Does the Wake County school system need a separate school board policy on transparency?

School board member Debra Goldman has been pressing for what she says is a greater need to make the district's website more transparent. School staff has turned her memo into a proposed new school board policy.

The policy has been sent to the school board's policy committee for review. But in the process there was debate both about the need for the policy and changes in the way that committee agendas are now set.

What responsibility does the Wake County school system have in providing transportation to preassigned rising sixth- and ninth-graders who don't have bus service this fall?

As noted in today's article, the school board voted to direct staff to, when possible, modify existing bus routes to accommodate students or to offer them a spot at a school on their proximity list that would give them transportation.

But that motion stops short of guaranteeing bus service to their feeder school. And that motion only extends to students who are receiving bus service this year and would lose it this fall, not transfer students who now don't get bus service.

During today's news conference, Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata announced a new online survey on the magnet school program and pointed to an uptick in home sales to dispute allegations that the student assignment plan is driving people away.

Starting with magnet schools, click here to take a survey that will run through June 1. Wake will use the feedback from the survey as part of the review of the magnet school program.

Tata said part of the review is looking at whether the objectives of the magnet school program should be revised, including making student achievement one of the components. He said the achievement gaps in magnet schools are "pretty stark."

Should the Wake County school system guarantee bus service to all students who choose to stay on their current feeder pattern?

It's an issue in the new student assignment that the school board has been wrestling with for the past several months. The discussion got personal at times last week with board member Jim Martin, the most outspoken proponent of providing the bus service, taking shots from board members Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett.

For now, staff is continuing to review what bus service can be provided.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The Wake County school board came very close on Tuesday to not having adopted a budget request for the 2012-13 school year.

As noted in today's article, the 6-3 vote in favor the budget proposal was very much in doubt until the roll call vote. Every vote was needed because it took a two-thirds majority to waive a policy that limits Wake from using more than half its fund balance to balance the budget.

Signs of the budget being in trouble came early in the discussion when Democratic board members Kevin Hill and Jim Martin said they couldn't vote yes. They didn't feel that the requested $8.8 million increase from the Wake County Commissioners was enough in light of cuts in recent years.

How much revision is in store for year two of the new Wake County student assignment plan?

As noted in today's article, new Democratic school board members Susan Evans and Christine Kushner acknowledge it's too difficult to make changes at this late date for the 2012-13 school year. But they are talking about looking at substantive changes for the 2013-14 school year.

Kushner talked about the possibility of merging the choice plan with the base assignment component of the old plan.

The Wake County school board will take official action on Tuesday to request that the organizational meetings, during which the chair and vice chair are elected, be moved to December.

During the Jan. 10 board work session, the school board had agreed to ask the Wake delegation of the General Assembly to pass local legislation allowing the meeting to be moved from its usual June date. After further legal review, the school board learned it must have that vote during a regular meeting.

The longstanding practice of having the board elect a chair and vice chair in June to a one-year term has been upended twice in the past three years.

UPDATE

The school board unanimously approved sending a letter to the Wake delegation asking that the law be changed so that they can do organizational meetings within 60 days of the swearing in of new members.

How long will it be before the Democratic majority on the Wake County school board revisits and revises the student assignment policy to include wording on diversity?

As noted in this Carolinian article by Cash Michaels, school board vice chairman Keith Sutton told the audience at last week's Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children meeting that the new majority will go back and look at Policy 6200. This comes after the former Republican majority removed wording about socioeconomic diversity from the policy.

"Long-term, there will be an effort by this board to go back and look at Policy 6200…,” Sutton said in the article, adding, “…and see how we can address not just issues of diversity, but looking at how we can balance and strengthen the policy by looking at specific targets with regard to not only the magnet populations, but also racial compositions and student achievement as well, and see how we  can balance that."

More details to come, but the three new Democratic Wake County school board members are making a bid today to derail the two new single-sex leadership academies.

During the presentation at today's work session (click here for the handout), school board member Susan Evans said it wasn't fiscally responsible to start the academies now.

"Maybe it’s late in the game to have this discussion, but we haven’t had the chance to discuss it until now," Evans said.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The return of Wake County school board standing committees begins this week.

School board chairman Kevin Hill has assigned the other eight board members to be a chair or vice chair of one committee and to serve on another committee. This comes after former school board chairman Ron Margiotta drew complaints when he assigned majority members to as many as five committees while putting Hill on only one committee.

All the committees have two Democrats and two Republicans. But Hill is an ex-officio member of all the committees so he could attend to break a tie.