From correspondent Brooks Dareff

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education will discuss a proposed charter school that targets the school district’s achievement gap during its meeting tonight. (See agenda here.)

The Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School advanced to the next stage of the state application process Wednesday as an N.C. Department of Public Instruction committee sent it forward for an interview in January, said Joel Medley, director of the department’s charter schools office. The state board of education will decide on applications in March.

The school would be named for the former Chapel Hill mayor – the South’s first post-Reconstruction black mayor in a predominantly white town – and his wife, herself a former local educator. Lee applicants plan to open what would by its fourth year be a 723-student, kindergarten-through-eighth grade school at an as yet undecided location in August 2012, according to the application.

City Schools Superintendent Thomas Forcella has disputed the applicants’ contention that the school is needed to help close the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. Forcella also has noted plans for an 11th district elementary school to open in August 2013 in countering applicants’ citing of schools overcrowding. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP has gone on record opposing the charter school, in part because it would divert public money from the school district.

A set of staff recommendations on easing overcrowding in three of the district’s elementary schools for the 2012-13 school year is also among the items on the school board’s agenda. Among the recommendations is spot redistricting one Glenwood Elementary neighborhood to Rashkis, where it would then stay beyond 2012-13.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Chapel Hill Town Hall, located at 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Here's a look at today's local headlines:

YMCA MERGER? Talk of a potential merger between the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA and the Y of the Triangle has some concerned because local Y policies offer LGBT members and workers the same benefits as everyone else. Lana Douglas has our update.   

BOHEMIA ON THE BOULEVARD: A Durham developer has renovated Straw Valley off Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard (do people in Chapel Hill just call it Chapel Hill Boulevard?). What's Straw Valley? Read Monica Chen's story.

NAACP OPPOSES CHARTER SCHOOL: This proposed Howard and Lillian Lee school is an interesting story, isn't it? Now the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP is weighing in, saying the charter school would hurt the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and might not even help those who need help the most. What do you think?  

The CHN goes to print Monday nights, so read today's News & Observer for the latest on the Laurence Lovette trial.  Elsewhere in the CHN, see 3 cool taekwondo pictures, find out why Chancellor Thorp went to the White House and what "dirty business" professor emeritus Robert Cox wants UNC out of, and read what two letters writers have to say about the resurrection of Joe Rowand.

And remember, please send your short essays, poems and photos for our annual Readers Writes issue this coming week. We're asking for submissions around the theme of new beginnings, and we could use some more. 

Thanks for reading,

Mark 

The Keith Sutton era officially starts today.

Sutton, legislative affairs program manager for the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, will be sworn in at 3 p.m. as the new school board member for District 4. Sutton was chosen two weeks ago by the other board members to fill Rosa Gill's vacant seat.

BTW, in the final 5-2 vote, Sutton was backed by Beverley Clark, Patti Head, Anne McLaurin, Lori Millberg and Horace Tart. Retired educator Lillian Lee was backed by Eleanor Goettee and Ron Margiota.

I doubt it's going to be a surprise to anyone that Venita Peyton was not among the favorites on Wednesday to fill Rosa Gill's seat on the school board.

As noted in today's article by Ray Martin, Keith Sutton was the board's choice. He was the clear favorite in all three written ballots.

On the first ballot, board members were asked to pick four people on a weighted system with four points for the top choice, three points for the second choice and so on.

Barring any holdups, the school board should decide this week who will take Rosa Gill's vacant seat.

The plan is to meet from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday to interview all nine people who want to fill the District 4 opening caused by Gill's appointment to the state House. The board is slated to meet from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursday to make a final selection.

The new board member would be sworn in on Aug. 18 and finish out Gill's term, which expires November 2011.

(The applications for all nine candidates are listed in this post.)

Lynette Aytch, a director in the state's Smart Start program, became the fourth person to apply for the vacant seat on the school board.

In the application submitted today, Aytch said her four policy priorities would be high quality preschool programs, specialized services for students with disabilities and special learning needs, classroom diversity and inclusion and community and families partnerships.

"The public school system has a social and educational responsibility to advance policy that promotes and sustains classroom diversity and inclusion," Aytch said in her application.

A third former educator, Samuel Greene, wants to fill the vacancy on the school board for the District 4 seat in Southeast Raleigh.

Greene, who spent 33 years as an educator and was a principal at West Millbrook Middle School in North Raleigh, submitted his application today. In addition to his professional experience, he cites his lengthy history of community service.

"As a Wake County Public School board member, I would exhibit a strong commitment to working with other board members towards the common goal of providing the best possible education for the children in our district," Greene writes in his application. "My entire professional career has been in the area of working with children, parents and the community."

Retired educator Lillian Lee has got some pretty prominent backing in her bid to fill the vacancy on the school board.

Lee, who submitted her application Monday, included reference letters from former Superintendent Bob Bridges and former principal Johnny Farmer. This could give Lee's application some weight as the board weighs who will fill Rosa Gill's District 4 seat in Southeast Raleigh.

"Mrs. Lee appears to be a clear thinker and is confident in her abilities," Bridges wrote in his reference letter. "I believe that the current state of affairs in her life will permit the commitment of time and energy required to serve on the school board."

UPDATED TO INCLUDE LEE'S APPLICATION, WITH REFERENCE LETTERS, AT END OF POST

The response has been really overwhelming so far to replace Rosa Gill on the school board.

As of Thursday afternoon, school administrators said they hadn't received a single application for the District 4 Southeast Raleigh vacancy on the school board. The deadline is noon on July 20th so there's still time.

The last time there was a vacancy, 10 people applied in 2001 for the opening in District 8 in southwest Wake. Applicants included a former Wake school board member, the president and president-elect of the Wake County PTA Council and the chairman of the Wake County Planning Board.

People aren't exactly rushing to fill the vacancy on the school board.

School officials say they hadn't received any applications as of Monday afternoon. You've got until noon on July 20th to get your application into the hands of the school district.

There are people who've expressed interest in filling the District 4 seat in Southeast Raleigh that was vacated when Rosa Gill left to join the General Assembly.