Rescinding the year-round conversions is now officially on the school board's table.

School board members asked Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning, today to come up with a scenario for the next building program that would reverse some of the conversions. He's expected to report back next month with schools that could be switched back to a traditional calendar.

The thing to keep mind is that the board is looking at reversing a few conversions, not all 22.

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There's no resolution yet on what the new academic goal should be for the school board.

Rosa Gill, school board chairwoman, floated going with the goal of raising the high school graduation rate to 90 percent by 2013 and 95 percent by 2015. The graduation rate is now at 78.8 percent.

Gill said at Tuesday's committee of the whole meeting that they need to decide on a new goal soon.

You can take on the school system and win over student assignment.

As noted in today's North Raleigh News article, Dawn Crowder's youngest daughter will be starting kindergarten today at Forest Pines Drive Elementary School. She had been told before, apparently erroneously, that she'd have to send her child to Wake Forest Elementary School instead.

Forest Pines is one of two schools under an enrollment cap, meaning new people who moved in after May 1 will be sent to overflow schools. Administrators had applied the cap to Crowder even though she lived in Forest Pines' attendance area before May 1.

Aside from today's flap over sales tax reimbursement, a big chunk of the joint meeting was a Student Assignment 101 lesson for county commissioners.

Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for growth and planning, told commissioners that student assignment was "perhaps the most overwhelming statutory authority that school districts have." He said it's difficult trying to balance all the different goals in the assignment policy.

"Providing as much stability as possible is good, but that's not easy," Dulaney said.

Critics of the rise in high school student parking fees aren't gaining much traction.

In an effort to balance the budget this year, the school board raised parking fees to $170 a year, a $50 increase. Critics aren't having the same level of success as in 2005 when they got the board to reverse the decision to raise the fees to $240 a year.

Last week, school board member Horace Tart tried to make a pitch for his constituents at Fuquay-Varina High School.

As you know by now, Wake school leaders gave final approval Tuesday to a$319.2 million budget to run schools for the 2008-09 school year.

Board members have spent weeks debating on which programs and services to cut after commissioners said they were only allotting $319.2 million, still an $18.5 million increase over this past fiscal year.

During those discussions, one of the items board members debating keeping $200,000 to stream school board meetings. Several board members favored this idea, however with all the cuts that needed to be made having that capability was chopped off the list.

During Tuesday's meeting school board members Lori Millberg and Patti Head reiterated the importance of being able to stream school board meetings. Board members have pointed to such technology being used during the county commissioners' meetings.

Some board members hinted that streaming could be made possible with money the district is supposed to recoup from fines paid by former House speaker Jim Black, since he was convicted in Wake County.

But school board member Ron Margiotta said with all the cuts that had to be made, any money recieved should go towards other items that had be cut. He mentioned adding more funds back to hire more teachers.

But both Millberg and Head countered that the ability to have the public listen to the discussions that take place during meetings is valuable.

"This is really in keeping with our efforts of keeping the public informed," said Head. "Hope that this could be a priority."

Some school board members may be wondering what happened after they left yesterday's budget meeting.

As noted in today's article, school board members spent Monday afternoon looking for ways to reduce the budget by $39 million. The meeting went so long that the idea of streaming board meetings online went from being in the budget to out of it by the end of the discussions.

Despite the efforts to unseat her, Rosa Gill is back as chairwoman of the school board.

Gill was unanimously elected as chairwoman for another one-year term. Lori Millberg, who was rumored to be lobbying for the job, seconded the nomination.

What might explain how things turned out is that Kevin Hill was elected vice chairman. He got the job after Beverley Clark declined the nomination because she said she had too much on her plate. Clark proceeded to nominate Hill.

Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the school board, has got a coup d’état on her hands.

As noted in today's article, Gill faces opposition in her bid to be re-elected to a one-year term as chairwoman on Tuesday. Even though Lori Millberg won’t comment, she’s cited by other board members as being Gill’s challenger.

It’s leading to some interesting bedfellows. For instance, Ron Margiotta is backing Gill despite their many public tiffs.

“I believe Rosa has done a good job in reaching out to the community,” Margiotta said.