The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is blasting the decision to convert Hilburn Elementary to a K-8 campus and the creation of two single-sex leadership school as "foreshadowing future chaos for Wake County residents."

In a press release today, GSIW says it's "deeply concerned over recent decisions by the Wake County Board of Education to use expensive and poorly analyzed reconfigurations of several school buildings as a means of repairing problems of its own making." It also says the decisions "highlight the Board’s willingness to rush important decisions without obtaining adequate input from the community or studying the facts."

The group blames the Hilburn decision on school board member Deborah Prickett's efforts to convert Leesville Road Middle back to a traditional calendar. GSIW questions the costs of the conversion, placing kindergartners and eighth-graders in the same building and whether enough families will choose the school.

Yevonne Brannon, head of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, is urging her group's members to pack the Oct. 4 Wake County school board meeting "to stop" the new student assignment plan.

In the e-mail sent Friday, Brannon accuses the school board majority of trying to rush through adoption of the new plan on Oct. 4 before the election. Board members have indicated they don't expect a final vote until after the election but Brannon isn't buying that argument.

Brannon says "the public is being lulled into complacency" and that "we must STOP this before it's too late."

UPDATE

I'm being told that Brannon sent the message on her private listserv and not to the GSIW listserv. There's some overlap between the two.

BigggerPicture4Wake announced tonight which Wake County school board candidates it prefers this year.

In the press release, the group says they're supporting Kevin Hill in District 3, Keith Sutton in District 4, Jim Martin in District 5, Christine Kushner in District 6 and Susan Evans in District 8. It's the same list being backed by the Wake County Democratic Party, Wake NCAE and The Independent weekly.

BiggerPicture says it believes those four candidates "will foster an atmosphere of productive debate and sound decisions for Wake County schools." They have questionnaires from several of the candidates on their website.

Did Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata give enough information on the new single-sex leadership academies before asking for the school board to approve them Tuesday?

As noted in today's article, three of the Democratic board members argued they couldn't give their support without having more information on the academies. But Tata argued the board had less information when it had voted to approve the Wake Early College at N.C. State that opened this year.

Throughout Tuesday's meeting, Tata pressed the board to act that day. He said it would show Wake's commitment to start the academies as it continued to build partnerships with other groups.

Candidates won't officially begin filing for Wake County school board until Monday but candidate forums have already been scheduled.

WakeUP Wake County and the League of Women Voters of Wake County has already announced the dates, times and locations for forums that will be held for each of the five school board races.

The District 3 forum will be at 7 p.m. on Sept. 14 at Church of the Nativity, 8849 Ray Road, Raleigh. The District 4 forum will be 7 p.m. on Sept. 15 at Walnut Creek Wetland Center, 950 Peterson St, Raleigh.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is questioning why the Wake County school system isn't trumpeting the fact that it has the third-highest graduation rate among the nation's largest school districts.

In an article Tuesday on the New Raleigh website, GSIW Program Coordinator Patty Williams touts the recent Education Week report as being "good news about our Wake County public schools." But she also says "we’re just wondering why the school district isn’t sharing it."

Information about the recent report doesn't appear to exist on Wake's website. I also don't recall anyone but the public speakers mentioning it at this month's school board meetings.

Supporters of the old diversity policy are giving plenty of cash to Wake County school board candidate Christine Kushner.

Kushner's latest campaign report filed this week shows she's raised $12,061.24 so far in her bid to win the District 6 seat. Many of the donors should be familiar as they've spoken out at school board meetings and other forums against the change in student assignment.

Donors include former school board member Beverley Clark, former school board candidate Lois Nixon, Wake County PTA Council President Diane Dulaney, Amy Womble, Adrienne Lumpkin, Brenda Berg, Swain Wood, Anne Cooper and Colethia Evans.

Cash Michaels is not a happy camper about Wake County's move toward a controlled-choice plan that stresses proximity.

In an analysis piece in the latest issue of The Carolinian, Michaels calls the new plan "the change that no one who embraced the heralded and productive socioeconomic student diversity policy ever wanted to see - Wake County Public Schools, moving as far away as possible from the old mission - making sure that no child was trapped in an unhealthy school."

Also in the piece, Michaels champions the call for Democrats to regain the school board majority, criticizes school board vice chairman John Tedesco for his new job at the N.C. Center for Education Reform and takes Superintendent Tony Tata to task for his letter to the state NAACP.

UPDATE

Click here to view Michaels' response to criticsm of his article.

It was with a smiley face on her ballot that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman finally ended the 2 1/2 hour struggle on Tuesday to name a new vice chairman

A look at the 56 rounds of votes shows that Goldman voted for herself 48 times, in all but one case being the lone vote. She voted seven times for other people, usually Chris Malone or Carolyn Morrison, before finally going for John Tedesco in the 56th round to break the stalemate.

“Our chairman keeps saying somebody holds the key here and it's pretty obvious through the vote," Goldman said before the final ballot. "I’m going to cast my vote different this time because this is number 56, which is the year my parents got married and for me that's a good number because it showed unity and it showed commitment and it showed values. I am going to cast my vote this time and take myself out of that position.”

It appears the die has been cast in favor of Wake County moving to a controlled-choice plan instead of sticking with a base-assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, Wake Superintendent Tony Tata laid out his time line Tuesday for implementing what will be a choice plan. None of the board members griped about it and both Republicans and Democrats said what's going to be implemented is a choice plan.

But you can still probably expect some disagreements about how it would be implemented.