Thursday night's community mass meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church dealt with the new Wake County student assignment plan, getting mediation for the school board protesters and assailing the conditions at Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, most the focus of the meeting led by the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition was on complaints about the assignment plan. The crowd of around 50 people, mainly supporters of the old diversity policy, were urged to contact school leaders to change the plan.

"If you let the plane fly in the air and you don’t make those course corrections that you feel need to be made in order to make it a more successful plan for all students so we have a fair and diverse and well-funded education for all students, then shame on us if we don’t advocate for the changes to make it happen," said Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Can the Leandro case be used to block any attempt to abandon Wake's diversity policy?

As noted in today's article, the state NAACP is citing Leandro and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as possible grounds to stall any changes that would be made by the new school board majority.

"We'll look at the policies that are implemented, then monitor new policies to make sure any changes don't violate the federal or state constitutions," said the Rev. William Barber, head of the state NAACP, in the article.