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

Add this to the list of the natives vs. outsiders argument in the Wake County school diversity fight.

In an editorial Wednesday in the Wilmington Journal, the African American newspaper praises the accreditation review that will be conducted of Wake. Along the way, the editorial staff took a shot at school board chairman Ron Margiotta not being a native of North Carolina.

"The right wingnuts forgot that back in March, after Wake School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta (there’s a “native” North Carolina name for ya) called the audience during a school board meeting “animal coming out of their cages” (yep, got him on tape), the NC NAACP did something very smart," the editorial states.

The original somewhat general state NAACP complaint against the Wake County school system has now turned into a wide-ranging review of all the major decisions made since December.

A "special review team" from AdvancED, the parent organization of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, will be coming to Raleigh soon to review the complaint filed by the NAACP. They've asked for a wide range of documents.

For instance, AdvancED want to know who developed the new community based assignment initiative and what studies and info was used to justify the move from the socioeconomic diversity policy.

SEE END OF POST FOR ADDITIONAL LINKS, INCLUDING WAKE'S PRIOR RESPONSE TO NAACP COMPLAINT

The Wake County school system still has hanging over its head the complaint that the state NAACP filed with an accrediting agency.

Back in March, the state NAACP had alleged racism on the part of the school board majority's abandonment of the diversity policy and move toward neighborhood schools. The group asked the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits Wake's high schools, to investigate and take action.

Jason Sutton says that opponents of the Wake County school board majority are using false charges of racism as political weapons in the fight over community schools and the old socioeconomic diversity policy.

In a blog post today for the conservative Civitas Institute, Sutton writes that opponents of community schools "know that the most effective means of defeating the plan is to delegitimize the supporters by casting them as racist." Charges of racism, both direct and indirect, have been hurled at members of the board majority and their supporters.

The Wake County school system could become the only school district in the state to not be a member of the N.C. School Boards Association.

At today's committee of the whole meeting, the school board will discuss whether to keep Wake's membership in the NCSBA, the National School Boards Association, NSBA's Council of Urban Boards of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

At issue for members of the new board majority are the membership costs for the groups, particularly for the NCSBA. School board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman said Wake pays more than $40,000 a year combined to be a member of the NCSBA and NSBA.

UPDATE

Clarified to indicate the $40,000 figure would reflect the combined cost of being a member of NCSBA and NSBA. It's $26,415 to join NCSBA and $14,000 to join NSBA.

Staff had planned to renew the memberships because the money is already in the proposed budget. But the board now plans to add to today's agenda a vote on  remaining members of those groups. Whether the vote will be to stay or go remains to be seen.

The state NAACP is amending its complaint against the Wake County school board majority and criticizing the placement of Superintendent Del Burns on administrative leave.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, announced today he's amending the complaint with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to reflect the news on Burns. He had accused the school board majority in the original complaint of undermining Burns' authority and warned that the superintendent might be removed soon.

The amended complaint urges SACS to notify Wake that any records, electronic or paper, be maintained in safe, backed-up form for the SACS investigators.

The state NAACP said some pretty nasty things on Friday about members of the Wake County school board majority as they announced they had filed a complaint with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

As noted in today's article, members of the NAACP hurled charges of racism and likened the board majority to clowns, Communists, dictators and the Mafia. School board chairman Ron Margiotta's educational background was questioned and he was called "unfit" to keep his post.

"[Margiotta] doesn't even have a college degree," said NAACP Attorney Al McSurely. "They've got clowns running this school board."

In a nutshell, the state NAACP is accusing members of the Wake County school board majority of being racists.

The racism charge forms a repeated message in the complaint that the state NAACP announced it had filed today against the school board with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The complaint alleges that the board majority has violated open meetings laws and dismissed input from opponents.

"Its five members, by their secretive, autocratic, and 'let them eat cake' attitude toward the many different stakeholders in the Wake County School System, have, in three short months made a shambles out of the nationally respected Wake School System, one of the main engines that drives the vibrant economy of the area and one of the main inducements for large corporations to locate in the area," writes the Rev. William Barber, head of the state NAACP, in the complaint.

Greensboro College has received a formal warning from its accrediting agency.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put the troubled institution on notice this week, issuing its least severe reprimand.

The notice relates to the university's financial struggles, brought on by a drop in enrollment, a decrease in the value of its investments, and a reluctance by supporters to donate money.

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