Wake County school board members will spend their one-year anniversary since taking office by meeting behind closed doors today to interview candidates for the superintendent's position.

Whether board members anticipated a year ago that they'd be spending today trying to fill the superintendent's position depends on how long you thought Del Burns would stay on. Now board members hope to hire a permanent successor to Burns by January.

Today's meeting is scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They're meeting at the Hilton North Raleigh to better keep the process secret as they're not releasing names of candidates.

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta took another jab today at vice chairwoman Debra Goldman and also ripped into Commissioner Stan Norwalk for talking about teacher layoffs and opposing more charter schools.

In an interview today on WPTF's "Bill LuMaye Show," Margiotta accused Goldman of "walking away from her commitments" with her votes killing the zone plan and adopting Kevin Hill's student assignment proposal.

But the majority of that initial interview was on the looming budget crisis and the inevitability of layoffs next year. Margiotta again accused Norwalk, who was also interviewed today by LuMaye, of using "scare tactics" by saying that 2,000 teachers face being laid off.

Should the Wake County school board try to lure Del Burns back to be superintendent?

In an article today in The American Independent, Ned Barnett lists reasons why Burns would be a good choice to return to the position he resigned from earlier this year. For instance, the article says having Burns back could help secure more money from Democratic county commissioners and defuse the complaints filed by the state NAACP.

The article qualifies all this by saying that Burns indicated last week he won’t reapply for his old job.

The Wake County school board's superintendent search committee is now in closed session looking at candidates and discussing salary and benefits packages.

The search firm of Heidrick & Struggles has been charged with bringing the top five to 10 applicants to the search committee. The committee will whittle down the list to three to five finalists for the full school board to review.

In addition, committee chairwoman Debra Goldman said they'd discuss today in closed session what the salary and benefits would be for the new superintendent.

UPDATE

School board member Chris Malone, a member of the board’s search committee, said they’ve narrowed down the list of top candidates but haven’t yet gotten down to naming finalists yet.

"It was an embarrassment of riches," Malone said of the top candidates identified by the committee. "We'd be lucky to have any of them."

School board chairman Ron Margiotta, who attended today's meeting, said he’s optimistic that they can hire a new superintendent by January.

Malone and Margiotta said all the applicants now being given strong consideration have both education and management experience but aren’t all superintendents. The board had eliminated the requirement that the superintendent be an educator.

No decision has been made yet on the compensation package.

Wake County Commissioner candidate Jack Nichols is making a direct effort to link incumbent Paul Coble to the student assignment controversy on the school board.

In this new campaign mailer, Nichols calls Coble, the GOP candidate, "Commissioner NO!" One example he cites is on education.

Nichols, the Democrat, says Coble "supports School Board's rash approach to student assignment and opposes impact fees on new growth to pay for school construction so property taxes can be kept in existing classrooms."

Former Superintendent Del Burns will speak out publicly Wednesday on why he's backing Jack Nichols for a seat on the Wake County board of commissioners.

In a press advisory today, Nichols' campaign announced that Burns and other  members of "Educators for Nichols" will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street in Raleigh.

The symbolism of holding the event at Murphey, the first integrated school in the Raleigh school system, is hard to ignore considering Nichols' criticism of the school board for eliminating the diversity policy.

Former Wake County Superintendent Del Burns is stepping back into the public eye to issue candidate endorsements and to speak out on the state of the school system.

In a press release today, Jack Nichols, a Democratic candidate for Wake County commissioner, announced he's been endorsed by three former Wake superintendents, including Burns. Nichols has been a harsh critic of the Republican majority on the school board and is running against Republican incumbent Paul Coble

"Jack Nichols is a consensus builder, and understands that when it comes to our children and our tax dollars, we must make decisions based on data and research, not ideologically driven agendas,” Burns said in the press release.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

With all that's going on in Wake County, it's no surprise that the latest test results have become caught up in the school diversity controversy.

As noted in today's article, critics of the board majority say this year's results show the socioeconomic diversity policy shouldn't have been scrapped. But critics of the diversity policy think it's a stretch to attribute the gains to the policy.

"While the new board majority speaks about the achievement gap, the problem was being addressed many years ago," said Calla Wright, president of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

The hunt for Wake County's next superintendent could be a really secret search.

As noted in today's article, the school board's superintendent search committee agreed Thursday that no names would be publicly released before finalists are identified. But Debra Goldman, the chairwoman of the committee, said there are reasons why they might not want to release the name of anyone other that the person who is hired.

Goldman said a strong candidate might not want to be considered as a finalist if the person knew that his/her identity will be released to the public with the chance of not being hired.

The end of Wake County Superintendent's Del Burns tenure was quiet.

As noted in today's article, Burns left without any official recognition from the school board. It was only a group of former school board members who honored Burns for his more than 30 years of service with a dinner at Angus Barn on June 8.

In contrast, Bill McNeal was praised and feted on his way out by the old board in 2006.