The East Wake High School of Health Science will need a new principal

The Wilmington Star-News is reporting that the Pender County school board voted today to hire Craig Baker as principal of Pender High School. Baker had been the principal of the School of Health Science and the campus manager of the four small schools that comprise East Wake High School in Wendell.

Baker had been principal of the School of Heath Science since 2005. Before then, he was an assistant principal at East Wake High from 2002 to 2005. He's a former teacher and athletic trainer at the high school.

Coincidentally or not, former Wake County Chief of Staff Terri Cobb is the superintendent of Pender County schools. Cobb had also been a principal at Lockhart Elementary School in Knightdale.

UPDATE

Click here for the Pender County school system press release on Baker's hiring.

Click here for the Eastern Wake News online article about Baker saying why he chose to leave Wake.

Another one of Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's top administrators may be leaving for another job.

The Washoe County school system announced today that Judy Peppler, Wake's chief transformation officer and chief of staff, is one of five finalists for the superintendent's position. Located in Nevada, Washoe has 62,000 students.

The Wake school board hired Peppler in September. Like Tata, Peppler is a non-educator who received training at the Broad Superintendents Academy.

Peppler was brought in to oversee the newly created Office of Transformation, which has overseen the controlled-choice student assignment plan that looks to be on the way out. To save money after Terri Cobb left, Peppler was also given the job of chief of staff.

Here are some tidbits from today's news conference with Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata.

Tata said there were 5,115 magnet school applications as of 5 a.m. today, an amount comparable to the same time in the application process in February. He said that historically there's a last-minute spike, which could again occur before the close of this year's filing period at 10 p.m. Monday.

Tata urged parents to apply even though they might be discouraged about how the system lists so few magnet seats at some popular schools. As previously noted, the seat numbers reflect how Wake preassigned 1,892 rising magnet sixth- and ninth-graders for next school year because it's part of their feeder.

UPDATE

Click here to view the online story about the presentation at the Realtors meeting.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is losing another member of his leadership team.

The Pender County school board announced today that Terri Cobb, the Wake County school system's Chief of Staff, will become that district's new superintendent. Cobb used to be principal of Lockhart Elementary School in Knightdale.

Tata inherited Cobb, who was appointed Chief of Staff five years ago by Superintendent Del Burns. Several members of Tata's leadership team have left since January with some leaving on their own and others being forced out.

Who makes the most money in the Wake County school system?

That's one of the questions that the Charlotte Observe looked at as part of a Sunday article on six-figures salaries in Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. Wake had 99 employees making at least $100,000 with 60 of them being principals.

This compares to 103 Wake employees with six-figure salaries in 2010, 112 in 2009 and 99 in 2008.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata has determined that school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman did not violate board policy when she got a paperwork-free transfer for her daughter.

As noted in today's article, Tata also said the investigation into Goldman's case and 14 other students who received administrative transfers shows that some changes are needed. In particular, Tata says Wake should have required Goldman to file paperwork and not just make a verbal request.

Going forward, Tata said he will require that all similar requests for administrative transfers, which bypass the normal transfer process, come with complete documentation. Tata said the onus is on the school system and not the parent, even when it’s a school board member, to make sure that paperwork is filed.

Student assignment and diversity accounted for much of the questions that Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata faced Thursday night at the meeting organized by NC HEAT.

As noted in today's article, Tata talked several times about the task force that will hold its first meeting this afternoon for developing a new long-term student assignment plan. He repeatedly said that a focus of the task force will be on figuring out a way to avoid leaving schools with high concentrations of low-performing students.

"It’s clear that for me the student assignment plan really has to address avoiding high concentrations of low-performing students," Tata told the crowd. "That’s the framework and prism from which I’m addressing.”