Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo has raised a record total of more than $80,000 in her bid to unseat incumbent Kevin Hill.

New campaign finance reports made public today show that Losurdo had reported raising $82,357 through Oct. 24. The prior record was the $79,500 that conservative businessman Bob Luddy had raised, largely out of his own pocket, in his unsuccessful run for the school board in 1997.

Hill’s new report shows he’s raised $42,748 through Oct 24. While Hill has almost half of Losurdo’s total, outside groups not connected to his campaign have spent tens of thousands of dollars on mailers and television ads attacking Losurdo.

SEE END OF POST FOR REACTIONS FROM BOTH CAMPAIGNS

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta and Susan Evans are both pulling in substantial amounts of cash in the District 8 race, including money from the Popes, Bob Luddy and the Campbells.

The new campaign report filed today by Margiotta shows he had raised $40,367.33 as of Aug. 30 with $34,111.23 on hand. The new report for Evans shows she had raised $26,406.43 as of Aug. 30 with $21,405.30 on hand.

The biggest donors for Margiotta in his new report are the $4,000 apiece from conservative businessman Art Pope, his wife Katherine Pope and conservative businessman Bob Luddy.

Supporters of Wake County's old school diversity policy are going on the offensive in attacking the latest response to federal investigators justifying the change made by the school board majority.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, multiple speakers criticized the board majority's assertions that the diversity policy may have hurt academic achievement. Often to cheers, words like "B.S.," "cherry picking," "misleading" "treacherous" and "dishonesty" were used by speakers, especially when it came to attacking the district's linkage of long bus rides with lower achievement.

"The governance of this board majority has reached a new low with the release of your response to the Office of Civil Rights last week," said Susan Evans. "And I really thought you didn't have any lower to go."

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

New Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata got a first-hand look Tuesday at what school board meetings will be like, from emotional public speakers to bickering by board members.

Most of the 39 speakers who signed up railed against the school board over the student reassignment plan and the elimination of the use of socioeconomic diversity. Some speakers got even more personal, particularly  directing their attacks at school board member John Tedesco.

Several speakers welcomed Tata. But Tata was also warned by speakers to restore diversity or else he and the school district would face dire consequences.

It looks like the world will hear about what's happening in the Wake County school system in the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

The Old Grey Lady has posted the story on its web site today. It isn't nearly as glowing about the school system as compared the 2005 Sunday front-page story about the diversity policy.

“My feeling is that it’s very important for people in Wake to drive over to Charlotte and see what’s happened,” said Gary Orfield, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies school busing, in the article.

The New York Times is coming to Raleigh to follow the fight over the diversity policy and the saga over Wake County Schools Superintendent Del Burns' resignation.

A Times reporter is supposed to be at today's special closed-session school board meeting on Burns and tomorrow's policy committee discussion on changes to the student assignment policy. The next few days could provide plenty of fodder.

Wake's national recognition for the diversity policy and the melodrama surrounding Burns' resignation has made the national media attention inevitable.

Chris Malone, Lois Nixon and Cathy Truitt have filed their 2009 final Wake County school board campaign reports.

In Malone's final report, he reported raising $18,186 and spending $18,056.12 in his successful bid for the District 1 seat. He reported contributions from Take Wake Schools Back, the N.C. Indian-American Political Action Committee and the Northern Wake Republican Club.

Is the Wake County school system going to get some negative attention as the "national villains" of resegregation?

That's a charge made today during the public comment section of the school board meeting by Matthew Brown of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children. He said the national media is looking at Wake as a potential example of school resegregation being the top underreported story in 2009.

Brown told the school board members that a "very prominent writer for The New York Times" is working on a story about Wake. He said the writer is waiting for the school board to officially dismantle the diversity policy.

It looks like we've got a big public showdown coming at Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting.

In response to N.C. Americans for Prosperity's call for a rally to support the new board, critics of the new majority are urging their side to turn out as well Tuesday.

"We have to be at the meeting in stronger numbers than the anti-diversity crowd!" writes Matthew Brown, a spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children. "As we know, it is easier for politicians to do questionable things when there is a large mob cheering them on. We have to be in the seats before they can take them all!"