Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton raised less than $1,700 in her underfunded and unsuccessful campaign bid last year.

Her last campaign report filed Monday makes it hard to tell what she got. But if you combine it with this prior one, it shows Peyton raised $1.645 and spent $1.529.96. Democratic school board member Keith Sutton raised $33,327 and spent $32,484.31 to win the seat he was first appointed to in 2009.

Peyton, who received 19 percent of the vote, was the only one of the five Republican-backed school board candidates who didn't get a donation from Art Pope or Bob Luddy. Both men gave donations to the other four GOP-backed candidates, who also lost last fall.

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.

The final campaign reports for last fall's elections are starting to come in and they show that Cynthia Matson was at a major funding disadvantage in her bid to win a seat on the Wake County school board.

In Matson's final report filed Tuesday, the Republican-backed candidate reported having raised and spent $13,807.10. Her Democratic opponent in District 5, Jim Martin, hasn't filed his final report yet. But Martin had reported raising $31,534.46 as of Sept. 26.

The biggest contributor in Matson's latest report is conservative businessman Art Pope, who gave $4.000. All five Republican school board candidates have reported receiving donations from Pope except for Venita Peyton, whose final report isn't in yet.

We now know how much money Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton raised before last month's election. It wasn't much.

A campaign finance report filed Friday by Peyton showed she had raised $1,280 as of Sept. 26. School board member Keith Sutton had raised $23,872 as of Sept. 26 before going on to pick up 81 percent of the District 4 vote.

The lack of funding prevented Peyton from doing much in the way of advertising. This came in the same year where overall spending by the candidates, political parties and outside groups set a new county record.

Peyton should have filed this particular pre-election report by Oct. 2. The Wake County Board of Election sent Peyton a notice on Oct. 18 telling her she was delinquent in filing the pre-election report.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton has raised nearly $24,000 in his bid to retain the District 4 seat.

A new campaign report filed this week shows Sutton had raised $23,872 as of Sept. 26 with $15,386.04 on hand. Venita Peyton's new report isn't up yet but she was at under $1,000 raised at the end of August.

The largest donors for Sutton in the new report are the $2,000 from Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon and $500 from Wake Citizens for Good Government.

Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton seems to be making the Rev. William Barber as much of an issue as her District 4 opponent, Keith Sutton.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Peyton's position against the old diversity policy puts her at odds against those like Barber, president of the state NAACP. Peyton has stood against much of the African American leadership in Southeast Raleigh for years.

“It gets painful being out there all by yourself,” Peyton said. “It’s hard saying, ‘Mr. Barber, you are wrong!’”

Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton is accusing school board incumbent Keith Sutton of being "doubleminded."

In a press release today, Peyton questions Sutton on a variety of issues, such as how he attended the ribbon-cutting for Walnut Creek Elementary "while consistently voting against our parents who favor proximity." She also criticizes him for driving his daughter to school at the same time "he’s content with busing East and Southeast Raleigh children all over Wake County,"

Peyton also criticizes Sutton for voting against the new math placement policy and argues he really shouldn't say he lives in Southeast Raleigh.

The Wake County Republican Party is trumpeting in this new radio campaign ad the school system's high average SAT score and improving graduation rate to say the school board majority has been a "spectacular success."

It's part of a theme being used by members of the Wake County school board majority and their supporters heading into the election next week. The Wake County Democratic Party is objecting, such as in this blog post last week from former Deputy State Schools Superintendent J.B. Buxton accusing the Republicans of taking credit for efforts begun by prior boards.

Here's the text for the radio ad:

The Wake County Republican Party is taking a blame the media strategy to energize their base for the upcoming school board elections.

In this week's issue of the Elephant Express, Wake GOP Chairwoman Susan Bryant contends today that the news media is being "dishonest" in not covering the school board's accomplishments. For instance, she contends that a recent article didn't report that Wake County's average SAT scores are above the national average because "the N&O simply wasn't about to print anything that might reflect positively on the job the Wake County School Board was doing."

That story focused on how the state was doing on the SAT. It didn't mention Wake's performance or that of any area district. It also didn't mention that Chapel Hill-Carrboro has an even high score.

It looks like Wake County school board candidate Venita Peyton is going to have to rely on an online campaign in the absence of much campaign cash.

In a post today on her Outside The Box blog, Peyton writes that "the 2011 School Board race is shaping up to be a choice between two types of candidates: those for children and those for power." She rips into NCAE, the old school board and prior superintendents for "low student achievement and high dropouts for the past decade."

On her campaign website, Peyton explains her decision to not attend Thursday's District 4 forum sponsored by WakeUP Wake County, the League of Women Voters of Wake County and the Southeast Raleigh Assembly: