The Wake County school board appointed one permanent and five interim principals this evening.

Lisa Whitaker was named principal of Wake Early College of Health and Sciences in Raleigh with a salary of $85,659. She has been an assistant principal at Middle Creek High since 2008.

Gerald Pickett was hired to be interim principal of Enloe High in Raleigh with a salary equivalent to $127,496. He was principal of Fuquay-Varina from 2001 until he retired in 2005.

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Normally, the Wake County school board approves principal appointments unanimously.

But tonight, the board voted 6-2 on the entire list of administrative appointments presented to them. School board vice chairman John Tedesco and board member Debra Goldman didn't specify which one(s) they opposed.

Here's the list:

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The Wake County school board moved one high school principal to Central Office this evening and transferred another principal to a different school.

John Williams, the principal of Middle Creek High School in Cary, was appointed senior director for high school education. The job became open after Ruth Steidinger switched to being senior director for middle school education.

Williams opened Middle Creek in 2001 and will leave the school on Nov. 1. Thomas Dixon will serve as interim principal at Middle Creek, Dixon, the former longtime principal of Apex High School, will receive a salary that's equivalent to $131,580 a year.

Wake County school administrators think they know which magnet school you'll go to in August but they want to make sure about it first with the school board.

School administrators have preliminarily placed 4,589 of this year's 7,670 magnet applicants under new selection criteria that no longer uses socioeconomic diversity for most magnet schools. Administrators say they want the board's official blessing on Wednesday for the new criteria before notifying families.

Staff is uncertain about how many of the 2,850 year-round and 1,776 traditional-calendar applicants will be placed.

Folks from near Atlanta will be coming to town this week to see what tips they can pick up from the Triangle, including from the Wake school system.

The delegation from Gwinnett County, an Atlanta suburb, will spend part of Friday learning about education issues.

Things will kick off with former Superintendent Bill McNeal and former school board member Tom Oxholm talking about their new book, "A School District's Journey to Excellence: Lessons From Business and Education."