Wake is continuing to lower its projected enrollment for the upcoming school year.

Wake's latest projection for the 2009-10 school year calls for 139,726 students, an increase of 2,020 kids from this past school year. This compares to a June projection of 139,951 students and 140,012 students in February.

While the recession bears part of the blame for Wake' relatively small growth rate this year, school officials have said the major reason is the new state law requiring kids to turn 5 by Aug. 31 to enter kindergarten. Growth is projected to go to above 4,000 students in 2010-11.

I've got some sad news to pass along.

Luther Johnson, most recently the former principal of Holly Springs High School, died Friday after a long illness. He was 39.

Johnson was also a past principal of Leesville Road Middle School and an assistant principal at Wakefield High School.

The school board is going to have to do some budget cutting.

County commissioners voted 4-3 this afternoon on a budget that avoids closing two libraries but doesn't give the school system more than what was recommended by County Manager David Cooke. This means the school board will get $3.3 million less than it requested from the county.

Commissioners rejected an effort this afternoon to increase school funding by pulling funds from construction projects. This leaves the school district with $313.5 million.

UPDATE

Click here for today's article by Michael Biesecker.

The current Wake school board may rue the day it agreed to reassign Brier Creek area families from Panther Creek High to Broughton High.

The board's decision to reassign those kids in February helped trigger Deborah Prickett's desire to run for the District 7 school board seat. Her son would move to Broughton in 2010 after having spent his freshman year at Panther Creek.

"I'd been interested in [running for the school board]," Prickett said in an interview. "But what they did with reassigning 26,000 students, I said, 'That's enough.'"

It looks like Concerned and Committed Leesville Parents is turning to the ballot box now that the courts and the school board have had their say on year-round schools.

In a press release sent today, Lisa Boneham, CCLP's founder. says the group is moving forward even though Leesville Road Middle School's conversion is basically a done deal. She said they've joined forces with Wake Schools Community Alliance and are looking forward to this fall's school board elections.

"Leesville Parents see this fall's School Board elections as their chance to put more responsive and family-friendly board members into place, and fortunately the District 7 School Board position is available," Boneham says in the press release. "...WakeSCA and CCLP both believe that the WCPSS has strayed from families, stability, and academic excellence, and they look forward to October's elections as the chance to put the focus back on what should be important."

The school board's discussion of funding Leesville Road Middle School's conversion to year-round saw some sharp words thrown out.

Beverley Clark kicked things off Tuesday by saying they need to base this year's budget on the immediate situation facing Wake. She said the growth now facing Wake doesn't demand converting LRMS, especially when several year-round middle schools are under capacity.

Clark said it especially makes sense to delay conversion because the state Supreme Court hasn't ruled yet on the year-round case. She expects consent forms will have to go out.

It's a bleak time to be a Wake school employee.

As noted in today's article, the letters went out this month to 1,496 people telling them that they won't be Wake employees after their contracts expire June 30. We're talking about a lot of teacher assistants, assistant principals and teachers.

Amid all this, parents will urge the school board today to not convert Leesville Road Middle School to a year-round calendar. In addition to the capacity arguments, they're stressing how leaving the school on a traditional calendar could save money that helps people keep their jobs.

Leesville parents are now accusing the school system of "planning To cheat taxpayers out of $350,000 by operating Leesville Elementary and Leesville Middle on the year-Round school calendar.

That's the headline on the press release sent out this afternoon by Lisa Boneham, founder of Concerned and Committed Leesville Parents. She's blasting the school oard's work session vote on Tuesday not to study converting some year-round schools to a traditional calendar.

"They used the ‘it’s too late because families have already made plans…’ excuse on us with our Elementary School, and this time they know they are completely wrong." Boneham said in the press release.

Lisa Boneham has still got her rose-colored glasses on when it comes to the calendar conversion fight at Leesville.

In a press release sent today, Boneham said "there's still a great deal of optimism" that Leesville Road Elementary will be switched back to a traditional calendar and that the conversion of Leesville Road Middle will be halted.

Bonehan, founder of Concerned and Committed Leesville Parents, is taking heart from the school board's assertions at Friday's work session that they'll revisit the calendar issues at a later date.

The school board blew past the conversion issue for Leesville Road Middle.

Nearly all of the discussion was about the Wood Valley students wanting to stay. After that talk, Beverley Clark questioned why they were converting the school when they're even in a position to have space at Leesville.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said they'd have to drop 200 kids from the plan if they didn't convert Leesville. On that note, the board moved to a discussion of the next school, Ligon Middle.

UPDATE

The board has wrapped it up for the day after finishing up the middle schools. They'll start high schools on Monday afternoon.