Wake County school board member Kevin Hill says he wants to correct "misinformation" about Baileywick Elementary School that was spread by Heather Losurdo during her unsuccessful bid to unseat him.

Under the words "Rock Bottom," Losurdo had put out a campaign mailer saying "Baileywick Elementary School is a high needs declining enrollment school in Raleigh that deserves Federal funding under the needs-based formula instead of being funded on a per-pupil basis." She charged that "Hill has refused to advocate for them, so they have been unable to get the funds and resources they need."

During Tuesday's board meeting, Hill said it was "really important to give Baileywick a good shout out," as he pointed to the school's academic accomplishments.

This is the "stonewall" campaign mailer from Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo that has generated some controversy in District 3.

The mailer says that incumbent school board member "Kevin Hill says he will 'Stonewall' Concerned Parents." She got the year wrong in the mailer but it references a March 30, 2010 email that was released last year by the Bedford Homeowners Association.

"Some 300 Bedford area parents signed a petition to the School Board asking to be heard about the reassignment of their children from nearby Wakefield High School to Heritage High," says the mailer. "Kevin Hill refused to meet with us and emailed the principal at Heritage that he intended to 'stonewall' them and their petition. Heather Lousrdo will listen to her constituents and advocate for their needs. Is that any way for a Representative to treat his constituents?"

Will the disparity between what rich and poor schools get in private dollars increase under the new choice-based student assignment plan being developed for Wake County?

As noted in Sunday's article by Thomas Goldsmith and David Raynor, Wake County schools receive more than $21 million each year in private revenue. Schools like Lacy Elementary raise around $100,000 a year from a non-profit foundation while Creech Road Elementary got $12,738 last year in various private donations.

"It is an equity issue that is hard to address because it's private money," said school board member Keith Sutton.

The repeated theme at last week's ED task force meeting is that all children can succeed but it's going to take a lot of hard work from the school system to help the students out.

The tenor of the Wake County school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was set when this YouTube video of Sir Ken Robinson was shown to a packed room of teachers and principals.

Robinson contends that the current educational system is based on the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment and the environment of the Industrial Revolution. He argues that most people don't benefit from that model, creating the plague of ADHD.

Year-round schools, student discipline and the budget aren't the only issues on today's Wake County school board agenda.

The work session that begins at 3 p.m. will include Superintendent Tony Tata giving school-by-school recommendations whether the 14 underutilized multi-track year-round schools should move to a single track for 2011-12. The formal vote will take place during the regular meeting that begins at 5:30 p.m.

You also have the interesting situation in which during the work session Tata will talk about proposed changes to the student transfer policy as a result of the probe into school board vice chairwoman Debra Goldman's case.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

Don't look for the Wake County school board to spend a lot of time on Tuesday going over board member Kevin Hill's consensus-building approach to developing a new student assignment plan.

The agenda for Tuesday's work session calls for spending 30 minutes discussing Hill's proposal. School board chairman Ron Margiotta said now that standing committees are being restored, he expects a discussion about whether Hill's proposal will be sent to a committee.

The rest of the agenda is packed with the longest amount, 60 minutes, set aside for a discussion of the details of next year's student assignment plan.

The Wake County school board student assignment committee spent time Tuesday reviewing equity and program offering in the district.

Interim Superintendent Donna Hargens used the cupcake analogy in which she said that all schools should have the same basic foundations, or "cake." She said magnet schools have the "icing" such as arts programs.

For Advanced Placement programs, Hargens said they try to give high school students equal access to those courses. She pointed to how students travel physically or electronically to take AP courses not offered by their school.

Here's a quick recap of today's joint meeting of the Wake County school board and county commissioners.

While no vote was taken today, it looks like the school board will soon be restoring some of the parent counseling positions cut from Project Enlightenment. A majority of board members raised concerns today about the plan to contract the counseling work to Wake County Human Services.

The question is whether the school board will make it a conditional restoration.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR PRAISE FROM THE N.C. SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECT

A new round of Wake County school test results is scheduled to come out today.

At 10 a.m., school districts across the state are scheduled to release their preliminary No Child Left Behind results. We’ll find out how many schools made adequate yearly progress and how many others are expected to have to provide transfer and tutoring options for the 2010-11 school year.

Supporters of the diversity policy had praised the preliminary state tests results last week, saying it showed the school board majority wasn’t  justified in changing the student assignment policy. But will today’s results continue to back  the assertions of the diversity policy supporters or will they try to sidestep them?

It looks like Wake County will notify families earlier about their options for transferring out of schools not meeting federal No Child Left Behind requirements.

School administrators will present to the school board today the transfer options for 19 Title I schools that may have to provide school choice under NCLB for the 2010-11 school year.

Last year, Wake faced complaints that it wasn't following NCLB guidelines requiring parental notification of transfer choices 14 days before the start of the new school year. Administrators said then they'd provide earlier notification for this year.

UPDATE

The board approved the list without any changes.