Things got testy last week as Wake County school board members argued over which schools to approve spending money to design.

As noted in Sunday's North Raleigh News article, the school board voted 6-2  to approve spending $2.4 million to start designing M8 in northwest Raleigh, E20 in northeast Raleigh and Scotts Ridge Elementary in Apex. The vote took place after board members traded barbs over whether those were the right choices.

School board members John Tedesco and Debra Goldman objected to none of the schools on the list being from Southeast Raleigh. They argued that more new schools need to be built there to create the capacity to allow local kids to return under community schools while also preserving spaces for magnet seats.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton isn't getting the apology he wanted from Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan or from the officer who nearly arrested him at the chaotic July 20 board meeting.

Sutton said he was only trying to calm things down when he went into the crowd of people who were being arrested for disrupting the meeting to protest the end of Wake's diversity policy. An officer pulled Sutton's arms behind his back before letting him go after school staff interceded.

Sutton had publicly called for the apology while Dolan had said board members shouldn't place themselves between demonstrators and police. Both men met face-to-face July 30.

It should get easier for non-profit community groups to distribute materials to students in Wake County schools.

The school board signed off Tuesday on new research and procedures (R&P) that say principals must permit distribution of publications about activites from non-profit community organizations with youth participation of over 500. But the R&P still allows principals to place "reasonable limits" on when and how often the material can be distributed.

School board attorney Ann Majestic said that she'll explain the new distribution procedures to principals at a countywide meeting today. R&P is what's developed by staff to carry out board policies.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST, INCLUDING A RESPONSE FROM DEBRA GOLDMAN

The conservative Wake Community Network is laying much of the the blame for the $16,197 security bill at the July 20 Wake County school board meeting on Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker.

In a press release Tuesday, Wake Community Network Director Joey Stansbury accuses Meeker and the City Council of not doing enough to help Southeast Raleigh. Stansbury argues Meeker, a vocal critic of the school board majority, is creating "two classes of society" by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the Fayetteville Street 'Livable Streets' initiative.

"For Mayor Meeker, there are two downtowns, one for intellectuals to drink coffee and talk about how they care about poor black schoolchildren and the other one, dominated by streets such as Bragg and Bloodworth, where his rhetoric doesn't match reality," Stansbury says in the press release.

In an often contentious debate, the Wake County school board voted tonight to reduce public comment to once a month and eliminate standing committees.

The decision to change one regular meeting a month to a work session with no public comment was approved by a 5-4 vote. By the same 5-4 vote, the board rejected an amendment from Keith Sutton which would have set aside 30 to 45 minutes for public comment at the monthly work sessions.

The vote to eliminate the standing committees was 5-3 with Sutton crossing lines.

Some Wake County school administrators are sweating their futures now that school board members have asked interim Superintendent Donna Hargens to review whether jobs can be eliminated.

As noted in today's article, board members asked Hargens to look at more than a dozen senior administrative positions and come up with a recommendation on those positions next week.

Cutting some of those jobs could help offset the cost of restoring some of the parent counseling positions at Project Enlightenment. The board had also asked Hargens to make a recommendation on those jobs next week.

To make it easier for everyone to find, here's the handout from Tuesday's Wake County student assignment committee meeting showing the various sample zones.

The handout lists the maps, the schools that are in each zone and the enrollment projections for each zone. (Click here for color maps.) There are a couple of big caveats, such as how the enrollment numbers don't include magnet students, just where all the raw kids are projected to be.

But this doesn't mean that they're not including magnets for the new zones. School board member John Tedesco again said Tuesday that he expects many of the current magnets to remain so under the new zones.

UPDATE

I've put links at the end of the post for larger color maps of each zone. I've fixed the link for the high school geographic map.

The state NAACP will hold a press conference today in which the 19 people arrested at last week's Wake County school board meeting will speak out about why they used civil disobedience.

In a media advisory sent Monday night, the NAACP said the people who were arrested will "object to the selective detention of Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Nancy Petty," who were arrested for violating a school district trespass notice.

They'll also "protest the rough handling and momentary arrest of school board member Keith Sutton by the police, even though he was attempting to calm the situation." Sutton wasn't among the 19 people arrested but he has demanded an apology for the way he was treated by Raleigh police.

UPDATE

Wake has sent trespassing notices to the people arrested at last week's meeting. They're barred from school board meetings unless they provide written assurance that they're not going to disrupt the proceedings.

Whether or not you agree with Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker's statements that members of the Wake County school board majority "are not from the area," he did put a spotlight on the tensions between newcomers and long-time residents.

As noted in today's article, three of the five majority members have moved to Wake over the past decade. In contrast, three of the four minority members have lived in Raleigh since at least the 1970s.

Minority members are distancing themselves from Meeker's remarks that the majority members "don't share our values." But minority members say that newcomers don't understand why the history of the area makes it important to keep the diversity policy.

In another pair of 5-4 votes, the Wake County school board majority got the firm it wanted tonight for the superintendent search and gave initial approval to dropping requirements that the new schools chief be an educator.

The board hired Heidrick & Struggles to do the search at $82,500 plus expenses. It was the most expensive of the four firms that were interviewed by the board's superintendent search committee.

Hazard Young, Attea & Associates, who had been suggested by the minority members as an alternative to Heidrick & Struggles, offered to do it for $35,000. They also wanted $4,500 for consultant expenses.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR HANDOUTS FROM TUESDAY'S MEETING