Longtime Wake County school board attorney Ann Majestic is the focus of a front-page article in last week's issue of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.

The profile details how Majestic started a legal career that will lead to her in April receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys.

Much of the article focuses on Majestic's work in Wake, including her successful efforts to win over the initially suspicious Republican board majority in 2009. The article also talks about her personal views on the role of socioeconomic diversity in student assignment.

The conservative Wake Community Network is going two years in the past to attack Wake County school board member Kevin Hill's re-election bid.

In Tuesday's Daily Journal, Joey Stansbury points back to how Hill had made a big deal in 2009 about the National School Boards Association’s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) giving Wake an award for its diversity efforts.

"They say a picture is worth 1000 words," Stansbury writes. "In this case a picture is worth thousands of reaassigned (sic) children. In this photo, Kevin Hill presents the National School Boards Association Council of Urban Boards of Education's Award to the Wake County Board of Education."

Wake County Commissioner Stan Norwalk is arguing that rejecting the Rolesville High School land purchase would be a case of drawing a line in the sand against the Wake County school board majority and stopping their "madness."

In a message posted Wednesday on Curmilus Dancy's blog, Norwalk calls locating the new high school in Rolesville and not the Forest Ridge site in Northeast Raleigh the latest example of politics by the school board. He said rejecting the Rolesville site is "about stopping the death of WCPSS by a “thousand cuts."

"If the line in the sand is not drawn here, future cuts will be harder and harder to stop," Norwalk writes. "The H6 vote is the first opportunity for the Board of Commissioners to take action to stop the madness, the meanness and the eventual death of diversified public education in Wake County."

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Is the Wake County school board majority cutting away the district's ties with the education establishment with actions such as leaving the state and national school boards association and changing the qualifications for superintendent?

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, majority members say they're following on their mandate from the voters to change the school system. That means breaking with some past long-standing practices of the old board.

"It is time for a new vision that will develop the capability of all our students," school board chairman Ron Margiotta told the board last week after being reelected to lead the board.

It was a busy night for the Wake County school board once the protester were arrested.

I'll go into more detail in another post about the 5-4 votes to allow the board to hire a non-educator to be superintendent and to hire Heidrick & Sruggles to be the search firm.

This post will focus on the board's decision to drop membership from the N.C. School Boards Association and to buy land for a new high school in Rolesville to replace the Forest Ridge site.

CORRECTION

The new high school site is not one of the ones proposed by Frank Eagles. It's across the street from one of the sites he proposed.

The Wake County school system could become the only school district in the state to not be a member of the N.C. School Boards Association.

At today's committee of the whole meeting, the school board will discuss whether to keep Wake's membership in the NCSBA, the National School Boards Association, NSBA's Council of Urban Boards of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

At issue for members of the new board majority are the membership costs for the groups, particularly for the NCSBA. School board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman said Wake pays more than $40,000 a year combined to be a member of the NCSBA and NSBA.

UPDATE

Clarified to indicate the $40,000 figure would reflect the combined cost of being a member of NCSBA and NSBA. It's $26,415 to join NCSBA and $14,000 to join NSBA.

Staff had planned to renew the memberships because the money is already in the proposed budget. But the board now plans to add to today's agenda a vote on  remaining members of those groups. Whether the vote will be to stay or go remains to be seen.

In a moment loaded with symbolism, school board chairman Kevin Hill took the unusual step of briefly turning the gavel over today to vice chairman Horace Tart to present the CUBE award to the school board.

Hill traveled to Texas earlier this month, just days after the board election, to accept the award from the National School Boards Association’s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE). Wake got the award for its diversity efforts.

Hill, from the speakers' podium, called the receipt of the award one of the proudest moments in his time on the school board.

The Wake school system is getting a fresh round of national recognition for its diversity efforts.

Wake learned this week it will receive a special recognition award from the National School Boards Association’s Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE). Wake got the recognition for its "outstanding achievements and continued progress" after being nominated for CUBE's Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence.

"The judges felt the (Wake} school board's commitment to diversity should be really recognized," said Katrina Kelley, director of the CUBE program.