The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children and Martin Street Baptist Church are getting distinctly political tonight with a showing of a documentary attacking the Koch brothers.

In a Sunday email message on the CCCAAC listserv, CCCAAC President Calla Wright invites people to attend the screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed" that's being sponsored and shown at Martin Street Baptist.

Liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald has produced a series of short documentaries, now compiled into one long one, attacking the conservative Koch brothers. Greenwald came out with a film last year that tried to link the 2009 election of the Republican majority to the Wake County school board to Charles and David Koch.

Wake County school board vice chairman Keith Sutton will face the heat as a guest at tonight's community engagement meeting sponsored by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children.

Agenda topics will include an update on Walnut Creek Elementary School, bell schedule changes, the impact of round one of the student assignment plan on Southeast Raleigh and the school-to-prison pipeline.

The meeting comes after Sutton has faced criticism from some CCCAAC members about the demographic composition of Walnut Creek's enrollment.

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

The state NAACP and Great Schools in Wake Coalition are teaming up to host a "community mass meeting" on Thursday to discuss Wake County's new student assignment plan.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at Martin Street Baptist Church, 1001 E. Martin St. in Raleigh. It comes after both groups had unsuccessfully urged the school board to delay implementation of the new plan by a year.

The meeting also comes after GSIW released a new fact sheet on feeder patterns on Thursday that levels several complaints about the new plan. Among the complaints is the charge that the plan's use of feeder patterns "are creating segregated schools."

"Middle schools including, Carnage and Durant Road, will likely become more segregated, poorer, and overall proficiency will decline dramatically," says the GSIW fact sheet. "Where there is concentrated poverty, recruiting and retaining teachers is difficult, and schools are costly to run. Racial segregation undermines student achievement and will not allow WCPSS to apply for federal funding for magnet and other programs, as we have in the past."

Here's a recap of today's press conference in which speakers urged the Wake County school board and DA's office to use mediation instead of trials for the protestors arrested at board meetings in 2010.
 
Speakers said seeking mediation would heal the community, save taxpayer money and not tie up court dockets. You also had speakers from the Great Schools in Wake Coalition who both called for mediation while simultaneously defending the new Democratic board majority.

“I’m here to encourage the school board to take up mediation instead of ripping us apart,” said the Rev. Duane Beck, co-chair of Congregations for Social Justice and pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church.

The Democratic majority on the Wake County school board is now taking public criticism over rejecting mediation with the protesters who were arrested at board meetings in 2010.

The Rev. Earl Johnson, pastor of Martin Street Baptist Church, announced today that he will hold a press conference on Tuesday to voice dissatisfaction with the school board's action. Democratic board members have tried to argue their decision doesn't mean they want trials but prosecutors say it's causing them to seek them.

Johnson will call on the school board to now ask for mediation.

Was Tuesday's adoption of a new Wake County student assignment plan the culmination of years of study and discussion or a rushed decision?

As noted in today's article, school board members and administrators defended the vote as being necessary to avoid delaying implementation of the plan. But critics, particularly during the public comment section, urged the board to hold off adoption until the newly elected members have their say on the plan.

"The voters spoke," said Robert Hyman. "You lost the election. In effect, the chair of this board has been fired. You owe it to the new board to discuss it with them before you completely lose your moral authority and your legitimacy.”

The Rev. William Barber is speaking out on the Wake County school board elections, but he doesn't want the media to hear what he'll be saying.

Barber, president of the state NAACP, has scheduled a "community mass meeting" for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Martin Street Baptist Church, 1001 E. Martin St. in Raleigh. The meeting is not open to the media.

During the meeting, Barber will give a presentation. The audience will also hear from "political action experts." Topics include early voting, voter education and mobilization.

It looks like the Wake County school system will be in the spotlight tonight at a YWCA community forum on racism in the schools.

According to this press release, organizers say they will "take an in-depth look at how racism impacts area public schools." The press release cites the suspension rates for minority and low-income students in Wake.

"Education is intertwined with other social and economic justice issues because they share the same systemic roots with racism and classicism," said YWCA of the Greater Triangle Executive Director Folami Bandele in the press release. "We can and must do better for the futures of our youth, and we will continue to forge conversations in our community challenging these divides."

Here's more about what was said at last week's OCR meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church.

Click here for an earlier post about the meeting. Most of the speakers and the crowd were opposed to the school board majority's elimination of the diversity policy.

The meeting kicked off with the Rev. Earl Johnson, pastor of Martin Street Baptist, getting laughs and applause from the crowd when he quipped that the church was "a very neutral site by the way." That was in response to the complaints from the school system about holding the meeting at the church.