Another round of "Moral Monday" protests are on tap today as the state NAACP continues its weekly protests at the General Assembly.

In a pair of articles Friday, the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, and Yvonne Brannon, head of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, cite the 2010 Wake County school board protests as being successful forerunners of the current protests.

In Friday's Associated Press article, Barber says doubters of the effectiveness of the current protests should look to what happened when they fought the student assignment efforts of the former Republican school board majority in Wake.

The Wake County school system is denying that members of the school board's Democratic majority are being unduly influenced by the Great Schools in Wake Coalition.

As noted in today's article, Wake's school board attorneys are telling AdvancED that majority members are making decisions based on their independent judgment and not because of the influence of Great Schools or any other advocacy group. The Wake County Taxpayers Association had charged GSIW had "extreme influence" on the majority, particularly the new board members.

"The allegation that the Board members who voted in favor of the June 19 student assignment directive did so because of 'extreme influence' from GSIW is suppositional and wrong," says this report.

Local conservative activist Joey Stansbury recently created a Facebook page to criticize the Great Schools in Wake Coalition's impact on the Wake County school system.

On the "Great Students in Wake" page, Stansbury and other GSIW critics have various posts taking the liberal group to task on things such as the firing of Superintendent Tony Tata. The page also includes posts criticizing members of the school board's Democratic majority.

One of the most recent posts is a link to a Friday blog post on Stansbury's Wake Community Network, where he criticizes Amy Lee's appointment to a school board advisory council. The post includes photos from a school board meeting that show Lee and GSIW chairwoman Yevonne Brannon talking behind speakers at the podium.

"Those who have not attended Wake County Board of Education meetings perhaps don't witness what amounts to a constant level of disruption and rude and belligerent chatter from the Great Schools (not students) in Wake leadership," Stansbury writes in the post.

Political consultant Perry Woods is demanding that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman retract statements she made to Cary police in 2010 suggesting that he broke into her car during a 2009 appearance at the studios of WPTF.

In this letter dated today, Woods' attorney, Jack Nichols, demands Goldman write an apology and issue a retraction for all the "defamatory statements" in the police report because they are "false and slanderous." Nichols warns that unless the apology and retraction are published by Nov. 1 they may file a lawsuit against Goldman.

In an interview Monday on the Bill LuMaye Show on WPTF, Woods denied he had anything to do with the break in of Goldman's car. LuMaye said Woods was in the studio during the whole debate and "would never" break into a person's car.

It's not every day that one elected official accuses another of potentially committing a felony and then both tell police about their relationship.

As noted in today's article, a Cary police report shows that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman reported in June 2010 that $130,000 was stolen from her home and that she named board member Chris Malone as a potential suspect.

Malone was able to satisfy investigators that he didn't commit the burglary. In the process, both board members gave conflicting statements about whether they had a romantic relationship.

Among the names appointed to a Wake County school board advisory council on Tuesday was the familiar one of Ellen Nightingale.

School board member Jim Martin tapped Nightingale to serve on his District 5 board advisory council as the rep for Conn Elementary School. Nightingale was a vocal public critic of the choice plan, speaking to media outlets and appearing at board meetings.

Nightingale had complained that although she lives in the Mordecai neighborhood near downtown Raleigh, she and several neighbors weren't able to get their kids into kindergarten after the first choice round.

CORRECTION/UPDATE

Nightingale says she lives in Oakwood, which is near Mordecai and that Conn is her closest school. Nightingale says that, despite being on Yevonne Brannon's email list, she's not a member of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is mobilizing to get the new Wake County student assignment plan to include the diversity-related assignments.

In an email message dated Sept. 12, GSIW chairwoman Yevonne Brannon tells people that her discussions with school board members was "not encouraging." Brannon writes about a "board member who wants what we want but is too weak to push for it and too afraid to step up to the plate, because he is worried about community push back."

Brannon writes that "another board member who doesn’t seem to 'agree' about how to fix diversity-how to have balanced schools.....he seems to believe kids can choose out. After some discussion he agreed to 'think it over.'"

This email from Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, offers a perspective of what critics of Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata and the Republican school board members say behind the scenes.

In the Aug. 18 email message, Brannon says Tata is taunting and bullying people when he says they need to "cowboy up" to pass a school bond issue next year. She says many people don't approve of Tata's work and feel that he's helped resegregate the schools.

"Many, many people in the minority community, the economic developers in the business community, the progressive and social justice community members, the advocates for the disabled and underrepresented children, advocates for our teachers and staff, and those who regard public education as a right for all children together add to a large group that does not trust Mr. Tata," Brannon writes.

UPDATE

To make it clearer, the email was not forwarded to me by Brannon. I obtained a copy of the email from another person and posted it, as I mentioned in the post, as an example of the things that are said privately about Tata and the board members.

Cash Michaels is speculating on whether Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata will do as he's publicly stated that he'll carry out the new student assignment directive.

In an article in The Carolinian out today, Michaels notes that Tata "has had several very public nasty fights with" the school board's new Democratic majority. The liberal Michaels also calls Tata "a conservative Tea Party sympathizer who sources say has US senatorial aspirations in a few years."

"With his heart really not into establishing a base school model with aspects of choice, and elements of stability, proximity, student achievement and diversity, will Tata drag his feet in meeting the 2013-14 school year deadline, or will the retired US Army brigadier general be the “good soldier,” and follow the directive?" Michaels writes.

Student assignment is again expected to be a noticeable component of today's Wake County school board meeting.

During the work session, staff will present updated student assignment choice plan reports. This should include updated school-by-school data through the first two rounds.

Also during the work session, staff will discuss the rationale for recommending extending the end of the waiting list deadline from June 29 to July 18. The vote would come during the regular meeting.

During the regular meeting, we'll see how successful Yevonne Brannon and other leaders of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition have been in encouraging a large turnout during public comment for scrapping the new assignment plan. We'll also see if that results in any kind of board reaction tonight.

UPDATE

Click here to view updated school enrollment, capacity and projected demographic data for this fall.