Should the Wake County school board move quickly to extend Superintendent Tony Tata's contract?

As noted in today's article, Tata is generally getting good reviews as he hits the one-year anniversary mark of his tenure on Tuesday. But he also faces some challenges, including potentially from members of the new Democratic school board majority.

Republican school board members are talking about wanting the board to take action next month to extend Tata's contract past the June 30, 2014 end date.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is getting a lot of credit for AdvancED upping the accreditation status of the school district's high schools.

As noted in today's article, AdvancED said in its new report that the school system has made "significant" progress to address the issues it had raised in its March report. Throughout the report, AdvancED cites Tata as being a major factor for the change.

"A common theme during interviews was the significance of the Superintendents’ influence on the direction of the system in providing governance and leadership focused on student learning and system effectiveness," according to the report. "Described as a 'calmer' Board, stakeholders attributed this change unequivocally to the Superintendent’s leadership."

Wake County school board member Christine Kushner raised more than $50,000 in her bid to win the District 6 seat.

In her final 2011 report filed Wednesday, Kushner reported raising $51,343.47 and spending $37,123.21. This leaves the Democrat with $14,220.26 that she can use to donate to other groups or to prepare for a future campaign run.

Her main opponent, Republican Donna Williams, raised $48.335.96.

Democratic members of the Wake County school board are distancing themselves from the decision to prosecute the school board protesters.

As noted in today's article, Democratic board members like Susan Evans and Keith Sutton are saying last week's decision to reject mediation shouldn't be interpreted as them wanting the protesters to go to trial. they say the prosecution question is solely up to Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby.

But Willoughby said Thursday his office will move forward with prosecution because the board didn't take the mediation offer that would have avoided the need for trials.

We're seeing more efforts by members of the Democratic majority on the Wake County school board to spin their decision to reject mediation with the protesters who were arrested at school board meetings in 2010.

Democratic board member Susan Evans, who did not return calls on Tuesday, has put up a Facebook comment saying their closed-session decision last week was to leave the matter of prosecution in the hands of District Attorney Colon Willoughby. As noted in this earlier post today, Democratic board vice chairman Keith Sutton conceded that their decision has the practical effect of leaving in place the prior GOP board majority's decision to seek prosecution.

Here's Evans' Facebook comment:

"Clarification: We did NOT vote last week that we wished to take protestors to trial!!! We were informed that the District Attorney could exercise his own judgment with these cases and we place out trust in Mr. Willoughby to do what is fair and most sensible for the taxpayers. Mr. Keung Hui of the N&O could not be present at the discussion, as it was a closed session, so he is speculating on the discussion and trying to incite the public. This is very unfortunate!!!"

Wake County school board vice chairman Keith Sutton is saying the decision to reject mediation with the 30 people who were arrested at school board meetings in 2010 shouldn't be interpreted as the board wanting the protesters to go to trial.

Sutton, a Democrat, said from his perspective the board was telling Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby that it's up to him and not them to decide whether to seek prosecution.

But Sutton concedes that the board's decision last week leaves in place the prior GOP board majority's vote to seek prosecution.

The issue of Michael Alves' unannounced private meeting with the new Democratic members of the Wake County school board won't seem to go away.

The issue was revisited with some heated comments during Tuesday's board meeting. The discussion, more of which is detailed later in the post, shows the continuing wariness between the Republican and Democratic members.

More recently, Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the conservative John Locke Foundation, brought up the issue in a Thursday blog post.

Conflicting views on the feeder patterns could determine just how stable they'll be for families moving forward in Wake County's new student assignment plan.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, Democratic board members were skeptical about being able to guarantee that families could have a feeder pattern locked in for 13 years. Board members said it's more realistic to talk about guaranteeing stability for students once they're in a school,

But Republican board members and staff said that 13 years of feeder stability is possible.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton raised more than $30,000 during his lopsided election win in District 4 last fall.

In Sutton's final campaign report filed Thursday, the Democratic-backed candidate reported raising $33,327 and spending $32,484.31. His Republican challenger, Venita Peyton, hasn't filed her final report yet. But she had reported raising $1,280 as of Sept. 26.

Sutton's report seems to be missing some info. He reports having raised $5,500 from other political committees on his summary page. But the actual page listing this contribution or contributions isn't included.

Is it a higher value for Wake County students to attend their neighborhood school or for students from low-performing nodes to be able to get into a high-performing school?

That issue is at the heart of changes being proposed to bump up the importance of student achievement in the selection process for the new student assignment plan. If implemented, the changes could result in students from low-performing nodes taking away openings at the high-performing schools from the families who live near them.

“We want to make sure that low-performing students and minority students get a good shot at some of these schools,” Democratic board vice chairman Keith Sutton said last week. “We want to make sure the plan is successful. We don’t want to create more high-poverty schools.”