Some familiar names will be speaking out at a press conference this morning to complain about the education bills being promoted by Republican state lawmakers.

Former Congressman Bob Etheridge and Public Schools First NC are holding a press conference at 11 a.m. in Green Hope Park in Cary "in support of strong public schools." Other speakers include Adrienne Lumpkin and Lynn Edmonds, both leaders in the Great Schools in Wake Coalition.

The group charges that lawmakers are leading "a race to the bottom" with proposed measures such as dropping class size limits, cutting back on teacher assistants and providing voucher money for families to attend private schools.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is mobilizing to get the new Wake County student assignment plan to include the diversity-related assignments.

In an email message dated Sept. 12, GSIW chairwoman Yevonne Brannon tells people that her discussions with school board members was "not encouraging." Brannon writes about a "board member who wants what we want but is too weak to push for it and too afraid to step up to the plate, because he is worried about community push back."

Brannon writes that "another board member who doesn’t seem to 'agree' about how to fix diversity-how to have balanced schools.....he seems to believe kids can choose out. After some discussion he agreed to 'think it over.'"

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition accused Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata of scapegoating Don Haydon for the bus problems and said he's the one who should be relieved of his duties.

During the public comment session at Tuesday's school board meeting in which speakers were repeatedly warned not to discuss specific personnel, several GSIW members lamented the senior staff who've left Wake since Tata became superintendent.

Lynn Edmonds complained about Wake's longtime staff being replaced by people with no experience working in school systems. who come from the "free market or the corporate world," or being graduates from the Broad Superintendents Academy.

Great Schools in Wake Coalition members are making a visual statement at today's Wake County school board meeting about the senior school administrators who've resigned or been pushed out during Superintendent Tony Tata's tenure.

GSIW members have brought several mock headstones. One says "RIP Competent Experienced Staff." Others say the word "Resigned" under the names of David Ansbacher, Michael Evans, Donna Hargens and Don Haydon. For David Holdzkom, it says "Reassigned" under his "headstone."

Some people like Evans, Haydon and Holdzkom were clearly forced out. But for Hargens, she left to become a superintendent.

Lynn Edmonds is scheduled to discuss the issue during public comment.

Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, is mobilizing people to participate in the magnet school survey and to urge the Wake County school board to scrap the new student assignment plan.

In a Sunday blog post, Allison Backhouse posts a copy of a Saturday email that she obtained in which Brannon writes that they "NEED a lot of push as the next school board meeting (JUNE 5) to MAKE A NEW PLAN for 2013." Brannon suggests writing "a lot of" letters to the editor "asking for a directive that stops using the CHOICE proximity model and starts using a RESIDENCEY based assignment plan."

Brannon lists the names of other Great Schools leaders, Patty Williams, Amy Womble and Lynn Edmonds, whom she says can help edit the letters and try to get them published.

UPDATE

Backhouse had obtained the email after it was forwarded Sunday to the Coalition of  Concerned Citizens for African American Children. Here is the email that CCCAAC President Calla Wright sent today, Monday, saying they'll stop forwarding messages:

From: Calla Wright <ccaac_aacca@yahoo.com>
Subject: [CoalitionofConcernedCitizensforAfricanAmericanChildren] Sharing Email Stopped because of the confidential message
Date: May 21, 2012 5:23:34 PM EDT
To: coalitionofconcernedcitizensforafricanamericanchildren@yahoogroups.com
Cc: parentsfordiversity@yahoogroups.com, ybrannon@gmail.com

We have decided to limit the number of emails forwarded to this group because of the confidentail messages that are shared with others who support segregated/neighborhood schools.  It is necessary for us to reduce the number of emails sent and we have decided to only share public information.
Please share this message that all confidential emails will stop.

Here's the dolphin email exchange between Wake County school board member Susan Evans and the leadership of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition that was referenced in a recent Triangle Politics column.

For the backstory, Allison Backhouse forwarded to board members and staff a March 7 email that was sent to Evans, fellow school board member Christine Kushner and several GSIW leaders. One sentence included how an 8-year-old wrote that "a dolphin breaths through an a--hole on the top of its head."

Evans replied back via her personal email account that "I think TT may be a dolphin :)," referring to Superintendent Tony Tata.

Thursday night's community mass meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church dealt with the new Wake County student assignment plan, getting mediation for the school board protesters and assailing the conditions at Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, most the focus of the meeting led by the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition was on complaints about the assignment plan. The crowd of around 50 people, mainly supporters of the old diversity policy, were urged to contact school leaders to change the plan.

"If you let the plane fly in the air and you don’t make those course corrections that you feel need to be made in order to make it a more successful plan for all students so we have a fair and diverse and well-funded education for all students, then shame on us if we don’t advocate for the changes to make it happen," said Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Yevonne Brannon, head of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, is urging her group's members to pack the Oct. 4 Wake County school board meeting "to stop" the new student assignment plan.

In the e-mail sent Friday, Brannon accuses the school board majority of trying to rush through adoption of the new plan on Oct. 4 before the election. Board members have indicated they don't expect a final vote until after the election but Brannon isn't buying that argument.

Brannon says "the public is being lulled into complacency" and that "we must STOP this before it's too late."

UPDATE

I'm being told that Brannon sent the message on her private listserv and not to the GSIW listserv. There's some overlap between the two.

Did Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata give enough information on the new single-sex leadership academies before asking for the school board to approve them Tuesday?

As noted in today's article, three of the Democratic board members argued they couldn't give their support without having more information on the academies. But Tata argued the board had less information when it had voted to approve the Wake Early College at N.C. State that opened this year.

Throughout Tuesday's meeting, Tata pressed the board to act that day. He said it would show Wake's commitment to start the academies as it continued to build partnerships with other groups.

You've got 29 people lined up to speak at today's Wake County school board meeting.

It looks like people are citing the discussion of the facilities utilization report, which is item 14 on the agenda, to get around the ban about talking about student assignment. Among the people citing this section on the signup sheet are Anne Sherron, Adrienne Lumpkin, Susan Evans, Monserrat Alvarez (of N.C. HEAT) and Jim Martin.

On the list of 15 speakers for off-agenda topic items, you've got more supporters of the diversity policy who likely are using other ways to bring up student assignment. This list includes:

UPDATE

School board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman said the restriction on comment on student assignment was meant for discussion on specific moves in the plan.