The outgoing school board members left without throwing any real verbal bombs today as they were showered with awards and praise.

The outgoing board members spent much of their final comments thanking their families and school administrators. They also stood behind the decisions they made.

"Parents haven’t really liked what was done," said school board vice chairman Horace Tart. "But we always did what we did with the children in mind. That was the big picture."

Today marks the end of an era on the school board.

This afternoon will be the final regular board meeting for Eleanor Goettee, Patti Head, Lori Millberg and Horace Tart. You can expect a lot of laudatory statements from groups such as the other board members, administrators and Wake NCAE.

The outgoing school board members are getting some love as they leave the board this month.

This afternoon, board member Patti Head received a National PTA Life Achievement Award "for her devotion and distinguished service to children and youth." They're supposed to surprise her at this afternoon's District 7 Board Advisory Council meeting.

You can expect similar accolades for her and the three other departing board members at tomorrow's school board meeting.

Are Wacky Wednesdays on the way out with the new school board majority?

As noted in today's article by Ray Martin, new school board member John Tedesco said it's "highly probable" that the new majority will scrap the weekly Wednesday early dismissals. Tedesco didn't rule out the possibility that the change could happen as soon as this school year instead of waiting until July.

"I can tell you what I've heard and what the others have heard is an overwhelming number of parents who are not happy with this and we'll do our best to represent the parents," Tedesco said in the article. "I could not imagine that this would go on in the next academic year,"

If the Forest Ridge High fight is any indication, it's going to be a tumultuous transition for the new school board majority.

As noted in today's article, it doesn't look like the current board is too impressed by the new majority's request that they stop spending any money on Forest Ridge. Outgoing board member Patti Head said the new board members don't have all the information that the current board has on Forest Ridge.

"They're duly elected, but they're not sworn in yet," Head said in the article. "We're still the elected officials."

The recession is helping the school system find land for a new elementary school in northwest Raleigh.

The school board voted Tuesday to pay $2.54 million for 30.834 acres at the intersection of Baileywick and Strickland roads. Wake is buying the site from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which is the receiver for the parcel.

According to a 2008 Triangle Business Journal article, a subdivision had been planned there. But the bank foreclosed on the Raleigh real estate investment firm that owned the land.

Tuesday's discussion about Fox Road Elementary highlights the challenges and limits that the current assignment policy faces in Wake.

For those who don't want to read the whole post, I'll run off some of the main points from Tuesday's facilities committee meeting. Staff is reviewing the draw areas for magnet and year-round schools, which could affect where current and future application students will go.

For diversity reasons, some magnet schools were deliberately left with empty seats this school year. For diversity reasons, an effort to encourage more low-income students to apply for year-round schools may have backfired, at least at Fox Road Elementary.

School board member Keith Sutton wasn't happy last week at the apparent lack of diversity among the latest winners of the district's Employee Excellence awards.

Once a month, the school district honors employees, who've been nominated by their colleagues, at a school board meeting. Last week, 13 employees were recognized.

It was the first such ceremony for Sutton, who joined the board in August. After the ceremony ended and the employees left the room, Sutton said the winners did not appear to be a very diverse group.

It looks like you can add the Forest Ridge High site to the list of battles that will divide new and old school board members starting in December.

As noted in today's article, the current board members, with the exception of Ron Margiotta, told staff to go ahead with plans for using the Forest Ridge High site. But Chris Malone said Wake should be prepared for a change in that plan when he and other new board members take office.

"They should have stopped today," Malone said. "We're going to push ahead and make them stop it."

It was an interesting coalition of school board members who helped put Carolyn Morrison on the board last week.

In the 4-3 final vote, Morrison got support from Patti Head, Ron Margiotta, Keith Sutton and Horace Tart. Christine Kushner, an active PTA member and chairwoman of the District 4 Board Advisory Council, got votes from Eleanor Goettee, Anne McLaurin and Lori Millberg.