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.

Wake County school board vice chairman Keith Sutton will face the heat as a guest at tonight's community engagement meeting sponsored by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Agenda topics will include an update on Walnut Creek Elementary School, bell schedule changes, the impact of round one of the student assignment plan on Southeast Raleigh and the school-to-prison pipeline.

The meeting comes after Sutton has faced criticism from some CCCAAC members about the demographic composition of Walnut Creek's enrollment.

It took eight months, but the Wake County school board was finally able to agree on passing a middle school math placement policy.

As noted in today's article, the policy got over the hump when staff proposed a number of changes to both the policy and the placement criteria to win over the support of Democratic board members Christine Kushner and Keith Sutton to form a majority with Republicans on the issue. Click here for the adopted policy and here for the revised placement criteria.

"We raised our concerns and staff came up with some good suggestions to them that it was enough for me to support the policy," Kushner said.

The Wake County school board may make it possible for teachers to recommend that students be placed in a lower math class than recommended by the data.

During today's school board work session, board member Jim Martin said he's still not a fan of the new middle school math placement policy. But Martin said that if they're going to do it they should modify the wording so that a teacher can recommend a lower placement and not just the parent.

The board didn't object to including that wording. This is an example where school board member John Tedesco's absence today could impact the result.

UPDATE

The revised version of the math placement policy was approved 5-3 with board chairman Kevin Hill and board members Susan Evans and Jim Martin voting no.

Is the Wake County school system only postponing the layoffs of hundreds of teachers and other school employees for one more year?

As noted in today's article, Superintendent Tony Tata's proposal to use $29 million out of the $34.6 million in the undesignated fund balance effectively replaces the $28 million in one-time federal dollars that saved more than 500 teaching jobs this school year.

If the school board goes with Tata's recommendation, they'll be able to keep those positions funded for the 2012-13 school year. But it's iffy at best that the money can be found again for the 2013-14 school year.

There's a heated argument about what position the leadership of the African American community should take about Walnut Creek Elementary School in Southeast Raleigh.

A message posted on the Coalition for Concerned Citizens for African American Children's listserv questions why school board vice chairman Keith Sutton and some other black leaders "support the opening of Walnut Creek, a segregated school." The writer also criticizes the recent school board decision to offer signing bonuses and performance pay for the school's staff.

It's unclear who's the author of the message. The person forwarded it to CCCAAC President Calla Wright for her to post on the listserv.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR CCCAAC'S RESPONSE TO DAN COLEMAN

Supporters and critics of Wake County's proposed math placement policy both sought the moral high ground during this week's school board discussion.

Critics of the policy argued that using too low a placement standard would do students a disservice and give them a weak math foundation. Supporters of the policy argued they were trying to promote equitable access to rigorous courses.

School board member Jim Martin got the discussion going Tuesday when he proposed a motion to indefinitely postpone the policy in favor of implementing this charge.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

After much discussion and revision, the Wake County school board is finally set to vote Tuesday on a math placement policy that reflects the new common core standards.

Staff is supposed to present this version of the policy, which has gone through at least six versions over the past year. Compare it to the version (pages 14-15 of this handout) that the board told staff to work from two weeks ago.

One difference in the latest iteration is that staff has apparently gone back to restricting teachers from using their judgment to recommend placing students in a class lower than student data suggests. They can recommend a higher placement.

Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton raised less than $1,700 in her underfunded and unsuccessful campaign bid last year.

Her last campaign report filed Monday makes it hard to tell what she got. But if you combine it with this prior one, it shows Peyton raised $1.645 and spent $1.529.96. Democratic school board member Keith Sutton raised $33,327 and spent $32,484.31 to win the seat he was first appointed to in 2009.

Peyton, who received 19 percent of the vote, was the only one of the five Republican-backed school board candidates who didn't get a donation from Art Pope or Bob Luddy. Both men gave donations to the other four GOP-backed candidates, who also lost last fall.

New Wake County school board member Jim Martin raised more than $37,000 during his successful election bid, despite what it says in his filings.

Martin's year-end campaign report filed Monday shows him with a deficit of $13,443.70. But it looks like the report has a number of errors, including not including the amounts raised and spent in prior reports.

When factoring in the last report filed before the election, it looks like Martin raised $37.076 and spent $30,732.19 in winning the District 5 seat.