it's safe to say that the ongoing struggle over who will control school construction in Wake County had a noticeable impact on Thursday's joint meeting of the school board and county commissioners.

As noted in today's article, several heated exchanges between school board members and commissioners took place as they discussed this $939.9 million school construction program. Officials readily acknowledged that the Senate's passage of Senate Bill 236 on Wednesday helped raise the emotions.

"You’ve got some lingering tension over the victory we had in the Senate yesterday,” said Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, in an interview. “We’ve got to come together to get a bond passed.”

Here's a quick update on the status of the search for Wake County's next schools superintendent.

School board chairman Keith Sutton said today that interviews with the four semi-finalists went well this week. He said the board will narrow the list to a set of finalists who will be announced at Tuesday's board meeting.

Details of when the finalists would return to Wake County to meet the pubic will be announced next week. The board is expected to make a final vote by the first week of June, perhaps at the June 4 meeting.

More to come later, but there was an abrupt end to today's joint Wake County school board and board of commissioners meeting on the bond issue.

School board chairman Keith Sutton adjourned the meeting early to cut off the heated exchange between Commissioner Paul Coble and school board member Jim Martin. Coble accused the school board of not showing how it was going to stretch dollars to save money while Martin accused him of not making honest statements to the public.

In one particularly heated moment, Martin asked Coble to say how he'd save money. Martin asked if Coble wanted mandatory year-round, saying he'd offer to share with him all the letters from parents who hate the idea.

Taxpayers could be billed for as much as $60,000 to pay for the Wake County school system's efforts to influence lawmakers during the legislative session.

This contract shows that Capitol Advantage Associates, led by Theresa Kostrzewa, will be paid up to $35,000 to be the school board's lobbyist in the General Assembly. This contract shows that Crowder Consulting will be paid up to $25,000 to be the board's legislative liaison.

School board chairman Keith Sutton said Tuesday they had signed a contract with Crowder Consulting because they expected a flurry of legislative bills involving schools and didn't want to go the route of expending the funds to bring back the old staff position of legislative liaison.

Is the Wake County school system's new Office of Equity and Diversity needed to address equity issues in the district?

During the budget discussion Tuesday, school board member Tom Benton argued that the new office is needed to bring focus on the "many, many equity issues" in the district. But school board member Deborah Prickett questioned the need for the office, saying it was a "last-minute sort of addition."

The board spent a lot of time at the April 23 budget work session talking about creating the Office of Equity and Diversity. The board directed staff to figure out a way to add it to the budget.

The Wake County school board has picked four semi-finalists tonight for the position of superintendent.

The names are being kept secret. But school board chairman Keith Sutton said they’re all veteran educators who are currently serving in leadership positions in their respective school districts, ranging in size from 30,000 students to close to Wake’s size of 150,000 students.

“They’re all highly qualified, very capable of running the district,” Sutton said. “They stood out above the rest.”

The Wake County school board is now meeting in closed session to determine who will make the list of semi-finalists for the superintendent's position.

A total of 25 people applied but two later withdrew. The board will review the list of seven applicants recommended by the search firm of McPherson & Jacobson and the 16 other candidates.

School board chairman Keith Sutton said his goal is to end the meeting with a maximum of six semi-finalists.

The revised student assignment policy drew some widely differing reaction Tuesday between the Wake County school board majority and minority board member Deborah Prickett.

As noted in today's article, policy supporters praised the revised policy with its balancing of student achievement, stability, proximity and operational efficiency as something "that anybody in this country would be proud of."

But Prickett charged it was a policy aimed at low-income and low-performing students that would move them out of their neighborhoods and wouldn't really help them succeed academically.

Wake County school board chairman Keith Sutton has finished revising the rosters for the school board committees.

New board member Tom Benton is vice chairman of the policy committee and a member of the student achievement committee. New board member Bill Fletcher is a member of the student achievement and finance committees.

Board member Kevin Hill has also been added to the finance committee.

Sutton is an ex officio member of every committee. The other eight board members all have two committee assignments.

Wake County school board member John Tedesco is warning he might not support the fall school bond issue.

Tedesco gave the warning during Tuesday's school board work session as he complained about this $925 million proposed list of projects. He's upset that the list doesn't include funding for renovations at two Garner schools and only a small amount to start work on Garner High School.

"Excuse me if this is not a priority list of bonds from somebody who's been a vocal advocate for our bond thus far, saying we need it, telling others that we need it extensively," Tedesco said. "This is not one that I could support."