Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, is mobilizing people to participate in the magnet school survey and to urge the Wake County school board to scrap the new student assignment plan.

In a Sunday blog post, Allison Backhouse posts a copy of a Saturday email that she obtained in which Brannon writes that they "NEED a lot of push as the next school board meeting (JUNE 5) to MAKE A NEW PLAN for 2013." Brannon suggests writing "a lot of" letters to the editor "asking for a directive that stops using the CHOICE proximity model and starts using a RESIDENCEY based assignment plan."

Brannon lists the names of other Great Schools leaders, Patty Williams, Amy Womble and Lynn Edmonds, whom she says can help edit the letters and try to get them published.

UPDATE

Backhouse had obtained the email after it was forwarded Sunday to the Coalition of  Concerned Citizens for African American Children. Here is the email that CCCAAC President Calla Wright sent today, Monday, saying they'll stop forwarding messages:

From: Calla Wright <ccaac_aacca@yahoo.com>
Subject: [CoalitionofConcernedCitizensforAfricanAmericanChildren] Sharing Email Stopped because of the confidential message
Date: May 21, 2012 5:23:34 PM EDT
To: coalitionofconcernedcitizensforafricanamericanchildren@yahoogroups.com
Cc: parentsfordiversity@yahoogroups.com, ybrannon@gmail.com

We have decided to limit the number of emails forwarded to this group because of the confidentail messages that are shared with others who support segregated/neighborhood schools.  It is necessary for us to reduce the number of emails sent and we have decided to only share public information.
Please share this message that all confidential emails will stop.

Wake County school board member Susan Evans has turned to a leader of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition to be one of her District 8 Board Advisory Council chairs.

Evans nominated Patty Williams, the communications director for Great Schools, on Monday to be one of the two BAC co-chairs. Williams was appointed in December to the BAC, which acts as sounding boards for board members.

The appointment comes after the controversy last week about the involvement of Evans and fellow board member Christine Kushner with Great Schools.

Thursday night's community mass meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church dealt with the new Wake County student assignment plan, getting mediation for the school board protesters and assailing the conditions at Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, most the focus of the meeting led by the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition was on complaints about the assignment plan. The crowd of around 50 people, mainly supporters of the old diversity policy, were urged to contact school leaders to change the plan.

"If you let the plane fly in the air and you don’t make those course corrections that you feel need to be made in order to make it a more successful plan for all students so we have a fair and diverse and well-funded education for all students, then shame on us if we don’t advocate for the changes to make it happen," said Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

The revamping of the Wake County school board District 8 board advisory council continued tonight with the appointment of three new at-large members.

New District 8 school board member Susan Evans nominated Patty Williams, communications director for the Great Schools in Wake Coalition. Williams is the parent of a student at Athens Drive High.

Evans also nominated Hardin Engelhardt, a magnet parent and former teacher. Like Williams, Engelhardt spoke out at board meetings against the change in the diversity policy.

The new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board is now in place following a packed swearing-in ceremony.

After being sworn in, the new members talked about focusing on improving education for Wake’s 146,000 students, listening to the families and trying to go beyond the 5-4 votes on major issues that took place over the past two years.

“If this board comes together with the common denominator of all children all schools, we’ll continue to have a very successful 16th largest school district in the nation,” said school board member Kevin Hill.

Most of the 28 speakers at Thursday's public hearing wanted the Wake County school board to make changes and/or delay a vote on adoption of the new student assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, several speakers referenced Tuesday's election results that brought in three new school board members and could result in a new Democratic majority taking office Dec. 6. Speakers asked for a delay until November or December.

"If the board is willing to wait one month until after we see what the results of the next election are, Mr. Hill’s seat, I believe that the board will begin to come together in a much more dignified way and that the decision that is made will reflect the will of the entire community and not just a narrow majority," said the Rev. Tom Rhodes.

A total of 26 people have pre-registered to speak at Broughton High School at today's Wake County school board public hearing on the student assignment plan.

A number of the usual people who've criticized the school board majority over the past two years are on the list, including Neil Riemann, Rhonda Curtright,  Patty Williams, Greg Flynn, Heather Koons, Tom Rhodes and Amy Lee. One person also on the list is Seth Keel.

I haven't received word yet on whether Keel, who is still banned at showing up at school board meetings following his arrest, will be allowed to speak today. It will be interesting seeing whether Keel, the Rev. William Barber and all the other people who've been barred from attending board meetings will be allowed back if the Democrats regain the board majority.

Over the past two years, some speakers have railed against the board majority for leaving the ban in place. Their trespassing cases still haven't been adjudicated yet.

UPDATE

Keel is not being allowed to speak at the meeting over the objections of him and his supporters.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is questioning why the Wake County school system isn't trumpeting the fact that it has the third-highest graduation rate among the nation's largest school districts.

In an article Tuesday on the New Raleigh website, GSIW Program Coordinator Patty Williams touts the recent Education Week report as being "good news about our Wake County public schools." But she also says "we’re just wondering why the school district isn’t sharing it."

Information about the recent report doesn't appear to exist on Wake's website. I also don't recall anyone but the public speakers mentioning it at this month's school board meetings.

Here's more about what was said at last week's OCR meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church.

Click here for an earlier post about the meeting. Most of the speakers and the crowd were opposed to the school board majority's elimination of the diversity policy.

The meeting kicked off with the Rev. Earl Johnson, pastor of Martin Street Baptist, getting laughs and applause from the crowd when he quipped that the church was "a very neutral site by the way." That was in response to the complaints from the school system about holding the meeting at the church.

None of the speakers had good things to say Tuesday about the proposed Wake County school board redistricting maps.

As noted in today's article, most of the speakers were critics of the board majority who questioned both the way the new maps were developed and the boundary lines used. Another gripe was about school board members Chris Malone and John Tedesco saying ahead of time they wouldn't support making revisions to the maps.

Jim Martin kicked things off with questions about the changes, particularly in southwestern Wake. He said that area has been "a pawn in annexation discussions" and other issues.

UPDATE

Click here to view the proposed map from Jim Martin.