The Wake County school board appointed four principals today.

Keith Richardson was chosen to lead York Elementary School in North Raleigh. He has been an assistant principal at Sycamore Creek Elementary since 2009 and will receive a salary of $64,560.

Cheryl Stidham will run Stough Elementary School in North Raleigh. Stidham has been an elementary school principal in Ohio since 2006 and will receive a salary of $77,512.

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Interim principals were appointed by the Wake County school board tonight to fill in at Stough and York elementary schools.

Dixie Frazier will fill in at Stough with a salary that's equivalent to $96,604 a year. Before retiring, she was principal of East Cary Middle, Reedy Creek Elementary and Underwood Elementary.

Edward Gainor was chosen to fill in again at York with a salary equivalent to $99,491 a year. The retired former principal of Leesville Road Elementary served as York's interim principal in the summer of 2008.

York lost its principal to one of the Renaissance Schools. Stough's principal left to run Carroll Middle.

CORRECTED TO REMOVE REFERENCE TO STOUGH PRINCIPAL LEAVING TO RUN A RENAISSANCE SCHOOL

Click here to view the bio sheets.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata announced today the names of eight of the 10 schools that will get special academic programs for the 2011-12 school year to make them more attractive to parents.

Tata said that Hilburn Drive, York and Aversboro elementary schools, Carroll Middle School and Knightdale High School will receive STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs.

Tata announced that Timber Drive, Jeffreys Grove and Stough elementary schools will receive Global Schools programs that will include things such as greater emphasis on teaching foreign languages.

UPDATE

In case I didn't make it clear in my budget post, Tata said today that he has no plans to cut back on the new STEM schools and Global Schools even in the face of deeper than projected state funding cuts.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata is recommending two vastly differently approaches to deal with under-enrolled schools.

As noted in today's article, one approach had the school board voting Tuesday to set aside $896,000 to provide additional teachers to five small underutilized elementary schools. The article also noted how when it comes to underutilized multi-track year-round schools, Tata wants to pursue the option of letting them switch to a single track.

Let's start with the small elementary schools discussion.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR LINKS TO HANDOUTS

More details to come later but there's been a change in which five under-enrolled Wake County traditional-calendar elementary schools would get additional staffing for the 2011-12 school year.

Wake Superintendent Tony Tata said today that Baileywick Elementary School is on the list because its enrollment has been declining sharply. He said that York Elementary is no longer in the running because new data shows the school's enrollment is projected to increase.

The other schools getting additional teachers are still the same as previously mentioned. They are Aversboro, Hilburn Drive, Jeffreys Grove and Root elementary schools.

The school board will vote today on allocating the $896,000 for the extra positions at those schools. Tata said he wanted the vote now to have the info out before they hold the teacher transfer fair.

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata's budget proposal will dominate much of the discussion at Tuesday's school board meeting.

The agenda for the committee of the whole meeting that starts at 1 p.m. includes a board budget work session. Another COW topic is Tata's proposal to set aside $900,000 to provide additional staffing at "small elementary schools" such as Aversboro, Hilburn Drive, Jeffreys Grove, Root and York who are dealing with enrollment issues.

The public will have its say at 6:15 p.m. during the public hearing on the budget proposal.

There's some good news, bad news and some assumptions being made in the new 2011-12 budget proposed today by Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata.

Starting with the good news, Tata said his focus was to develop a budget that protects teachers and the classroom while setting conditions to make schools in high demand.

In terms of protecting teachers and the classrooms:

What steps can and should the Wake County school system take to help under-enrolled schools?

As noted in today's article by Chelsea Kellner, parents and staff at Hilburn Drive and York elementary schools and Carroll Middle School are pleading for the school system to provide equal resources that they hope will help their under-filled schools. Among the ideas being proposed by all three schools is to get magnet status.

"This is really an opportunity for leadership where there hasn't been any," Hilburn Principal Greg Ford said. "The time is right now to fix this."

Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata will meet with Hilburn Elementary School parents tonight as part of his efforts to assure them he's concerned about the situation at underenrolled schools.

The school board asked staff to help draw up recommendations to help underutilized schools. Staff was supposed to give an update on Tuesday but Tata pulled it from the work session agenda because he wants to address capacity utilization and the magnet school review as elements of the long-term student assignment plan he'll present by late spring.

Parents at Hilburn, York Elementary and Carroll Middle were the most vocal during this year's student reassignment process in lobbying for help to fill their underutilized schools. York and Carroll parents specifically asked for magnet programs.

It took a lot longer than Wake County school board members expected Tuesday night to work their way through the 2011-12 student reassignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the school board wound up holding votes on all 50 items instead of doing one vote. It was due to the Democrats objecting to most of the moves that went beyond filling Walnut Creek Elementary School.

School board member Kevin Hill pointed back to the Oct. 5 resolution, which he said meant only making minor adjustments to the third year of the three-year assignment plan.