Barring any last-minute changes next week, it looks like the new year-round calendar option for Lynn Road Elementary base families will be Wakefield Elementary.

But the discussion on the issue during Tuesday's Wake County school board student assignment work session raises issues about the role year-round calendar options should play in the district. Should Wake continue to not offer year-round options that are considered more attractive than the base school?

The discussion also raised the prospect that the school system may at some point convert Wakefield Elementary back to a traditional calendar.

It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.

The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.

The Wake County school board hired a new principal tonight for Wakefield Elementary School.

Victoria Privott will receive a salary of $78,817 to run Wakefield, located in North Raleigh. Privott, a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg teacher, has been principal of Patterson Elementary School in D.C. since 2011.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata used to be the chief operating officer of the D.C. Public Schools. Since starting in Wake in January 2011, the district has hired some former D.C. school employees to be principals and to serve in senior leadership positions.

UPDATE

Click here to view Privott's bio.

Tuesday's District 3 runoff election between Wake County school board member Kevin Hill and challenger Heather Losurdo pits two very different candidates with differing life experiences and views.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Hill is the long-time Raleigh resident and career educator who has made some decisions that he feels are data-driven even when they've been unpopular with constituents.

As noted in today's article, Losurdo is the relative newcomer who had a challenging childhood and early adulthood that she says has helped shaped her into a better person.

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?"

It's the self-described "principled principal" running against three challengers who all think they can do a better job of representing District 3 on the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, school board member Kevin Hill is emphasizing his education background in his re-election bid. With the departure of Carolyn Morrison in December, Hill says he would potentially be the only board member left with experience as a teacher and principal.

"As a Board of Education, it's important to have some perspectives from an educator with both my experience as a teacher and principal," Hill said.

The Wake Schools Community Alliance is going after Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo and the new student assignment plan in its efforts to back Jennifer Mansfield in District 3.

In an e-mail Tuesday to WSCA supporters, the group says Losurdo "can't make those arguments on her own" and "she will rely on the Republican machine to feed her talking points." It's part of a message urging people to donate to Mansfield and help out in the campaign.

"WCPSS students deserve more!" according to the e-mail. "They deserve someone like Jennifer who has been in the trenches fighting for family oriented, student oriented solutions for many years."

The issue of whether siblings could be accommodated on Track 4 decided which Wake County year-round schools would make the move to a single track for the next two school years.

Click here for this handout that shows how the 14 underutilized year-round schools were evaluated by staff. Inability to accommodate siblings was cited for eight of the nine schools as to why a move to a single-track year-round calendar wasn't considered feasible.

Laura Evans, senior director for Growth and Planning, said inability to accommodate siblings reflected challenges caused by moving multi-track year-round schools to a single-track calendar.

More details to come later but there's now a proposal on the table to collapse 14 multi-track Wake County year-round schools to a single track.

Superintendent Tony Tata proposed today giving flexibility to principals at under-enrolled year-round schools the flexibility to go to a single track for the 2011-12 school year. He said the principals would pick the track.

The schools identified by Tata are those that are at under 100 percent of what would be their single-track capacity: Alston Ridge, Ballentine, Banks Road, East Garner, Harris Creek, Highcroft, Lake Myra, Rand Road, River Bend, Timber Drive, Wakefield and West Lake elementary schools; and East Cary and Holly Grove middle schools.

UPDATE

Tata says he'll come back in May with a specific list of schools to recommend. While he didn't specify a number, it will likely not be all of the 14 year-round schools that are below 100 percent of single-track capacity.

The Wake County school system may be paying again for its decision to pack Forest Pines Drive Elementary and North Forest Pines Elementary on the same campus.

At the recommendation of staff, the school board took the unusual step on Tuesday of implementing an enrollment cap during the middle of a school year. The board's action to put a cap on Forest Pines will allow Growth Management to turn away new students this school year from the school's base and send them to either Wakefield or Rolesville elementary schools.

It's the third time that Forest Pines has been capped since the 2008-09 school year.