Is the key to meeting downtown Raleigh's school capacity needs to look to its past?

As noted in today's article, the Wake County school system is in preliminary talks about reacquiring and reopening the Thompson School and Crosby-Garfield School. Both schools, located in Southeast Raleigh near downtown, were declared surplus and turned over to the county a long time ago.

Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata said the new student assignment plan showed that they need to increase school capacity in and near downtown Raleigh.

The Panther Creek High cheating incident and the school budget proposal dominated much of the discussion today's news conference held by Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata.

Tata said he stands behind how Panther Creek issued short-term suspensions and in-school detentions for the five students who were caught cheating. They were also required to take an alternative exam to see if they knew the material.

Tata was asked how fair it was for Panther Creek to give an alternative exam when some schools would give zeros for cheating. Tata pointed back to the ongoing grading practices review and how principals have autonomy to make decisions within the broad framework of board policy.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Here's the path that's led to Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata recommending creating the new positions of deputy superintendent for school performance and chief transformation officer.

it starts with the free organizational audit done for Tata by the Broad Superintendent's Academy. While the actual report hasn't been publicly released due to employee confidentiality reasons, Robert Schiller gave a "high level overview" during Tuesday's school board work session,

In a nutshell, the audit found Wake to be lean administratively but needing someone to be the person to turn to for academic issues.

The biggest response from Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting may come from something that's not on the agenda.

A large turnout is expected of critics of the hiring of Anthony Tata as the new superintendent. During last week's meeting, a small but vocal crowd groaned at statements made by GOP members while cheering on Democrats who opposed hiring Tata.

If the board had passed Carolyn Morrison's motion last week, they would have delayed the vote until after Tuesday's public comment section.

The Wake County school board's agenda for Tuesday covers a wide range of things, including student assignment, eliminating the Effectiveness Index and relocating Central Office to Cary.

During the work session that begins at 3 p.m., the board will discuss board member Kevin Hill's consensus-building approach to developing a new multi-year student assignment plan. They'll also get into a talk on the 2011-12 assignment plan, the third year of the plan adopted by the old board.

Also during the work session, the board will discuss whether to keep the process of having only one regular action meeting per month.

UPDATE

If passed, the resolution would essentially kill off the Effectiveness Index. E&R has said that the only resources put in are staff time.

Is it the Wake County school system's job to provide clinical counseling services to parents or should it be done by Wake Human Services?

As noted in today's article, school administrators argue that clinical social workers and clinical psychologists are not part of the core mission of the school system. That's why they say they had asked the school board to contract with Human Services for parent counseling services rather than restoring the positions to Project Enlightenment.

“it’s not our core mission to provide clinical level counseling to parents,” said Marvin Connelly, assistant superintendent for student services. “That’s why we turned it over to the county.”

Here's a quick recap of today's joint meeting of the Wake County school board and county commissioners.

While no vote was taken today, it looks like the school board will soon be restoring some of the parent counseling positions cut from Project Enlightenment. A majority of board members raised concerns today about the plan to contract the counseling work to Wake County Human Services.

The question is whether the school board will make it a conditional restoration.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR PRAISE FROM THE N.C. SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECT

You can expect Project Enlightenment to come up during today's joint meeting of the Wake County school board and board of county commissioners.

The agenda will focus on the student support services provided by the school system and by Wake County Human Services. Tony Gurley, chairman of the board of commissioners, said combined both groups spend $100 million a year on student services.

Along the way, questions will be raised about the county's ability to pick up the parent counseling work that had been offered by Project Enlightenment.

Wake County school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman is expressing her unhappiness with the new budget and her support for the changes in board meeting structure.

In a blog post Friday, Goldman writes that she voted against the revised budget adopted earlier this month because she didn't feel that her concerns were answered about the last-minute staff recommended changes. An example she cites is the proposed changes for Project Enlightenment.

"The Budget came up for a vote and I was the only Board member NOT to vote for it," Goldman writes. "There is a lot of work to do, and though it is described as a 'fluid document,' there is a tremendous amount that concerns me, on many topics."

The Wake County school board has signed off on the staff plan to eliminate three administrative positions to help partially restore parent counseling services that had been eliminated from Project Enlightenment.

Interim Superintendent Donna Hargens said today they can eliminate the position of area superintendent for western Wake and the clerical assistant assigned to that person. Both jobs will become vacant Aug. 31 and save $225,000.

Hargens said they can convert the governmental affairs liaison position, aka state lobbyist, from a full-time to a part-time job. That will save $46,500.