The outgoing school board members left without throwing any real verbal bombs today as they were showered with awards and praise.

The outgoing board members spent much of their final comments thanking their families and school administrators. They also stood behind the decisions they made.

"Parents haven’t really liked what was done," said school board vice chairman Horace Tart. "But we always did what we did with the children in mind. That was the big picture."

Today marks the end of an era on the school board.

This afternoon will be the final regular board meeting for Eleanor Goettee, Patti Head, Lori Millberg and Horace Tart. You can expect a lot of laudatory statements from groups such as the other board members, administrators and Wake NCAE.

Tuesday's discussion about Fox Road Elementary highlights the challenges and limits that the current assignment policy faces in Wake.

For those who don't want to read the whole post, I'll run off some of the main points from Tuesday's facilities committee meeting. Staff is reviewing the draw areas for magnet and year-round schools, which could affect where current and future application students will go.

For diversity reasons, some magnet schools were deliberately left with empty seats this school year. For diversity reasons, an effort to encourage more low-income students to apply for year-round schools may have backfired, at least at Fox Road Elementary.

Wake is now jumping into using the EVAAS program.

As noted in today's article, administrators said they're moving to get passwords into the hands of principals and other school personnel. It's a change from when a school had to request access to EVAAS to be signed up.

Wake still has a long way to go to catch up with other school districts in terms of using the program, which is free of charge to districts.

School board member Ron Margiotta made another unsuccessful pitch today for the current board to halt spending more dollars on the Forest Ridge High project.

Margiotta said they should stop spending any additional dollars on Forest Ridge while staff reviews other sites. He pointed out that the new board members also have concerns about the Forest Ridge site.

But the issue brought up by board members again is the lack of time.

School board members are still considering changes to how students are selected to magnet schools even as they realize that the new board could undo whatever they adopt.

No changes were agreed to on Tuesday. But Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney was directed to come back to the Oct. 27 facilities committee meeting with more details about how 143 transfer students were allowed to leave Fox Road Elementary.

During the discussion, school board member Lori Millberg acknowledged that whatever they agree to do could be undone as it "depends on what the next board does if there’s no busing."

It looks like you can add the Forest Ridge High site to the list of battles that will divide new and old school board members starting in December.

As noted in today's article, the current board members, with the exception of Ron Margiotta, told staff to go ahead with plans for using the Forest Ridge High site. But Chris Malone said Wake should be prepared for a change in that plan when he and other new board members take office.

"They should have stopped today," Malone said. "We're going to push ahead and make them stop it."

School board member Lori Millberg makes a direct pitch for for the candidates she's endorsing while taking a shot at others in a letter to the editor in today's newspaper.

In the letter, Millberg claims "much of the data published by some of the candidates" are "misinterpreted and in many cases are completely wrong." She argues that going to a system of neighborhood schools, such as in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, will be more expensive and less cost effective.

Millberg says that "to get the best value for your tax dollar, vote for Rita Rakestraw, Horace Tart, Karen Simon and Lois Nixon."

Millberg is echoing a position that's being repeatedly made, especially in the closing days of the campaign, that maintaining the diversity policy is cheaper financially.

Changes are looming for how students will be selected to fill Wake County's magnet schools.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney told board members on Tuesday that his staff will be working on a formal board policy on magnet schools. This would help formalize the year-to-year guidelines that his staff develops.

One of the goals of the new board policy would be to try to address how some non-magnet schools are being negatively impacted by magnet schools. In other words, you could see changes that make it harder for some students to get into the magnet program.

UPDATE: LINKS AT END OF POST NOW WORKING 

Wake wants to have its say in revising the federal No Child Left Behind program.

Some changes are expected now that the No Child Left Behind Act is up for congressional reauthorization. Various groups have proposed changes with Wake soon to be joining them.

“As one of the largest school systems in the country and one of the most successful, we think our input would be valuable," said school board member Lori Millberg at last week's board meeting.