Wake County school board member Kevin Hill and challenger Heather Losurdo got into some spirited discussions during their joint appearance on WRAL's "On the Record" show.

The discussion opened with Losurdo saying her resume is "contextually accurate." She said she was offended that people would say that someone like her with her military background and organizational and communications skills couldn't do the job of overseeing $2 billion in small business loans.

The topic then moved to the recently adopted student assignment plan.

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 school board member Deborah Prickett could, in essence, become the state's school board member of the year.

The Wake school board is scheduled to vote today on naming Prickett as the district's nominee for the N.C. School Boards Association's Raleigh Dingman award. if Prickett won the statewide award, she'd serve as an ex-officio member of the State Board of Education. She'd represent NCSBA and the 115 local school boards.

Wake is citing Prickett’s "close connection with the State Board of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction" in the nomination. She is a DPI education consultant working in the federal program monitoring section.

The only reason Prickett would be eligible is that Wake rejoined the NCSBA this year after a one-year hiatus. There would be some irony in a Wake school board member representing the NCSBA.

UPDATE

Hill said he normally wouldn't oppose nominating Pricket. But he said he didn't think it was appropriate to nominate anyone this year considering how they had only recently rejoined the NCSBA.

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is effusive of his praise of the N.C. School Boards Association in this letter he sent to the group.

In last week's letter, Margiotta tells NCSBA Executive Director Ed Dunlap about Wake's decision to rejoin the group based its support and services. He notes in the letter that the decision to rejoin was based on his recommendation.

"in public education, we are at an important crossroads to ensuring success for every child," Margiotta writes. "The North Carolina School Boards Association provides updates on recent legislation, legal matters and policy, as well as opportunities for related training that we believe will be beneficial in expanding our understanding of the issues."

It's now state law that that North Carolina-run colleges, universities and community colleges are prohibited from considering whether a student came from an accredited school when making admissions, scholarship and loan decisions.

The high school accreditation bill became state law Monday when Gov. Bev Perdue opted not to veto the legislation. But Perdue chose not to sign  it either.

The law, motivated by the recent fights in Wake and Burke counties, says UNC System schools and community colleges can only consider accreditation if it comes from a state agency. The law directs the state Board of Education to accredit schools when local school districts request it and pay for the costs.

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta has added to tonight's meeting agenda a vote on rejoining the N.C. School Boards Association.

It would cost $27,265 for Wake to rejoin. Margiotta praised NCSBA's help in the past with policy revisions

Citing financial costs, the GOP majority had voted 5-4 last June to pull out the School Boards Association. Wake is the only school district in the state not to be a member of the group.

Superintendent Tony Tata had recommended rejoining the NCSBA.

UPDATE

The school board voted to rejoin the NCSBA.

The Wake County school board may rejoin the N.C. School Boards Association after apparently realizing that going it alone wasn't the right call.

During Tuesday's budget work session, some of the members who had previously voted last year to pull out said they'd be willing to reconsider the issue. It came after Superintendent Tony Tata identified "three good reasons" for rejoining the NCSBA.

Tata cited how it would give Wake a person to lobby the General Assembly. Wake had a full-time lobbyist but lost the person after reducing it to a half-time position last year to save money. It's remained unfilled.

Wake County school board member Carolyn Morrison has released a statement explaining why she will vote tonight against withdrawing from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the local arm of AdvancED.

In her statement today, Morrison says that Wake should work with the accreditation review team and "not hinder them in their investigation." She lumps the potential loss of accreditation with dropping the diversity policy, eliminating Wake/Wacky Wednesdays, withdrawing from the N.C. Schools Boards Association, eliminating the requirement that the superintendent be an educator, giving speakers two minutes now instead of three at board meetings and cutting public comment to one meeting a month.

Here's Morrison's statement:

UPDATED TO MENTION CUTTING TIME FOR INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS AT BOARD MEETINGS

Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon lambasted the Wake County school board majority in his 16-minute speech at Saturday's Great Schools in Wake Coalition forum.

As noted in today's article, Goodmon accused the board of engaging in poor governing practices and being ideologically focused. He chastised the board for several of the decision that have been made, including eliminating the diversity policy.

Along the way, Goodmon got repeated applause and laughter from the crowd of  around 200 people. He also found time to repeatedly plug WRAL, which his company owns.

Bob Geary is mocking the Wake County school board majority for its slow pace in developing a new student assignment plan.

In a column Wednesday in the liberal Independent weekly, Geary writes that  the board majority is "not anywhere near having a new student assignment plan" after having dropped the diversity policy. Geary says the "Majority Five now seem a little lost about what to do next."

Geary makes a big deal about the board not being close to the draft timetable for implementing the new community assignment plan.