Today's Wake County school board work session agenda looks packed.

Topics include rejoining the National Schools Boards Association's Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE), the superintendent search process, reviewing the student assignment plan and dealing with crowding at Panther Creek High School.

Let's start with CUBE, the group that gave Wake an award in 2009 for the socioeconomic diversity policy. School board chairman Kevin Hill has called accepting that award "one of the proudest moments in my long career with the Wake County Public School System."

UPDATE

The Democratic board members all said at the work session that they support rejoining NSBA and CUBE, pointing to the benefits of joining a national professional organization that represents school districts.

School board attorney Jonathan Blumberg said it would require a formal vote at an action meeting so Hill said it would be added to the Oct. 16 meeting.

Click here for the handouts for today's work session, including for rejoining NSBA and CUBE.

Wake County school board member Kevin Hill and challenger Heather Losurdo got into some spirited discussions during their joint appearance on WRAL's "On the Record" show.

The discussion opened with Losurdo saying her resume is "contextually accurate." She said she was offended that people would say that someone like her with her military background and organizational and communications skills couldn't do the job of overseeing $2 billion in small business loans.

The topic then moved to the recently adopted student assignment plan.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton is dissing the way the superintendent search was handled that resulted in the hiring of Anthony Tata.

Sutton said the board's search committee had given the full board the names of three finalists. (He's not naming the other two people, sticking withe board's policy of keeping names confidential.)

Sutton said Tata and another finalist were far superior than the third person.

Likely new Wake County Superintendent Anthony Tata comes in with a reputation as being a hard worker both in his day job with D.C. Schools and in his night job as a political commentator.

As noted in today's article, former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee praised Tata and said he's ready and qualified to lead the Wake school system. Rhee singled out Tata's work streamlining D.C.'s school nutrition and purchasing programs during his 18 months as chief operating officer.

"He's not a touchy-feely guy who will hold people's hands" Rhee said. "He's very goal oriented. He was a general so he knows about leadership. He knows how to get the job done."

The Wake County school board's superintendent search committee is now in closed session looking at candidates and discussing salary and benefits packages.

The search firm of Heidrick & Struggles has been charged with bringing the top five to 10 applicants to the search committee. The committee will whittle down the list to three to five finalists for the full school board to review.

In addition, committee chairwoman Debra Goldman said they'd discuss today in closed session what the salary and benefits would be for the new superintendent.

UPDATE

School board member Chris Malone, a member of the board’s search committee, said they’ve narrowed down the list of top candidates but haven’t yet gotten down to naming finalists yet.

"It was an embarrassment of riches," Malone said of the top candidates identified by the committee. "We'd be lucky to have any of them."

School board chairman Ron Margiotta, who attended today's meeting, said he’s optimistic that they can hire a new superintendent by January.

Malone and Margiotta said all the applicants now being given strong consideration have both education and management experience but aren’t all superintendents. The board had eliminated the requirement that the superintendent be an educator.

No decision has been made yet on the compensation package.

The process of identifying which candidates will be considered for the position of Wake County schools superintendent will take the next big step today.

During today's superintendent search committee meeting, school board members will meet in closed session to review the names of applicants presented by Heidrick & Struggles. The search firm has been videotaping interviews of some of the top candidates to view.

At the committee's last meeting, committee members were told 26 people were ready to be interviewed.

UPDATED TO MENTION THAT HEIDRICK IS SUPPOSED TO BRING UP TO THE BEST FIVE TO 10 APPLICANTS TO THE COMMITTE

It would seem that the odds are in favor of Wake County's next schools superintendent having education experience.

Groups such as the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, the Coalition of the Concerned Citizens for African America Children and Wake NCAE have complained that the school board majority opened up the search process to non-educators.

But George Conway, team leader from the search firm of Heidrick & Struggles, said after Thursday's superintendent search committee meeting that all 26 people ready to be interviewed and the 12 considering applying have education experience.

There's a chance that former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee might become Wake County's next schools superintendent.

George Conway, the team leader from Heidrick & Struggles, said today they've talked to more than 100 people so far and are reaching out to more people daily. One of the people they've contacted is Rhee.

Conway said Rhee isn't an applicant. But he said she hasn't turned down applying either.

The search for Wake County's next schools superintendent will jump back to the forefront today as school board members potentially begin discussing candidates.

Heidrick & Struggles is expected to present to the school board's superintendent search committee today a list of the candidates it likes the best from those who've applied so far. The committee is setting aside time on the agenda to discuss the names in closed session.

It would be the first time that the search committee will have officially discussed specific candidates. Under the contract with Heidrick, the search firm will pick resumes to view instead of giving them all to the board.

Conservative businessman Bob Luddy is denying he wants to be the next Wake County schools superintendent.

Rumors have been making the rounds among critics of the school board majority that Luddy, one of the men they love to vilify, will be appointed superintendent. But Luddy gave a hearty chuckle to the suggestion that he'd walk away from his company and education ventures to become superintendent.

"No, I'm pretty busy," Luddy told reporter Thomas Goldsmith in an interview this week. "My day job is CaptiveAire and I'm pretty busy."