Wake County school board member Debra Goldman announced tonight that she plans to nominate Tony Tata for North Carolina Superintendent of the Year.

The Central Carolina Regional Education Service Alliance is soliciting nominations for regional superintendent of the year with the winner vying for the state recognition. The state award is given annually by the N.C. Association of School Administrators and the N.C. School Boards Association.

Goldman said that Tata, who has been Wake County's superintendent since January 2011, deserves the recognition. Fellow Republican board members Chris Malone and Deborah Prickett joined Goldman after she urged other board members to support the nomination.

Bill McNeal was the last Wake superintendent to win the state title. He went on to become National Superintendent of the Year.

How often your elementary and middle school kids are retested this spring will be up to each individual Wake principal.

Under a new policy adopted for this year by the state Board of Education, every student in grades 3-8 who barely fail one of the state's end-of-grade exams has to be given a retest. (This covers students who score a Level II.)

But Wake is leaving it up to individual principals whether to require students who still haven't passed to take a second retest.