Some compromises were made on the issue of how charter schools around the state, including Wake County, would be governed by a new Charter School Board under Senate Bill 337.

The latest version, approved Wednesday by the state Senate Budget Committee, keeps the current requirement that all charter school teachers in grades 6 through 12 in the core subjects of math, science, social studies and language arts be college graduates.

That requirement had been dropped in the original version of the bill.

How far should the state go to screen charter school applicants to decide whether they'll be considered for approval for opening in 2014?

As noted in today's article, the Public Charter School Advisory Council will meet today to begin reviewing 42 applicants who passed the state Office of Charter Schools' initial screening. But complaints about how OCS screened out 27 charter applicants means at least some of them may get a second chance.

The council will open the meeting discussing whether the guidelines it asked staff to put on applicants might have screened out too many for what might be considered minor reasons.

UPDATE

After more than an hour of debate Monday, the council decided to wait until Tuesday to make a final decision on the issue.

Tuesday Update: The council voted to form an appeals subcommittee to handle any potential appeals from the 27 applicants.

I'll go into a longer blog post on this later, but six new charter schools proposed for Wake County are still in the running to open for the 2014-15 school year.

Last month, the state Office of Charter Schools passed 42 of 69 applicants for further screening by the Public Charter School Advisory Council. There's been some controversy about how the 27 were rejected.

The six in Wake that made the initial cut are:

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition found out Wednesday that the state Senate is going to be tougher when it comes to dealing with protesters.

Several GSIW members, who are part of the new Public Schools First NC group, attended today's Senate Education Committee to speak out against S337, the bill that would change how charter schools were governed.

Sen. Dan Soucheck, the committee co-chairman, said they weren't going to hear from the public today because they had public comment at last week's meeting. He said he wanted to hear from the committee members today.

In protest, the GSIW members put scarves around their faces. They left the meeting room after the sergeant-at-arms, with handcuffs out, approached them.

UPDATE

Click here for the Progressive Pulse blog post from the liberal N.C. Policy Watch about what happened. Patty Williams says in the blog post that the protesters were threatened with arrest.

The Insider is reporting that Weaver said the protesters could have been charged with violating a state law that prohibits people from wearing masks or hoods to disguise their identities on state property.

Should the Wake County school system, or any of the state's 115 school districts, be required to allow high school students from home schools, private schools and charter schools to play sports in the district?

This new bill introduced Monday, S569, says there's a "duty to provide for all students to participate in interscholastic athletics programs." High school students who don't have access to a particular interscholastic sport would be able to play at their base school. If the base school doesn't have it, they could go to the nearest high school that does.

The bill would cover students in home schools, charter schools and private schools. It would also cover students in the traditional public schools whose school doesn't have the sport they want to play in.

In case you don't get The Cary News, new Wake County school board member Bill Fletcher is showing why he was picked by the board majority to fill the District 9 vacancy,

In this Q&A in Sunday's edition, Fletcher says its "not a good idea" to turn over construction, ownership and maintenance of schools to the Wake County Board of Commissioners. In terms of the rest of the commissioners' legislative agenda, Fletcher says having four at-large school board seats is "a poor idea" and he's not in favor of using tax dollars to build charter schools.

On student assignment, Fletcher says that "in order to be successful in a diverse society, we need diverse schools." Fletcher also says Cary parents think stability is more important than proximity.

Fletcher said he will be at Caribou Coffee at 109 S.W. Maynard Road in Cary at 2 p.m. Thursday in case anyone wants to drop in and “just have a little chat." That meeting will come right after what could be another tense meeting that morning between the school board and commissioners.

Here's a recap of the interviews today that Lois Nixon and Jim Pomeranz went through for the Wake County school board District 9 vacancy.

Nixon repeatedly said she's be an independent, nonpartisan board member. Nixon mentioned having run unsuccessfully for the seat in 2009.

Nixon said she decided to stay involved after the election because she's committed to the schools. She said she's attended 90 percent of the board meetings since then to learn as much as she can.

Longleaf School of the Arts in Raleigh got final approval today to open in August.

Longleaf was one of 23 charter schools that got the okay from the state Board of Education to open for the 2013-14 school year. The Expedition School, which plans to be in Orange County, got final approval to open in 2014 as long as it meets three conditions.

Cameron Creek Charter in Mecklenburg County was rejected amid questions whether it plagiarized its application.

With its arts focus, Longleaf could provide competition to the Wake County school system for high school students.

Nine charter schools in Wake County are among the 70 applicants statewide who made Friday's application deadline for permission to open in the 2014-15 school year.

We'll have to wait until potentially the end of this week to actually view the applications. But this list shows that the field includes schools named Cardinal Charter, Dynamic Community Charter, Filmore Academy Charter School, James Madison Academy, Prep 360 Academy, The Platinum School, Wake Forest Charter Academy, Wisdom Academy and Envision Science Academy.

Things may have changed from when they filed their letters of intent in January.

So what does the business community think of the proposal to turn over ownership of schools from the Wake County Board of Education to the Wake County Board of Commissioners?

During last week's joint meeting, Joe Bryan, commissioners chairman, brought up the 2008 proposal from the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce for the school board to give up school ownership to the county. Bryan then brought up the results of a more recent survey conducted by the Chamber.

“Surveys done recently through the Chamber suggest a large group of the population sees that is the best model for the county to own, build and maintain schools and it also improves potential passage of the school bond issue," Bryan said.