Some familiar names are on the list of people being nominated Tuesday for placement on Wake County school board advisory councils.

The nominees for school board member Jim Martin's BAC include former Assistant Superintendent Mike Burriss and Ann Overton. Diana Bader has been nominated to serve on school board member Debra Goldman's BAC. Karey Harwood has been nominated for board vice chairman Keith Sutton's BAC.

Some of the new BAC members were nominated by other people.

CORRECTION

Harwood was nominated to school board vice chairman Keith Sutton's BAC.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton raised more than $30,000 during his lopsided election win in District 4 last fall.

In Sutton's final campaign report filed Thursday, the Democratic-backed candidate reported raising $33,327 and spending $32,484.31. His Republican challenger, Venita Peyton, hasn't filed her final report yet. But she had reported raising $1,280 as of Sept. 26.

Sutton's report seems to be missing some info. He reports having raised $5,500 from other political committees on his summary page. But the actual page listing this contribution or contributions isn't included.

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo has raised a record total of more than $80,000 in her bid to unseat incumbent Kevin Hill.

New campaign finance reports made public today show that Losurdo had reported raising $82,357 through Oct. 24. The prior record was the $79,500 that conservative businessman Bob Luddy had raised, largely out of his own pocket, in his unsuccessful run for the school board in 1997.

Hill’s new report shows he’s raised $42,748 through Oct 24. While Hill has almost half of Losurdo’s total, outside groups not connected to his campaign have spent tens of thousands of dollars on mailers and television ads attacking Losurdo.

SEE END OF POST FOR REACTIONS FROM BOTH CAMPAIGNS

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta and Susan Evans are both pulling in substantial amounts of cash in the District 8 race, including money from the Popes, Bob Luddy and the Campbells.

The new campaign report filed today by Margiotta shows he had raised $40,367.33 as of Aug. 30 with $34,111.23 on hand. The new report for Evans shows she had raised $26,406.43 as of Aug. 30 with $21,405.30 on hand.

The biggest donors for Margiotta in his new report are the $4,000 apiece from conservative businessman Art Pope, his wife Katherine Pope and conservative businessman Bob Luddy.

The Wake Citizens for Good Government PAC is looking like it could be a big player in this fall's Wake County school board elections.

As noted in today's article, the PAC has reported raising $27,803.28 with $25,671.54 on hand. In contrast, the Wake Schools Community Alliance has reported raising $268.92 an having only $1 on hand.

There's a strong connection between Wake Citizens for Good Government, the five Democratic school board candidates and the Wake County Democratic Party. A number of people are giving money to all three groups, similar to how some of the 2009 donors gave money to the four winning school board candidates, the WSCA and the Wake County Republican Party.

Supporters of the old diversity policy are giving plenty of cash to Wake County school board candidate Christine Kushner.

Kushner's latest campaign report filed this week shows she's raised $12,061.24 so far in her bid to win the District 6 seat. Many of the donors should be familiar as they've spoken out at school board meetings and other forums against the change in student assignment.

Donors include former school board member Beverley Clark, former school board candidate Lois Nixon, Wake County PTA Council President Diane Dulaney, Amy Womble, Adrienne Lumpkin, Brenda Berg, Swain Wood, Anne Cooper and Colethia Evans.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata confirmed Friday that the district had taken disciplinary action against the Enloe High School teacher who publicly criticized a student and warned he might rescind the teen’s college recommendation letters.

As noted in today's article, teacher Joseph Hoffman was suspended without pay for five days. All sides acknowledge he publicly criticized Jay Zhang's letter to the editor in front of his students and had talked about rescinding the teen's college recommendation letters.

“I support Jay Zhang’s rights to free speech,” Tata said “I applaud that young man for speaking his mind and exercising his free speech rights. I don’t believe any teacher should threaten to take action against a student for exercising his rights to free speech.”

The low attendance on May 4 was raised by both sides in the Wake County school board lawsuit to make their case about public participation.

As noted in today's article, Judge Bill Pittman found that the school board is making reasonable accommodations to handle the crowds at meetings, including the one on Tuesday. The school system took extra steps on May 4 that turned out to be unneeded.

Administrators had set up two rooms on the fourth floor, two floors above the board room, to serve as overflow seating for 100 more people. People would have been able to watch the meetings off a video feed.

The plaintiffs are speaking positively even though Judge Pittman dismissed their lawsuit today.

In a press release issued this evening by the ACLU of North Carolina, the group points to how Pittman found certain board actions to be unreasonable such as requiring ticket holders to remain on premises for hours before the meeting and completely excluding the public from the committee of the whole meetings. He also said failing to make accommodations for people who are disabled is unreasonable.

Something to consider is that these practices were all changed before the lawsuit was filed.