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.

There's going to be a vote this afternoon on converting Leesville Road elementary and middle schools and Mills Park Elementary to a traditional calendar while opening Mills Park Middle on that same calendar.

The Wake County board agreed during this afternoon's committee of the whole meeting to go ahead with votes at the regular meeting on those four schools. While the COW votes were only on putting the schools on the action agenda, it's a good be that they'll be approved as well at the regular meeting.

The board appeared to be willing to defer to the wishes of individual members.

UPDATE

The school board unanimously approved the four calendar conversions.

Four year-round schools have made the list that Wake County school administrators will present to the school board on Tuesday for consideration for conversion to a traditional calendar.

The schools are Wakefield Elementary, Leesville Road Middle, Salem Middle and Mills Park Middle. Leesville Road Elementary is not in the group.

Administrators are stressing that they're not recommending that those four schools be converted. They're just saying they're the ones they think the board may want to consider, not that it will stop Deborah Prickett from proposing Leesville Elementary as well.

The issue of calendar conversions for the 2010-11 school year could be decided as soon as Tuesday.

As noted in today's article, members of the new Wake County school board majority say they plan to vote Tuesday after they get the recommendations from staff earlier in the day on which schools to convert. They're not planning to wait two more weeks until March 16 for the vote.

"If it's on the agenda, I'm ready to go," said school board member Chris Malone on the conversion of some year-round schools to a traditional calendar.