We've got new details today about the newly renamed Hilburn Drive Academy.

During today's weekly press briefing, Tata said the school will operate on  a traditional calendar. This came after parents were surveyed on the calendar they wanted for the middle school grades that will be phased in over the next three years.

HIlburn will continue to offer its new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) theme. But it will also become part of Wake's Global Schools Network where the focus is on languages, in this case Spanish.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition may not officially be endorsing any Wake County school board candidates, but it's arguably come out with a last-minute attempt to try to sway voters.

In a press release today, GSIW contends that the school board majority has wasted taxpayers $113.5 million since December 2009. How much of the items on this GSIW list would be considered waste could be debated.

“For almost two years, the Board majority has exhibited a lack of fiscal responsibility to taxpayers with ill-conceived, hastily made decisions,” said GSIW chairwoman Yevonne Brannon in the press release. "“When items are brought up for discussion by Board minority members who have repeatedly asked for supporting data, their reasonable requests are dismissed and multi-million dollar decisions are made without proper research, discussion of options, or the appropriate cost analysis.”

It's the self-described "principled principal" running against three challengers who all think they can do a better job of representing District 3 on the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, school board member Kevin Hill is emphasizing his education background in his re-election bid. With the departure of Carolyn Morrison in December, Hill says he would potentially be the only board member left with experience as a teacher and principal.

"As a Board of Education, it's important to have some perspectives from an educator with both my experience as a teacher and principal," Hill said.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is blasting the decision to convert Hilburn Elementary to a K-8 campus and the creation of two single-sex leadership school as "foreshadowing future chaos for Wake County residents."

In a press release today, GSIW says it's "deeply concerned over recent decisions by the Wake County Board of Education to use expensive and poorly analyzed reconfigurations of several school buildings as a means of repairing problems of its own making." It also says the decisions "highlight the Board’s willingness to rush important decisions without obtaining adequate input from the community or studying the facts."

The group blames the Hilburn decision on school board member Deborah Prickett's efforts to convert Leesville Road Middle back to a traditional calendar. GSIW questions the costs of the conversion, placing kindergartners and eighth-graders in the same building and whether enough families will choose the school.

BigggerPicture4Wake announced tonight which Wake County school board candidates it prefers this year.

In the press release, the group says they're supporting Kevin Hill in District 3, Keith Sutton in District 4, Jim Martin in District 5, Christine Kushner in District 6 and Susan Evans in District 8. It's the same list being backed by the Wake County Democratic Party, Wake NCAE and The Independent weekly.

BiggerPicture says it believes those four candidates "will foster an atmosphere of productive debate and sound decisions for Wake County schools." They have questionnaires from several of the candidates on their website.

Is a K-8 school conversion the answer to Hilburn Drive Elementary's underenrollment and the lack of capacity for northwest Raleigh middle schools?

As noted in today's article by Chelsea Kellner, Wake Count Superintendent Tony Tata will present a plan to the school board on Tuesday to convert Hilburn to a K-8 campus for the 2012-13 school year. It would be the first combined elementary and middle school in Wake since before the 1976 merger.

“This is an idea that would save money and be very value-added to this community,” Tata told Hilburn parents at a meeting at the school on Wednesday.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Could the development of feeder patterns be more of a hold-up on the new Wake County student assignment plan than coming to an agreement on achievement-choice schools?

As noted in today's article, staff's update on the student assignment plan included discussion on achievement schools and a presentation on sample feeder patterns. During the meeting, board members said zilch on the achievement schools but went into detail on the feeder patterns.

"We know this is contentious," Superintendent Tony Tata said to board members in response to the feeder pattern concerns. "This is high stakes. We want your feedback to make this right."

With no firm date set for the next bond issue, Wake County school administrators want to use their savings to get a head start on some construction projects.

As noted in today's article, administrators want to use most of the $91.3 million in savings from the 2006 bond issue to add more high school seats. But the money could also be used to get work done on the long-discussed middle school near Leesville Church and Strickland roads in northwest Raleigh.

Click here for a handout of the presentation that staff gave the school board last week.

There are some interesting facts when you look at which Wake County base schools lost applicants to magnet schools for the 2011-12 school year.

A lot of Walnut Creek Elementary families took the advice of supporters of the old diversity policy who urged them to consider applying out based on the high percentage of F&R students on campus. The data shows that 55 out of 141 magnet applicants from Walnut Creek got accepted.

At nearby Barwell Road Elementary, you apparently had a lot of families who didn't want to hang around and see how it would fare under the new Renaissance Schools Model. You had 80 out of 229 magnet applicants get accepted compared to 35 out of 149 last year.

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta issued a call for help in this fall's elections during last Thursday's Northern Wake Republican Club meeting.

Most of Margiotta's speech focused on the actions initiated by the board since December 2009. But Margiotta closed his speech by pointing to the stakes for this fall's school board elections when he will be running for re-election while also hoping to pick up at least one of the Democratic seats.

"I think it's important that we recognize that the campaign from those that will be out there again will be an attempt to return to the old practices of moving kids around for the sake of socioeconomic diversity," Margiotta said. "And we can not go back to those programs. It's important that we elect candidates that are committed and will stay with their commitments and remain committed and follow through with the programs we've been able to initiate."