The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is arguably taking out of context some of the criticisms leveled against the Wake County school system.

In a press release today, GSIW says that private school supporters are calling the school system "unpopular" and a "failure." It says these remarks "appears part of an orchestrated plan to discredit and undermine the award-winning Wake County Public School System."

“The public schools are the crown jewel of our local economy. We should be advocating for them—not condemning them,” said Yevonne Brannon, GSIW Chairwoman in the press release. “It is an insult to the intelligence of our educators and students when we suggest that one of the top school districts in the nation is a failure. If our schools are so bad, then why have they been held up as a national model of success?”

Whether or not you agree with the review, it looks like the Wake County school board majority's policies will face tough scrutiny from an accreditation organization.

As noted in today's article, AdvancED gets dozens of complaints a year about school districts but only investigates a handful. Mark Elgart, the president and CEO of AdvancED, said they felt the concerns raised in the state NAACP complaint and in informal complaints later filed by other critics of the board majority warranted an in-depth review of Wake.

"It is rare, and it is serious,' Elgart said of the pending Wake review.

Retired Wake County Assistant Superintendent Chuck Dulaney argued Monday night that student assignment can be an effective tool for helping academic achievement.

Dulaney, the first speaker at the Great Schools in Wake Coalition's back-to-schools forum, said that using student assignment to balance schools can provide students the opportunities and support they need to succeed. Along the way, he said the distance that students travel to school is less important than what's at the school they attend

"Student assignment has a lot to do with opportunity," said Dulaney, who oversaw student assignment until he retired March 1. "The mixture of students in schools have a lot to do with the opportunities in those schools."

The conservative Wake Community Network is laying much of the the blame for the $16,197 security bill at the July 20 Wake County school board meeting on Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker.

In a press release Tuesday, Wake Community Network Director Joey Stansbury accuses Meeker and the City Council of not doing enough to help Southeast Raleigh. Stansbury argues Meeker, a vocal critic of the school board majority, is creating "two classes of society" by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the Fayetteville Street 'Livable Streets' initiative.

"For Mayor Meeker, there are two downtowns, one for intellectuals to drink coffee and talk about how they care about poor black schoolchildren and the other one, dominated by streets such as Bragg and Bloodworth, where his rhetoric doesn't match reality," Stansbury says in the press release.

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:

Is the move to only have one public comment section a month at Wake County school board meetings an effort to streamline operations or to silence the public?

As noted in today's article, the board is set to give final approval this afternoon to policy changes that would eliminate one of the two monthly comment sections. One of the two regular board meetings would be redesignated as a work session, which would have no public comment.

The changes were proposed by school board chairman Ron Margiotta, who said it would make the board run more efficiently.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR N.C. SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECT'S REACTION TO CHANGES

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition will be holding back-to-school forums "to give parents the critical information they need to advocate for their students in the coming school year."

In a press release Tuesday, GSIW said the first forum will be held Aug. 16 at 7 p.m. at the YWCA of the Greater Triangle, 554 East Hargett Street, Raleigh. The focus of that forum will be student assignment, educational rights and legal rights.

You can expect more talk about how much security at Wake County school board meetings is costing taxpayers.

The Raleigh Police Department plans to provide the school system with an itemized breakdown of how much it cost for them to respond to the protests at the July 20 school board meeting. It could be a hefty amount considering how many police officers responded last week.

It's strictly for informational purposes as the school system won't be asked to pick up the bill. What the school system is paying for is the estimated $2,197 bill for off-duty Raleigh police officers and private security who worked last week.

Here's a case of looking at the same data and coming up with radically different interpretations.

The conservative Wake Community Network issued a press release last Tuesday  blaming the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition for greatly increasing the Wake County school system's security costs. GSIW fired back on Thursday with a press release blaming the additional costs on the school board majority.

Between December and April, the school system spent $14,719.39 for private security and off-duty police officers to provide security at board meetings.   That doesn't include all the security who were at last week's board meeting.

State legislators will be focusing on the issue of diversity in public schools in light of the controversy taking place in Wake County.

As noted in today's article, the General Assembly approved the creation of a legislative study commission on diversity in public schools. The commission could recommend school districts adopt diversity policies and maybe even suggest changing the way the state funds schools to encourage those kind of busing efforts.

The reason for the state attention, backers acknowledge, is all the talk about the Wake school board scrapping the socioeconomic diversity policy.