Student assignment and diversity seems to find its way into just about every topic that's discussed by the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, the discussion about which schools should get magnet programs spun into a discussion about diversity as a factor in the student assignment plan. At issue is what to do to reduce racial and minority isolation at schools, which is the main purpose of the new federal grant Wake will seek.

The goal of federal Magnet School Assistance Program grants is to "assist in the desegregation of public schools by supporting the elimination, reduction, and prevention of minority group isolation in elementary and secondary schools with substantial numbers of minority group students.

The Wake County school board appointed one principal and three interims principals on Tuesday.

Robert Lewis was hired to be principal of Fox Road Elementary School in North Raleigh with a salary of $106,992. The former longtime Millbrook Elementary School principal has been principal of Ordway Elementary School in Bainbridge Island, Wash., since 2006.

Until Lewis starts, the board reappointed Teresa Abron to stay on as Fox Road's interim principal through the end of June.

UPDATE

Click here for the bio sheets.

The Wake County school board appointed a principal to North Forest Pines Elementary School tonight and made several interim principal appointments.

Syreeta Smith was promoted from assistant principal to principal of North Forest Pines Elementary in Raleigh. She's been at the school since 2007 and will receive a salary of $80,788.24.

As for interim principals:

Three new principals and two interim principals were announced at tonight's Wake County school board meeting.

Barry Richburg was named principal of Conn Elementary School in Raleigh with a salary of $72,386. He's been an assistant principal at Briarcliff Elementary since last year.

Annice Williams was promoted from assistant principal to principal of Poe Elementary School in Raleigh with a salary of $89,521. She had been principal of Barwell Road Elementary until much of the staff was replaced last year when it became part of the Renaissance School program.

Wake County school leaders announced tonight the appointments and transfers of seven permanent and seven interim principals.

Scott Lyons was named principal of Enloe High in Raleigh with a salary of $99,666. He's been principal of Leesville Road High since 2009. He used to be an assistant principal at Enloe.

Christopher McCabe will be principal of Heritage Middle in Wake Forest with a salary of $93,303. He's been principal of North Forest Pines Drive Elementary since 2007.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS

Some Wake County schools are seeing noticeable changes in their percentages of low-income students because of the student assignment changes adopted by the school board in February.

For instance, Davis Drive Elementary's percentage of students receiving federally subsidized lunches fell from 18.9 percent last year to 6.6 percenet this year. For Reedy Creek Elementary, it rose from 41.4 percent last year to 53.3 percent this year.

This came after the board moved what was projected to be 175 students from Davis Drive to to Reedy Creek, Combs and Smith elementary schools. The moves were supposed to to be proximity related so students would attend a closer school.

Wake County school officials announced today that an additional meeting on the student assignment plan has been scheduled for Monday at Millbrook High School.

No reason was given for the Millbrook meeting. But the revised feeder patterns released on Monday made a pretty substantial change to Millbrook's feeder pattern.

Before Monday, staff had proposed that Douglas, Fox Road, Joyner, Millbrook and North Ridge elementary schools feed into Millbrook High.

But following parental complaints, the base students from Douglas and Joyner were dropped from the recommendation. Staff replaced them by adding Baileywick and Brassfield elementary schools to the feeder pattern.

The Wake County school system will need a new person to help the school board decide on the future of the magnet school program.

David Ansbacher, senior director of magnet school programs, will be leaving to become a principal in Singapore. Since March, he has been a member of the student assignment task force.

Ansbacher's successor will have a myriad of issues to deal with, including recommending which three schools get magnet programs for the 2012-13 school year.

The proposed revision to Wake County's student discipline policies will take up a good chunk of time at today's economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting.

School board member John Tedesco, who chairs the task force, made a last-minute adjustment to the agenda to get the discipline discussion added. He had pushed during Tuesday's board meeting to get the changes pulled from the agenda to have more discussion about them.

Tedesco said he still supports the overhaul. But Tedesco said he agree with those who think that they can make the revisions even better.

The Wake County student reassignment plan has been reduced to 3,935 students, 768 students fewer than when the board started this week.

On Thursday, the board agreed to several changes, including reversing Tuesday's decision to consider adding the Woods of Tiffany subdivision subdivision to the plan. Only one new node was added.

Click here to view the revised list of nodes in the plan. Wake hasn't updated the plan on its website.

UPDATE/CORRECTION

In addition, the start of the magnet application period has been pushed back a week. It will now start Feb. 21 and end March 7.