Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo raised nearly $100,000 in her unsuccessful campaign bid.

In her final campaign report filed Monday, Losurdo reported raising $99,207.29 and spending $98,207.83 It was a record amount for a Wake school board race.

The Republican outspent her main District 3 opponent, Democrat Kevin Hill, who raised $68,598 and spent $54,322. But the numbers look to be more in Hill's favor when you factor in the outside spending.

It's looking pretty clear that the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board will not be retaining the legal services of Republican attorney Kieran Shanahan.

Shanahan's legal contract came up last week during the school board's discussion of a proposal to increase Tharrington Smith's hourly legal rate by $5. During the work session discussion, it was noted that Shanahan's law firm is still under contract through June to receive up to $25,000.

The new unanimously approved contract will pay Tharrington Smith's partners $190 per hour, $175 an hour for associates and $95 per hour for paralegals. It's roughly a 2.7 percent increase for partners and 2.9 percent for associates.

Cash Michaels is speculating on Debra Goldman becoming the new Wake County school board vice chairwoman and lists three actions that he says the new Democratic majority must do.

In this week's issue of The Carolinian, Michaels writes that the new majority must revise the student assignment plan "to ensure that no more high poverty schools are created, and that low performing students have access to high performing schools." He also says the new majority will "also have to prioritize the removal of several acts by the current GOP board."

"First, they must cancel any contract the board has with the conservative Civitas Institute, the right-wing think tank funded by conservative activist Art Pope that was hired to train new Wake School Board members," Michaels writes. "Their services are clearly not needed now."

Wake County school board District 6 candidate Donna Williams has narrowed the funding gap between her and Christine Kushner despite having gotten off to a late start.

A new campaign finance report filed this week shows that Williams has raised $41,370.83 as of Sept. 26 with $18,761.70 on hand. Through that same time period, Kushner had raised $50,406.93 with $31,383.11 on hand.

The biggest donors in Williams' new report are the $1,500 from the Northern Wake Republican Club and $1,000 from Dr. James Fulghum.

Ron Margiotta has become only the third person to have raised more than $50,000 in a Wake County school board race.

A new campaign finance report filed this week shows that the incumbent board chairman had raised $52,748.31 as of Sept. 26. He has $31,915.55 on hand in the District 8 race.

Margiotta leads Susan Evans, who had raised $37,524.69 as of Sept. 26 with $21,770.23 on hand. But you also have to keep in mind the thousands of dollars spent by outside groups urging people to support Evans or vote against Margiotta.

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.

Wake County Commissioners are scheduled to vote today on taking over the acquisition of new school sites from the school board.

Based on this handout, it would still be up to the school system to identify target rings for where to look for new school sites. But it would be the county that would take the lead in finding site, in consultation with school staff.

If a potential site is found outside the target rings, it would be brought to the school system promptly for approval before any further county staff action is taken.

The Wake County school board will formally discuss the potentially contentious issue of redistricting at today's meeting.

In a last-minute addition to the agenda, school board member Kevin Hill says he's asking the board to discuss a resolution on providing a "transparent" process for drawing up the new boundaries to be used for the nine school board districts. Hill said he asked for it to be discussed because the school system needs to begin work on redistricting soon.

One question could be who is tasked with drawing up the new boundaries that will be voted on by the board.

Mark Elgart, president of AdvancED, is trying to defuse allegations that the accreditation agency has prejudged the Wake County school system and is trying to get the school board to restore the diversity policy.

In an interview Friday on "The Rick and Donna Martinez Show" on WPTF, Elgart said it's a "misnomer" that their review is all about the student assignment policy. He said he's not telling Wake how to assign students.

"I have made this clear to the school system: You have a right to assign students to attend schools in the manner in which you see is in the best interests of the community," Elgart said. "And we accredit more than 25,000 schools across this country and school systems have a myriad of ways in which they  assign students to schools and the dominant one we all know is neighborhood schools."

I meant to blog about this earlier, but Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is taking a defiant tone about the impending visit by the special accreditation review team from AdvancED.

In an interview Thursday on the Bill LuMaye show on WPTF, Margiotta accused  AdvancED of trying to take away the public's control of the school system with its review of the state NAACP complaint. He said the wide-ranging review of things such as the hiring of attorney Thomas Farr "are not in any way related to the performance of schools."

"Their review is regarding 12 items that are just so far out of whack that have absolutely nothing to do with the performance within our high schools," Margiotta said. "They intend to take away the public's, when I say the public I mean school board members are representative of the public. Their intention is to take away the public's operation of the school system and that is not going to be tolerated."