What would Wake County's magnet schools look like if they lost those programs and were only populated by the students who live near them?

That's a question that school administrators tried to answer last week for school board members reviewing the magnet program. This chart indicates that many magnet schools, particularly those inside the Raleigh Beltline, would have higher percentages of minority and free-and-reduced lunch (FRL) students if only populated by proximity students.

You can see a big demographic difference from the magnet population going to the schools and the base population being assigned out.

It took 18 months, but the Wake County school board has finally adopted a strategic plan that's supposed to guide the operations of the school district.

The document, which was proposed by Superintendent Tony Tata and required by AdvancED, went through multiple revisions to get as much support as possible from the school board. The final version, which includes various targets, won bipartisan support on Tuesday.

But questions about the level of autonomy that Central Office should give to schools and the role of performance pay/merit pay for teachers kept the vote from being unanimous.

UNC officials appear headed toward creating an outside panel to look into the academic fraud case that has now drawn significant national attention.

Former Gov. Jim Martin has apparently been asked to serve on the panel. When asked this morning, he didn't deny it. His response: "You are on your toes."

He said he expected an announcement about the panel later today.

The academic fraud involves at least 54 classes in which there was little or no instruction, and dozens of independent studies that showed little accountability. All were courses within the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, but university officials say the only two culpable people in the case are the former chairman, Julius Nyang'oro, who was forced to retire in July, and a former department manager, Deborah Crowder, who had retired in 2009.

The university's internal probe covered the period of 2007 to 2011, but new evidence suggests the fraud may have gone back to the late 1990s. A 2001 test transcript we found on UNC-CH's website and published in Saturday's paper -- because it shared many similarities with the no-show classes and independent studies -- appears to be that of former UNC football and basketball player Julius Peppers.

Rival N.C. State University fans dissected the web address for that test transcript to find a link to what appears to be the real one. UNC-CH officials have only said the transcript appears to be real, but they can't discuss it because of a federal privacy law for education records.

A former chemistry professor at Davidson College, Martin was governor for two terms from 1985 to 1993. He also served a term on the UNC Board of Governors.

The university has been under pressure from faculty and others to set up an outside independent investigation of the scandal. It is unclear exactly what duties this planned panel will have.

UNC-CH officials could not be reached.

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.

We're potentially three weeks away from a preliminary vote on the renovation projects that would be funded in the next Wake County school bond referendum.

The Wake County school board got an overview from staff today of the initial list of proposed whole campus renovations, partial campus renovations, life cycle projects and support and athletic facilities. No decisions were made today.

Staff will bring the list back at next Tuesday's board meeting for further discussion. Don Haydon, chief facilities and operations officer, said he'd like the board to at least give a thumbs up vote on Sept. 4 to see if they're going in the right direction on the list.

What's the proper balance between having Wake County school board meetings run efficiently and allowing individual members to get their concerns aired in public?

The school board's policy committee is forwarding along proposed changes to how meetings are run, including how information items can be requested and the minimum notice for bringing information to board members.

But school board member Debra Goldman is concerned that the changes could make it harder for board members to get information items added. She's also concerned that the changes in policy also don't provide a way for minority members to get action items added.

Questions about student assignment and choice came up repeatedly during Tuesday's Wake County school board facilities committee discussion on the next school construction bond issue.

As noted in today's article, board members Jim Martin and Susan Evans were concerned by what they perceived as staff placing too much of a priority on parental choice in the proposed list of projects. Especially, they said, because providing choice requires a bigger bond and spending more money.

“We need to have an adult conversation about whether the community is willing to pay to provide choice,” Martin said.

Wake County school board agendas, transparency, board advisory councils and the grading policy are all among the agenda topics at today's policy committee meeting.

The committee will discuss this change to policy 1322 that would regulate how board members can add items such as resolutions and information items to regular meeting agendas. They'll also discuss this change to policy to 1321 saying that adequate data needs to be presented before any board action is requested.

The changes are the outgrowth of concerns from AdvancED about how the prior board majority was making decisions without data or public notice. The old board had approved the changes in November but second reading was never done by the new board.

Future plans for a ninth-grade center to control overcrowding at Panther Creek High School are back on hold again.

The Wake County school board voted last week to direct staff not to spend any additional money on design work to place modular units for Panther Creek's ninth-grade center on the M-16 campus. The vote was made possible because of the absence of two Democratic board members, giving Republicans a temporary majority.

Whether the Democratic majority will let that stand at next week's meeting remains to be seen. At least some GOP board members want to return to the original plan of leasing an office building on Pleasant Grove Church Road in Morrisvillle.

It looks like one consequence of Wake County's controlled-choice student assignment plan is that it's impacting the racial balance at schools

As noted in today's article, an analysis of projected kindergarten enrollment data for this fall indicates kindergarten classes at 23 schools will see their percentages of white students increase by at least 10 percentage points over the 2011-12 school year. Meanwhile, the proportion of black students at schools with predominantly minority kindergarten classes will rise as well, but not as sharply.

"There were no diversity guidelines,” said education consultant Michael Alves. “Pretty much what you are looking at is the result of parental preference.”

UPDATE

For those who are having trouble viewing the Excel files, I'm adding PDF links. Click here for the 2012-13 projected white kindergarten enrollments. Click here for the 2012-13 projected black kindergarten enrollments.