The GOP members of the Wake County school board sure love new Superintendent Anthony Tata's military background.

As noted in today's article, board members who supported Tata repeatedly argued Thursday that his 28 years in the U.S. Army were a good match for the school district's needs. In contrast, Tata's critics on and off the school board said being a retired brigadier general wasn't enough to offset his relatively limited experience in the education system.

"Mr. Tata's experience as a military strategist will complement our focus on academic achievement and encourage the implementation of new initiatives for the betterment of the education of our students," said school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

Year two for the Wake County school board members who took office last December could be even more challenging than their first year.

As noted in today's article, the upcoming year has a wide range of big issues for the school board to face that go beyond student assignment. The board will also have to hire a permanent superintendent, adopt new board member districts, work out the details of the next bond issue, deal with the U.S. Department of Education and AdvancED investigations and prepare for the elections.

But the one thing board members on the various factions can agree upon is that the budget crisis will be the top issue over the next year.

Don't look for the Wake County school board to spend a lot of time on Tuesday going over board member Kevin Hill's consensus-building approach to developing a new student assignment plan.

The agenda for Tuesday's work session calls for spending 30 minutes discussing Hill's proposal. School board chairman Ron Margiotta said now that standing committees are being restored, he expects a discussion about whether Hill's proposal will be sent to a committee.

The rest of the agenda is packed with the longest amount, 60 minutes, set aside for a discussion of the details of next year's student assignment plan.

Supporters of the old diversity policy are ramping up the message of "wait 'til next year" in the aftermath of last week's GOP election victory on the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

As noted in Thursday's American Independent article by Ned Barnett, diversity policy supporters say last week's election results shouldn't be seen as a referendum supporting community schools. Instead, they're pointing to the 2011 Wake County school board elections as the true test of public sentiment.

“I don’t think the voters went to the polls and voted the way they did because of what was going on with the school board,” said Karen Rindge, executive director of WakeUP Wake County, the parent group of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition. “But I think we’re going to see a change next year. That’s when we’re really going to see if the public agrees with this board of education.”

UPDATE

In today's article in the American Independent, newly elected Wake County Commissioner Phil Matthews is calling last week's election results a mandate for neighborhood schools.

The forum Thursday at Lacy Elementary School's PTA meeting produced more than a few highlights.

You had, as previously noted, school board members Ron Margiotta and Deborah Prickett objecting to the use of student achievement in the Alves plan. You had a somewhat modified version of the presentation on the Alves plan from what was given last week to the Garner Chamber of Commerce.

You had Dana Cope questioning Tim Simmons about the Alves plan and objecting to board member Carolyn Morrison's vote this year against returning the Lacy nodes from Stough Elementary.

Is Wake County Commissioner candidate Jack Nichols paying the price for being too honest about the prospect of a property tax increase to pay for the next school construction bond issue?

In a press release Wednesday, Joey Stansbury, head of the conservative Wake Community PAC, is painting Nichols, a Democratic challenger to Republican Commissioner Paul Coble, as someone who is out to raise people's property taxes.

You would have been disappointed if you had gone to Wednesday night's forum hoping the candidates for the board of commissioners would talk about Wake County's student assignment fight.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, the Wake Schools Community Alliance stayed clear of student assignment questions at the forum the group sponsored. While discussing other school issues, candidates from both political parties blamed the other for the economic woes facing the nation and county.

Some differences emerged with Democrats Jack Nichols and Steve Rao both saying the county will have to consider impact fees or other means to meet school construction and renovation demands that could easily run to $2 billion in the next 20 years.

Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon lambasted the Wake County school board majority in his 16-minute speech at Saturday's Great Schools in Wake Coalition forum.

As noted in today's article, Goodmon accused the board of engaging in poor governing practices and being ideologically focused. He chastised the board for several of the decision that have been made, including eliminating the diversity policy.

Along the way, Goodmon got repeated applause and laughter from the crowd of  around 200 people. He also found time to repeatedly plug WRAL, which his company owns.

An effort to pull back design money to start up E-20, Scotts Ridge Elementary and M-8 died at today's Wake County school board meeting

The board had voted 6-2 last month to approve spending the design money, subject to the approval of the county commissioners. School board members Debra Goldman and John Tedesco had voted no because none of the sites were in Southeast Raleigh and the decisions were being made before the new community assignment zones were finalized.

A revote was added to the agenda today at Goldman's request. But her motion to rescind the prior vote died when no one seconded her.

UPDATE

Goldman said she asked for the motion to be rescinded because there's only enough money right now to build two of the schools. She said they could save $800,000 by dropping design work for one of the three schools.

Student discipline, watering of athletic fields and a revote on design work for three new schools are some of the items on Tuesday's Wake County school board agenda.

The board will have a second and final vote on changing policy so that long-term suspensions no longer automatically must run to the end of the school year. Also Tuesday, the board will vote on delegating authority to interim Superintendent Donna Hargens to commute long-term suspension recommendations to short-term suspensions and to reduce the length of individual long-term suspensions.

This delegation of power to Hargens is supposed to allow for an immediate impact on reducing the number and length of suspensions while a review of discipline policies takes place.