Today's Wake County school board meeting will be long and touch on a variety of topics, including reassignment, bonuses to work at high-poverty schools, redistricting, bell schedules and the magnet review.

The school board will vote today on the last three potential changes to the 2011-12 student reassignment plan, including moving school board member John Tedesco's neighborhood from Creech Road Elementary to Aversboro Elementary. The plan calls for splitting off the part of the node that includes his subdivision to go to Aversboro.

Also as noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, the board will vote on setting aside $950,000 in Race to the Top grant money to provide signing bonuses and merit pay to teachers who will work at the four Renaissance schools: Barwell Road, Brentwood Road, Creech Road and Wilburn elementary schools.

The Wake County school board will sign off today on how each school plans to hold professional learning time for the 2010-11 school year now that time won't be set aside by dismissing school every Wednesday.

Wake is officially leaving it up to individual schools to pick from several methods identified by staff. But the board is being asked today to approve waivers for several of the schools.

Sixteen schools are asking for waivers from meeting for an hour every week.  Board policy says the PLTs are supposed to meet weekly for at least an hour.

It looks like most Wake County elementary schools will go back to operating on a 9:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. schedule for this fall.

During the committee of the whole meeting, the school board tentatively agreed to go with putting schools back on their 2008-09 schedule. This option will require spending an additional $748,000, likely by withholding some local raises for teachers and using money from vacant positions.

It came after multiple votes. The option that was tentatively adopted, and still needs to be formally approved this afternoon, was rejected at one point today.

UPDATE

The board voted 5-3 to approve the bell schedule. Kevin Hill, Debra Goldman and Chris Malone voted no. They'll pay for it for using the vacant positions and withholding some local teacher raises. 

Budgets, bell schedules and the voluntary desegregation resolution will be among the topics on Tuesday's Wake County school board agenda.

During the committee of the whole meeting that starts at 1 p.m., the board will discuss the bell schedules for this fall. They'll focus on whether to adopt schedules that would start most elementary schools at 9:30 a.m. this fall or pursue other options that would start them at 9:15 a.m.

One option presented by staff to come up with $748,000 to hire enough bus drivers to start at 9:15 a.m .is to withhold some local teacher pay raises and to use salaries from vacant positions.

UPDATE

Ticket vouchers will still be issued beginning 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. The COW meeting is still in the board conference room despite this week's request from the Great Schools in Wake Coalition to move the location.

Could Wake County teachers be meeting in the mornings this fall instead of in the afternoons for their professional learning community time?

That's an idea being explored by school board member John Tedesco. In that scenario, teachers would meet in the mornings with the possibility of delaying the start of classes.

Whether that option will be doable this fall is a question.

UPDATE

See end of post for links to three of the school PLT presentations.

Here's a recap of today's Wake County school board finance committee discussion.

Administrators said that schools would have to bear the brunt of the $20 million in new state cuts because central services has been slashed so much in the past. Here's a list of the cuts.

The upshot is that schools will probably have larger class sizes and fewer teachers, teacher assistants, media specialists and school supplies. Athletic coaches, department chairs and other teachers receiving extra duty pay will see a 30 percent cut for those services.

Would you be wiling to send Wake County elementary students to the bus stop before 7 a.m. in order to flip schedules around to start high schools later in the day?

School transportation officials presented a model last week of what things could look like if high schools were to start after 9 a.m. But the model would involve flipping around the three-tier bus system so that some elementary schools start at 7:25 a.m.

It's not an option that most school board members are considering, at least for this fall. Whether there's interest down the road remains to be seen.

Student assignment policy and budget issues are expected to dominate today's Wake County school board committee discussions.

At this morning's policy committee meeting, board members will discuss changes to the student assignment policy now that the community-based assignment resolution was passed. They'll also discuss creating a formal policy for the public comment period at board meetings.

A lot of attention will also be on budget cuts that will be discussed at this afternoon's finance committee meeting.

It looks like it will be another two weeks before the Wake County school board decides on bell schedules for this fall.

Board members were told today that it would cost $748,000 to hire 25 new school bus drivers to avoid operating most elementary schools from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. this fall. The board directed the finance committee to see next week if there's a way to come up with the money.

All the board members agreed that starting elementary school so late was a hardship on families, requiring many to get preschool care. But finding a way to not start school so late led to a lengthy discussion with no resolution.

The Wake County school board delayed a vote today on adopting the school bell schedules to see if staff can make any changes.

Parents aren't happy with the prospect of starting most elementary schools at 9:30 a.m. The boad waived the policy saying the bell schedules need to be adopted by the end of March.

The good news for Heritage Elementary parents, regardless of the final board decision, is that staff now wants to move it from the first tier to the second tier. Originally staff wanted it on the third tier.

The board reaffirmed by a 5-4 vote the motion to put Supt. Del Burns on administrative leave through June 30. The board also voted unanimously to authorize board chairman Ron Margiotta to create a superintendnet search committee.