The most anticipated discussion topic at last week's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was the Fund 6 balances for individual schools.

Each school maintains a Fund 6 account for the revenues they generate. The amounts vary widely among the schools and are used to pay for a variety of things.

Questions about Enloe High School having the most Fund 6 revenue this past fiscal year of any school in the district at $649,325.95 took up a good chunk of the discussion. Click here for the handouts.

The one figure that people kept repeating out of Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was 35 percent.

As noted in today's article, 35 percent is this year's gain in Algebra I enrollment under the new EVAAS placement guidelines compared to last year's total. There was a 26 percent increase in pre-Algebra enrollment. Overall, the gain for both courses was 30 percent.

"I know this is new for a lot of principals, but I want to really thank all of you for taking on the challenges," said school board member John Tedesco, chairman of the task force at Thursday's meeting. "Because of that we saw measurable gains. You can’t dispute that. A 35 percent increase is impressive."

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR THURSDAY'S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON MATH PLACEMENT UPDATE

Is it the Wake County school system's job to provide clinical counseling services to parents or should it be done by Wake Human Services?

As noted in today's article, school administrators argue that clinical social workers and clinical psychologists are not part of the core mission of the school system. That's why they say they had asked the school board to contract with Human Services for parent counseling services rather than restoring the positions to Project Enlightenment.

“it’s not our core mission to provide clinical level counseling to parents,” said Marvin Connelly, assistant superintendent for student services. “That’s why we turned it over to the county.”

The era of strict zero tolerance discipline policies appears to be on the way out in the Wake County school system.

As noted in today's article, Assistant Superintendent Marvin Connelly said he'll present next month recommendations for dropping zero tolerance mandated punishments for a variety of offenses. The first step was on Tuesday when the board unanimously gave initial approval to changing the definition of long-term suspensions.

Pending one more vote, principals will now discretion to make a long-term suspension run between 11 days and the rest of the school year. Currently, long-term suspended kids are out the rest of the school year with no exceptions.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Some Wake County school administrators are sweating their futures now that school board members have asked interim Superintendent Donna Hargens to review whether jobs can be eliminated.

As noted in today's article, board members asked Hargens to look at more than a dozen senior administrative positions and come up with a recommendation on those positions next week.

Cutting some of those jobs could help offset the cost of restoring some of the parent counseling positions at Project Enlightenment. The board had also asked Hargens to make a recommendation on those jobs next week.

I'll go into more detail later, but here's a quick update on Wake County's efforts to increase participation in advanced math classes in middle school.

Ken Branch, senior director for middle school programs, said there's been an increase in seventh-graders taking Pre-Algebra and eighth-graders taking Algebra I since this set of revised middle school math placement criteria was implemented in the spring. The new criteria came after last year's SAS EVAAS report indicated many Algebra I ready kids in Wake, particularly minorities, weren't being placed.

But several questions were asked at Thursday's economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting about why teachers are still not letting some students into these advanced courses.

A potential budget cut could do more harm than good for the school district.

As noted in today's article, Wake school administrators have not recommended funding the 10 Communities in Schools site coordinator positions. It would cost $472,446 to put the positions into the 2009-10 budget.

Located mostly at high-poverty schools, the site coordinators recruit tutor-mentors and provide them assistance. The coordinators also help students with other needs, such as providing them school supplies and eyeglasses and even helping their parents pay the rent.

Supt. Del Burns is willing to stick out his neck, or at least his hair, for a good cause.

Burns is one of the people who has agreed to have his hair shaved off Saturday to help raise money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation. The organization raises money to help children who are afflicted with childhood cancer.

Would a student lie about being homeless to get assigned to a particular school or to ride the bus?

Those were some of the questions that popped up during this week's facilities committee meeting. Eddy Adams, senior director for transportation, said there have been cases when students claiming to be homeless demand bus service.

Adams said people have actually seen cases where students are dropped off from a Mercedes and claim to be homeless. He acknowledged it could be a friend of the student who is driving the car.

Don't be surprised if you see news stories today about the school system's efforts to reach out to the faith community.

The school district has scheduled a media availability this morning at Brentwood Elementary School in North Raleigh. Assistant Superintendent Marvin Connelly will talk with reporters about efforts to encourage faith communities to partner with schools to support student learning.

At the school, Brentwood faculty, staff, parents and members of a North Raleigh church will be working on a landscaping project designed and carried out with materials donated by church members.

UPDATE

Click here for the district's press release.