin Tuesday.

The board will hold an organizational meeting on Tuesday to select a chair and vice chair for the next year. Sutton, the board's vice chairman, said that Kevin Hill has told him he won't seek another term as board chairman.

While Sutton won't outright say he's running for chairman, it's pretty clear if you read between the lines.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Wake County school board member Susan Evans has apologized, with a caveat, to having yanked the microphone away from colleague Deborah Prickett on Wednesday.

As noted in today's article, Evans called Prickett to apologize for having grabbed the microphone out of her hands. But Evans, along with fellow board member Jim Martin, contend that Prickett was out of order for having polled the crowd at the student assignment hearing if they're satisfied with the choice plan.

"I certainly want to admit that taking the microphone away from Mrs. Prickett was not an appropriate way to deal with her violation of the rules of order," Evans said.

Bloggers for the conservative John Locke Foundation are criticizing Wake County school board member Susan Evans for yanking the microphone out of board member Deborah Prickett's hands last night.

In a post this morning on the Right Angles blog, Donna Martinez quips that Evans has replaced Debra Goldman as "the board member to watch." Martinez writes that "when Evans didn’t like what fellow board member Deborah Prickett had to say at the  public hearing about student assignment, Evans reacted like a 10-year-old who hadn’t gotten her way on the playground."

"Ah yes, the enlightened Left’s example is fascinating: When you don’t agree with someone, just shut them down," Martinez writes.

In a post this morning for The Locker Room blog, Terry Stoops headlines it "so much for open-mindedness, respect." Stoops contrasts Evans' actions Wednesday with an N&O editorial from September saying that Evans had pledged "to operate in an open-minded, respectful manner."

Should the Wake County school board consider putting time limits on how long individual board members can debate issues at meetings?

The school board's policy on rules of order has a section on board debate, including saying a person who hasn't spoken yet should be allowed to talk before a board member speaks again. It also talks about, to the extent possible, alternating between proponents and opponents of a measure.

During Tuesday's policy committee meeting, board member Susan Evans said she's fine with the present debate rules. But Evans also asked if they wanted to consider putting time limits on how much individual board members can speak when they have the floor.

There seems to be widespread agreement among Wake County school board members that enrollment caps, especially the new partial caps, are a good idea.

But as noted in today's article, board members were hesitant at Tuesday's policy committee meeting to sign off on proposed revisions to the capping policy. The main revision requested by staff was to insert new wording allowing the superintendent to implement partial caps to go along with existing wording permitting the board to set full caps.

“This is one of the items that I think all of us found pleasantly surprising in the proposal that we all sort of agreed to," said board member John Tedesco of the partial caps.

The Wake County school board took a step last week toward completing the last remaining action step required by AdvancED.

AdvancED had in its March 2011 report faulted the school board's then Republican majority for using resolutions to make decisions, bypassing the normal two-vote process for policies and often not providing the resolutions with advance notice.

The board voted last week to give initial approval to this new policy that would set the general scope of what board resolutions should be used for. It would also stipulate providing information on the resolutions ahead of time.

The lack of new schools opening past the 2013-14 school year means that the Wake County school board will have less cover to justify moving large numbers of students in the next few years.

Historically, reassignment plans have been bigger in the years when lots of new schools are being filled. That's allowed school boards, through the process of backfilling schools, to accomplish more just populating new schools.

But with so few new schools coming on line in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years, the Democratic board majority will have to come up with other reasons if more than must minimal plans are adopted.

Is expanding the use of enrollment caps the best way to deal with overcrowding in Wake County schools for the 2013-14 school year?

As noted in today's article, there was a lot of discussion Tuesday about staff's recommendation to put full caps on 12 schools for the rest of the school year and partial caps on 22 schools.

Staff pitched the caps as being an alternative to using reassignment to deal with overcrowding.