Congratulations to the 12 finalists for the Wake County school system's 2013-14 Teacher of the Year award.

The finalists are Lisa Amador of Yates Mill Elementary in Raleigh, Sonya Brown of Smith Elementary in Garner, Elizabeth Crowell of Davis Drive Middle in Cary, Laurie Dillman of Fuquay-Varina High, Amy-Lyn Foster of Lockhart Elementary in Knightdale, Lindsay Hamrick of Martin Middle in Raleigh, Dianne Jones of Wiley Elementary in Raleigh, Anne Mayer of Sycamore Creek Elementary in Raleigh, Luke Miles of Durant Road Middle in Raleigh, Lynn Rustay of Holly Ridge Elementary in Holly Springs, Rachael Stauffer of Olive Chapel Elementary in Apex and Keri Woronka of Pleasant Union Elementary in Raleigh.

The winner will be announced May. 9.

Barring any last-minute changes next week, it looks like the new year-round calendar option for Lynn Road Elementary base families will be Wakefield Elementary.

But the discussion on the issue during Tuesday's Wake County school board student assignment work session raises issues about the role year-round calendar options should play in the district. Should Wake continue to not offer year-round options that are considered more attractive than the base school?

The discussion also raised the prospect that the school system may at some point convert Wakefield Elementary back to a traditional calendar.

It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.

The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.

The Wake County school system has announced the finalists for the 2012-13 Principal of the Year and Assistant Principal of the Year awards.

The finalists for Principal of the Year are Kevin Biles of Pleasant Union Elementary in Raleigh, Kenneth Branch of Brentwood Elementary in Raleigh, Paula Trantham of Millbrook Elementary in Raleigh,  Brian Pittman of Holly Ridge Middle in Holly Springs and Ericka Lucas of East Wake School of Arts, Education and Global Studies in Wendell.

The finalists for Assistant Principal of the Year are Teresa Caswell of Lead Mine Elementary in Raleigh, Ruth Ann Freeman of Bugg Elementary in Raleigh, Travis Shillings of Brassfield Elementary in Raleigh, Wynette Martin of East Cary Middle and Matthew Rice of Enloe High in Raleigh.

The finalists were nominated by their peers. The winners will be announced at a celebration on Oct. 11 at 6 p.m. at Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh.

The quick upshot of today's Wake County student assignment committee meeting is that the process is now stalled following last week's vote scrapping the community zones.

School board member Chris Malone complained that the district is back to square one. Board member John Tedesco, committee chairman, said that while they looked at a lot of good information today they don't have any direction on how to use it now.

In this vacuum, board member Deborah Prickett proposed a bunch of changes for her district today, including:

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR HANDOUT ON PRICKETT'S PROPOSED CHANGES

Click here for Wednesday's article about the meeting.

Here's a bit more discussion on how the Lost Colony deal came to an end at Tuesday's committee of the whole meeting.

Heading into the meeting, it looked like some school board members were all set to continue the relationship with Granville County schools to pay the $1,443 per student tuition for the Lost Colony students.

But things changed when the school board found out that bus service was already being provided to the Lost Colony area. This means service wouldn't have to be added if Wake kept the 51 students now going to Granville.