Critics of the new Wake County school board majority are in an uproar over Del Burns' resignation as superintendent.

As noted in today's article, Burns' surprise resignation announcement was met with shock by all sides. But for those fighting the new board majority, the shock was mixed with fear about what would happen without Burns at the helm.

"It makes my stomach hurt. It frightens me as a parent," said parent Vickie Adamson, who was ruled out of order by board chair Ron Margiotta for saying Burns left because he was unhappy.

Forest Ridge High is now dead as a Wake County school site.

The school board voted 5-4 tonight to abandon Forest Ridge and direct staff to pursue two alternatives in Rolesville proposed by Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles. The new majority wasn't deterred by warnings from staff it could cost an additional $15.4 million to switch sites.

You could soon see some major shakeups in the membership of the Wake County school board advisory councils.

The policy committee recommended on Wednesday a policy change that says members of the board advisory councils need to be reinstated after new school board members take office. It's a major change from current policy in which BAC members serve until their terms expire, which can run for up to three years.

The change is important considering the differences in opinions between most new school board members and their predecessors.

It looks like you're out of luck if you were hoping that the new Wake County school board majority would quickly blow up the diversity policy.

As noted in today's article, it's still the intention of the new majority to change the student assignment policy to move toward neighborhood schools/community schools. But Debra Goldman, chairwoman of the policy committee, said it's going to be a process that will take several meetings to produce changes in Policy 6200.

"This is the beginning of the discussion,” Goldman said at Wednesday's policy committee meeting. “This is not a discussion that’s going to be wrapped up in one or two meetings.”

Here's a very quick recap of today's Wake County school board policy committee discussion on changing the student assignment policy.

Debra Goldman, chairwoman of the committee, asked the members present to lay out what they considered to be the keys to student assignment. A big gap was apparent between new and old board members.

All the board members agreed that academic success for students is important. But they differed on what role socioeconomic diversity plays in it all.

UPDATED POST WITH MORE DETAILS ABOUT TODAY'S DISCUSSION 

The Wake County school system has locked down Southeast Raleigh High School as the location for the fifth community engagement meeting on school calendars.

The Southeast Raleigh High location had been urged this week by school board member Keith Sutton. He had raised concerns about low-income and minority families being underrepresented in the calendar survey.

The Feb. 11 location at Southeast Raleigh was only confirmed and announced today so there are no speakers signed up yet. A total of 104 speakers have signed up so far for the other four meetings.

There could be a fifth community engagement meeting on possible Wake County school calendar changes.

At the urging of school board member Keith Sutton, the district is looking at holding a meeting on Feb. 11 at Southeast Raleigh High School. School officials are waiting to see if that date works for the school.

Sutton had raised concerns about the low response rates on the surveys from his constituents in schools in Southeast Raleigh.

History will record that it was largely the Wake County school board members who support socioeconomic diversity who passed the resolution that took the first swipe at the diversity policy.

Four board members strongly back the current diversity policy. Yet they provided four of the five votes on the calendar choice resolution on Tuesday that eliminates the use of socioeconomic diversity in filling year-round application seats.

The irony was not lost on school board member John Tedesco, a critic of the diversity policy.

Wake County school board member Debra Goldman split with her colleagues tonight and backed a revised resolution that says it’s the goal, but not the guarantee, that mandatory year-round school assignments will be eliminated.

The board approved by 5-3 a resolution saying that every effort will be made to eliminate mandatory year-round schools. The original resolution, which had been first approved Jan. 5, said that there would be no mandatory year-round assignments beginning in the 2010-11 school year.

Goldman backed the amendment proposed by Keith Sutton, normally part of the board minority.

POSTED WORDING OF ADOPTED RESOLUTION AT END OF POST. ALSO UPDATED WITH BURNS SAYING IT WON'T IMPACT THE PROPOSAL THEY LAID OUT FOR CARRYING OUT THE ORIGINAL RESOLUTION.

It's no accident that Wake County school board member Kevin Hill is only on one board committee.

As noted in today's article, school board chairman Ron Margiotta said he only had Hill on the human resources committee because of his lack of cooperation with the new board majority.

Margiotta said he obtained copies of e-mails Hill had sent to members of the public trying to "stir up the pot" against the majority.