The Wake County Republican Party is promoting reductions in transportation costs and decreases in student suspension rates and school violence to encourage supporters heading into Tuesday's school board election.

In the election edition of The Elephant Express on Wednesday, Wake GOP Chairwoman Susan Bryant credits the school board majority's elimination of the diversity policy for a $7.3 million reduction in transportation costs over the past two years.

Bryant also points to a 43 percent reduction in long-term suspensions, a 16 percent drop in short-term suspensions and a 54 percent drop in school crime figures.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is making good on his word to recruit more minority teachers.

As noted in today's article, Wake has offered early contracts to 27 new minority teachers as part of a series of spring out-of-state recruitment trips ordered by Tata. But Tata and other school officials say it will take time before Wake's teaching force more closely matches the demographics of the student enrollment.

“This is the beginning of a long-time effort to turn an aircraft carrier of HR policy that has been pretty staid with about an 85 percent Caucasian teaching force,” Tata said. "I'm pretty satisfied with the initial efforts that we've made."

If Wake County school employees play their cards right they could get a "Pride in WCPSS" pin from a school board member.

Under this new initiative, school board members and the Superintendent's Leadership Team can hand out pins to school employees who they see are displaying “pride in the school system” and “high character/high commitment” through their daily efforts."

The program emerged from an idea from school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman, who said she wanted a way to recognize employees for actions that might not get a lot of public attention.

Here's some more details about the Renaissance Model being used to turn around the Wake County school system's four lowest performing elementary schools.

The quick description is that additional resources, including new technology, signing bonuses and performance bonuses, will be used at Barwell Road, Brentwood, Creech Road and Wilburn elementary schools. All four schools happen to have high poverty levels but they were chosen because their passing rates were below 60 percent on state exams last year.

The issue has gotten more attention this week because the school board voted Tuesday on a $950,000 a year bonus plan for the schools using federal Race to the Top money.

The Wake County school system has changed the way it will handle new requests for volunteers the rest of the school year.

Instead of reopening the volunteer registration system for a week in December and a week in the spring, principals have been told they can register volunteers on Mondays through April 25. The three exceptions are Dec. 20, Dec. 27 and Jan. 17.

You'll need to ask the principal, or the person's designated representative, to sign up if you haven't yet done so yet. At this point, 35,392 people have registered to be volunteers this school year.

When Wake County school board member John Tedesco called former ally Debra Goldman “Benedict Goldman” on his Facebook site, he did something that’s forbidden to school employees under the system’s new social media policy.

As noted in today's Triangle Politics column, the policy was set forth in this memo in August, after an eighth-grade science teacher faced firing last year after she and her friends made caustic remarks on a Facebook page about her students, the South and Christianity.

“Do not make any comments to others in cyberspace that you would not make face-to-face,” Assistant Superintendent Stephen Gainey wrote in the memo to school employees. “In particular, do not demean, harass, insult, or intimidate others.

Wake County schools are scrambling to get volunteers registered before the district shuts down its volunteer registration system today.

As noted in today's article, the system will go down at 5 p.m. It will reopen for a week in early December and a week in late March or early April.

If you don't register by today or during those two weeks later in the school year, principals have been directed to only submit volunteer applications "that are absolutely necessary."

It looks like Wake County teachers want to work in more affluent schools.

The most requested schools for teacher transfers are typically those in more affluent parts of the county. Wake schools with higher poverty levels tend to see far fewer requests from teachers to work there. (The requests are made by current teachers who want to work elsewhere in Wake.)

Excluding the new schools opening this summer, the five most requested schools this year are Davis Drive Middle, Holly Springs Elementary, Salem Middle, Brier Creek Elementary and Holly Ridge Elementary.

If you're one of the people who've wondered if a four-day work week would be the way to deal with school budget cuts in Wake County, it's not considered a viable option yet.

Chief Business Officer David Neter laid out eight different options Wednesday they said had been suggested by people, including school board members, for coping with $20 million in state cuts. Those eight options were all rejected for various reasons.

Neter said it would take a change in state law to allow Wake to move to a four-day work week. State law requires schools to have both 180 days and 1,000 hours of instruction.

Around 1,600 of Wake's 9,000 teachers will get a pay raise after all this year.

The state, which pays the base salaries for most teachers, froze teacher pay so no one would get a raise. State employees didn't get a raise because of the budget woe.

Some districts, including Wake, are finding a way to give some teachers a raise, working out to between $200 and $350. It will cost $420,000 in local funds that Wake will pull from savings elsewhere in the budget.

UPDATE

Click here for Wednesday's article.