The state NAACP and Great Schools in Wake Coalition are teaming up to host a "community mass meeting" on Thursday to discuss Wake County's new student assignment plan.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at Martin Street Baptist Church, 1001 E. Martin St. in Raleigh. It comes after both groups had unsuccessfully urged the school board to delay implementation of the new plan by a year.

The meeting also comes after GSIW released a new fact sheet on feeder patterns on Thursday that levels several complaints about the new plan. Among the complaints is the charge that the plan's use of feeder patterns "are creating segregated schools."

"Middle schools including, Carnage and Durant Road, will likely become more segregated, poorer, and overall proficiency will decline dramatically," says the GSIW fact sheet. "Where there is concentrated poverty, recruiting and retaining teachers is difficult, and schools are costly to run. Racial segregation undermines student achievement and will not allow WCPSS to apply for federal funding for magnet and other programs, as we have in the past."

The Wake County school board announced tonight that two schools are getting new principals and that Enloe High School's principal is moving to Central Office to oversee the magnet school program.

Beth Cochran, Enloe's principal since 2005, will now become the senior director of magnet programs. Enloe, located in East Raleigh, is the school system's flagship magnet school.

Wade Martin was named principal of Middle Creek High in Cary with a salary of $94,700 a year. He's been principal of Martin Middle since 2006.

The Wake County school board named two new principals tonight and transferred another school leader to a job in Central Office.

Dhedra Lassiter was named principal of the new Rolesville Middle opening in  July with a salary of $98,350. She's been principal of Heritage Middle since 2007.

Elizabeth MacWilliams was named principal of Brassfield Road Elementary with a salary of $68,513. She's been an assistant principal at Davis Drive Elementary since 2009.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS

Normally, the Wake County school board approves principal appointments unanimously.

But tonight, the board voted 6-2 on the entire list of administrative appointments presented to them. School board vice chairman John Tedesco and board member Debra Goldman didn't specify which one(s) they opposed.

Here's the list:

SEE END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS

Wake County school leaders have hired a new area superintendent and named the person who will lead a new single-sex school for male students.

On Tuesday, the school board hired Kevin Hobbs to fill the vacant position of Area Superintendent for Central Wake, covering a number of Raleigh schools in and around the Beltline. Hobbs has been the assistant superintendent for leadership and development in the Houston Independent School District since 2010.

Although Hobbs spent much of his career working in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, he was a teacher at Garner High School from 1993 to 1995. His salary will be $120,000 a year.

UPDATED TO INCLUDE HOBBS' SALARY

Details are still being worked out on how to accommodate the families who still want to stay on the year-round calendar now that the Wake County school board has changed schedules for four schools for the 2010-11 school year.

The school board unanimously agreed Tuesday to convert Leesville Road elementary and middle schools and Mills Park Elementary to a traditional calendar and to open Mills Park MIddle on that same calendar.

The plan is to allow families at those four schools to apply to a year-round calendar if they don't want to stay after conversion. But the mechanism for allowing families to apply still is being worked out.

Most speakers actually talked about year-round schools at Tuesday night's hearing at Leesville Road High School on school calendars.

As noted in today's article, the year-round calendars at Leesville Road elementary and middle schools dominated much of the discussion. It's a departure from the first three CEM meetings in which turnout was light and neighborhood schools and the diversity policy were discussed more than the calendar.

Both sides of the Leesville fight turned out in large numbers. They tried to out cheer each other when one of their speakers finished talking.

Three new Wake County principals were appointed at today's school board meeting.

Kerry Chisnall was named principal of Northwoods Elementary in Cary. He replaces Mary Swann, who left to become principal of East Cary Middle.

Chisnall has been an assistant principal at East Cary Middle since 2007. Before coming to Wake in 2001, he was a teacher in New Zealand. He will receive a salary of $73,943.

CORRECTED GENDER REFERENCES FOR CHISNALL 

New Wake County principals were announced tonight at Wakefield High, Farmington Woods Elementary and Durant Road Middle.

Tripp Crayton will go from being principal of Wakefield Middle to principal of Wakefield High in North Raleigh. Before moving to Wakefield Middle in 2007, he had been an assistant principal at Wakefield High.

Crayton will receive a salary of $96,487. (He replaces Mark Savage, who is now principal of the new Heritage High.)

BIO SHEETS NOW AT END OF POST 

Wood Valley residents will be able to apply to Leesville Road Middle School as their year-round calendar option, not Durant Road Middle School.

It's part of a redrawing of the application lines for Durant Road and Heritage middle schools. It will shift the areas around Wood Valley to Leesville while Heritage's draw area shrinks in favor of Durant Road.

Whether or not this makes up for being reassigned out of Leesville remains to be seen. Credit does go to school board member Patti Head for pushing for this change.