Some school board candidates definitely want it known that they're getting money from the N.C. Association of Educators.

The NCAE's PAC has given $2,000 apiece to Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon, But the donations weren't listed on the original finance reports filed last week by Rakestraw and Simon.

Both Rakestraw and Simon say they mistakenly left out the the page in their respective reports that would have showed the NCAE donation. It definitely was an accident in Simon's case as she called after Friday's article about campaign donations to question why her NCAE contribution had been omitted.

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children is formally making endorsements in Wake's school board races.

In a press release sent Sunday night, the CCCAAC said it was backing Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon because of their support for the diversity policy. The endorsements aren't a shock considering how the group's leader, Calla Wright, has warned that a victory by critics of the policy will lead to de-facto resegregation.

School board member Lori Millberg makes a direct pitch for for the candidates she's endorsing while taking a shot at others in a letter to the editor in today's newspaper.

In the letter, Millberg claims "much of the data published by some of the candidates" are "misinterpreted and in many cases are completely wrong." She argues that going to a system of neighborhood schools, such as in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, will be more expensive and less cost effective.

Millberg says that "to get the best value for your tax dollar, vote for Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon."

Millberg is echoing a position that's being repeatedly made, especially in the closing days of the campaign, that maintaining the diversity policy is cheaper financially.

School board candidates Rita Rakestraw, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon are getting a last-minute campaign boost from the Wake County Democratic Party.

In this mailer that should reach people's homes today, the Democratic Party is urging people to vote for the candidates it has endorsed in Tuesday's school board and municipal races.

"Will we continue to have diverse and economically balanced schools that have contributed so much to our community's economic and academic success?" says the mailer. "Or will we follow Charlotte and abandon diversity, spending tens of millions more tax dollars a year to prop up failing schools?"

Fifteen former Wake County school board members have signed a joint letter that supports the diversity policy and urges voters to pick school board candidates Lois Nixon, Rita Rakestraw, Karen Simon and Horace Tart.

In the letter, it argues that Wake has no "bad" schools and that the "opposite of diverse schools is unequal schools." It says that '"community schools' means that 'you' can't come into 'my' community.'"

The signers include recent former members such as Rosa Gill and Beverley Clark. But you also've got names such as Tom Oxholm, Carol Parker, Susan Parry, Wray Stephens and Judy Hoffman.

There wasn't much of a District 7 school board candidate debate on Monday's Bill LuMaye show on WPTF.

Only Deborah Prickett attended. LuMaye told listeners that Karen Simon declined to participate.

Click here to listen to Prickett's interview.

Thursday's four-way District 2 forum was a lot more heated. Click here and here to listen.

Some local African-American leaders are planning to publicly state their support for Wake school board candidates who back the diversity policy.

The details are being finalized, but it's looking like a Thursday press conference will be held involving groups such as the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association and the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Most of the school board candidates have filed their final pre-election campaign reports.

It's too early to get a definitive read on the finance situation because reports aren't in yet from most of the opposition candidates or from the Wake Schools Community Alliance or Take Wake Schools Back.

But the filed reports, which must be postmarked by today, show the candidates most supportive of school board policies are getting their money.

UPDATE

Rakestraw and Simon are missing their PAC contribution pages in their latest reports.

The Wake Schools Community Alliance has weighed in with campaign mailers for all for its endorsed school board candidates.

Each mailer mentions that only 54 percent of Wake's low-income students are graduating from high school and that the district didn't make Adequate Yearly progress under No Child Left Behind in 2008-09. (Wake is one of the state's 60 districts that are in school improvement status for not meeting NCLB for at least two years in a row.)

But most of the mailers also mention material specific to that individual district.

We're reaching what could be a case of put up or shut up about year-round schools.

As noted in today's article, voters can choose between a slate of school board candidates who support or oppose the current practice of assigning students to year-round schools. A sweep by critics could lead to more reversed conversions and even a return to having mostly voluntary applications into year-round schools.

But for those who claim that parents and voters accept year-round schools as they are, the election results could prove their case as well.