The Wake County school board showed a rare sense of unanimity as they spent the morning reviewing moves associated with Walnut Creek Elementary.

With the exception of the split vote on the calendar, the board unanimously agreed to all the moves filling Walnut Creek Elementary. Supporters of the old diversity policy agreed to reassign hundreds of students who had been going to schools in North Raleigh and Garner for diversity reasons.

“We’ve done some good things with assignment with proximity but we’ve created some challenges as well,” said school board member Keith Sutton.

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.

You've got 29 people lined up to speak at today's Wake County school board meeting.

It looks like people are citing the discussion of the facilities utilization report, which is item 14 on the agenda, to get around the ban about talking about student assignment. Among the people citing this section on the signup sheet are Anne Sherron, Adrienne Lumpkin, Susan Evans, Monserrat Alvarez (of N.C. HEAT) and Jim Martin.

On the list of 15 speakers for off-agenda topic items, you've got more supporters of the diversity policy who likely are using other ways to bring up student assignment. This list includes:

UPDATE

School board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman said the restriction on comment on student assignment was meant for discussion on specific moves in the plan.

Don't look for the Wake County school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force to be focusing on student assignment.

During Thursday's meeting, task force members and people from the audience were able to vote on up to three topics for the group to focus on. You could put all three of your dots on one issue or spread them out.

Among the leaders after the light voting was student assignment.

CORRECTED TO SAY ASSIGNMENT IN FIRST PARAGRAPH

There were no arrests but plenty of harsh words by critics of the Wake County school board majority on Tuesday.

For the first time since June 1, no one was arrested for disrupting a regular board meeting. Instead, most of the speakers during the public comment section lashed into the board majority over the elimination of the diversity policy and other issues.

For instance, Adrienne Lumpkin, past PTSA president of Enloe High School, blasted school board member John Tedesco for citing the 46 percent passing rate for elementary school kids living in the Southeast Raleigh/Enloe zone to blame busing for low student achievement. She said he was using one figure "to drawn an unfounded conclusion."

The antipathy between the Wake County school board majority and their critics was extremely evident on Tuesday.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, speakers lashed into the board majority for abandoning the diversity policy and going to only one public comment period per month. Members of the board majority fired back later on in the discussion before adopting the public comment change.

Here are examples of some of the comments:

Things got heated today when Diana Bader overstayed her time limit to accuse the Wake County school board majority of stalling projects to help conservative businessman Bob Luddy.

Bader questioned why the board had moved so slowly to approve startup design funds for Scotts Ridge Elementary in Apex and E20 and M8, both in North Raleigh. She asked if it was because they're near Luddy's private schools.

As the timer went off indicating her two minutes were up, Bader continued to speak. She noted how Luddy was the top individual donor in last fall's school board campaign. She also mentioned that Margiotta was on the board of trustees of the Thales Academy in Apex that Luddy helped form.

The actual student reassignment changes recommended on Thursday were small in number, but they show the difference in thinking with the new Wake County school board majority.

As noted in today's article, the board's student assignment committee recommended seven changes for this fall’s student assignment plan and left on the table for further review a dozen other changes. All were based on parental requests to have their children attend schools closer to home.

“We’re not talking about socioeconomic status anymore,” said school board member John Tedesco, chairman of the student assignment committee, after the meeting. “Once we pass the resolution, we won’t be talking about it again.”

(For those who are looking for the changes discussed Thursday, click the read more button to find the link later in the post.)

Today marks the last business day in awhile that Wake County will have an assistant superintendent for growth and planning.

The dire budget means there are no plans to fill Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney's position after his retirement becomes effective Monday. Instead, Growth and Planning will be realigned.

Laura Evans, the most senior of the senior directors in Growth and Planning, will largely take over Dulaney's duties without getting the job title.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney is retiring on March 1.

As noted in today's article, Dulaney, 62, told Wake County Supt. Del Burns on Nov. 24 that he's retiring to spend more time with his family. He's arguably had the most thankless job over the past nearly four years, drawing up assignment plans and recommending which schools to convert to a year-round calendar.

"Chuck has done a tremendous job doing what's right for children in Wake County, especially those who are most in need," said Diana Bader, a Cary parent. "It will be very tough to find someone who's as committed to serving all the children in Wake County."