School board candidate John Tedesco has overtaken Cathy Truitt for the fundraising lead in District 2.

In this campaign report received today, Tedesco reported having raised $20,065.96 as of Oct. 19. Through that same time period, Truitt had reported raising $19,425.31.

Tedesco also has a lot more money than Truitt available for spending in the final week. He reported having spent $12,936.07 and having $6,100.40 on hand.

Chalk this up as another example of how things are changing on the school board.

The Wake County Taxpayers Association is announcing that school board candidate John Tedesco and the three newly elected school board members will speak at the group's monthly meeting on Thursday.

They'll be joined by current school board member Ron Margiotta, called "our hero" by the WCTA, and Allison Backhouse of the Wake Schools Community Alliance.

Cathy Truitt fired bullets at the new school board members, the Wake County Republican Party and the Wake Schools Community Alliance as she announced her decision to concede the District 2 race.

Truitt warned that the new board majority will move toward resegregated schools by cutting magnet programs and sending students to "pure neighborhood schools." She said the public needs to speak out now to get the board to back off from making the quick changes she said they're planning.

"I don't think people want the school system to be blown up," Truitt said at her press conference. "If people get involved now, they can have an impact."

We've got the political pawn/resegregationist vs. the flip-flopper.

As noted in today's article, those are some of the uncharitable accusations being flung by the candidates in the District 2 school board runoff election. There's clearly no love lost between John Tedesco and Cathy Truitt, who is expected to announce today that she's dropping out of the race.

"Every day it's a different kind of sensational language," Tedesco said in the article of Truitt's charge that she will stop him from resegregating the schools.

Take Wake Schools Back is speaking out on Tuesday's school board election results and next month's District 2 runoff.

In today's press release, the PAC says it still stands behind John Tedesco and accuses Cathy Truitt of equivocating on the issues. While the Wake Schools Community Alliance has been more bipartisan, Take Wake Schools Back has a stronger tie with the Wake County Republican Party.

Here's the press release:

The Wake Education Partnership is offering its assessment of the school board election results and the SAS report.

In this week's issue of In Context, the WEP's newsletter notes the small turnout and the unhappiness of voters with student assignment policies. You also get an interesting analysis of the precinct results in each race, such as how Horace Tart missed the runoff by not doing well in Fuquay-Varina.

On the SAS report, the WEP says that Asst. Supt. David Holdzkom will discuss the report with the school board on Oct. 20.

For a less emotional but still upset perspective of Tuesday's election results, you might want to try the latest column by Chris Fitzimon.

Fitzsimon, executive director of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch, argues that the diversity policy was overturned by only 3 percent of Wake County's voters. It's based on the votes for the WSCA candidates as a share of the registered voters in Wake.

Get ready for four weeks of heavy campaigning in the District 2 school board runoff.

As noted in today's article, Cathy Truitt expects to call for a runoff against John Tedesco. However reluctantly, folks who backed Horace Tart will likely turn to Truitt in hopes of staving off a complete sweep by the WSCA candidates.

"I'm hopeful that we can continue to talk with her about the need to continue to maintain diversity in our schools," said Calla Wright, president of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children. "That's our glimmer of hope."

The SAS report on the Wake school system is emerging as a last-minute campaign issue in the school board races.

While supporters of the diversity policy were holding their press conference today at the Raleigh Convention Center, critics were handing out copies of the SAS report to the media.

Once the press conference ended and the microphones were switched off, critics of the diversity policy got up to speak with the media still on hand.

Here's the Wake Schools Community Alliance handout, which includes the SAS report, a summary of it and some other stuff.

UPDATE

Here's the online story of the press conference.

It's clear that a lot of the school board campaign money is being given along party lines.

As noted in today's article, supporters of current board policies are getting a lot of backing from Democrats. Critics of current board policies are getting a lot of money from Republicans.

"I thought that maintaining diversity is very important for the county" said Wake County Commissioner Stan Norwalk on why he gave money to Rita Rakestraw and Lois Nixon.