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.

Longleaf School of the Arts has picked Raleigh and not Garner as the site for its new location.

In a press release today, Longleaf announced it had signed a letter of intent for 207 E. Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh, the former home of Exploris Middle School. Another charter school, Triangle Math and Science Academy, currently uses the building but will relocate after the end of the school year.

The proposed charter school is awaiting final approval next week from the State Board of Education before it opens in August. Longleaf students will be required to take a course of study in the arts.

Longleaf officials had been negotiating with the Town of Garner to use its Avery Street Annex. At public information sessions, some Raleigh parents had raised concerns about making the long commute to Garner.

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition and other supporters of the Democratic school board majority turned their attention Monday on the Republican majority on the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

During the public comment section, several speakers criticized the commissioners for asking for state legislation to take over ownership of schools, to be able to give money to help build charter schools and to change the way school board members are elected. It also came with a warning.

"I hope that the Wake County Commissioners don't want to radicalize lots of middle-class parents," said Robert Siegel. "But if you do start messing with our schools, we're going to respond the same way we responded to the extremist school board of 2009. I don't think you want Wake County to become a national disgrace again."

How does the idea sound of having a mass election for all Wake County school board seats in 2014?

As noted in today's article, state Rep. Chris Malone said legislators are considering various options for changing the way Wake school board members are elected in response to the request from the board of commissioners.

Ideas on the table include making some or all the seats at-large and changing the elections to even-numbered years. One of the more intriguing ideas would involve extending by a year the board members elected in 2009 and shortening by a year those elected in 2011.

Wake County taxpayers are on the hook for as much as $125,000 for dueling lobbyists representing the school board and commissioners.

The school board voted Tuesday to authorize interim Superintendent Stephen Gainey to pay up to $100,000 to hire a lobbyist to oppose legislative changes commissioners want in school construction, charter school funding and school board elections.

It turns out that county commissioners already hired their own lobbyist this week. Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, said that Tom Fetzer, the former Raleigh mayor and past state Republican Party chairman, will be paid $5,000 a month — for a maximum of $25,000 — to be their lobbyist.

"My reaction is, if we're going to keep score, we're going to win,” Bryan said Wednesday in a meeting with News & Observer reporters and editors.

The Wake County school board is going to fight it out in the General Assembly against the county commissioners over proposed legislative changes.

As noted in today's article, members of the school board's Democratic majority objected to the legislative changes backed by the GOP majority on the county commissioners. The school board will fight letting commissioners take over ownership of schools, give money to help charter schools build facilities and their support for adding at-large school board seats.

Democratic board members said they were defending the school system by hiring a lobbyist to oppose the commissioners' 2013 state legislative agenda.

More to come later, but the Wake County school board picked Tom Benton to be its newest member and hired a lobbyist to oppose the legislative changes backed by the county commissioners.

Benton got four votes from Susan Evans, Kevin Hill, Christine Kushner and Jim Martin. Keith Sutton voted for Don Mial. Deborah Prickett backed Wendy Ford and John Tedesco chose Shinica Thomas.

The board voted 5-2 with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition to authorize interim Superintendent Stephen Gainey to enter into contracts to get people to lobby the General Assembly not to adopt the legislative goals backed by commissioners.

Commissioners want to change state law to take over from the school board the jobs of locating, constructing and owning schools. They also want authority to give money to help charter schools build facilities and to require that four of the nine school board seats be elected at large.

Here's a recap of the interviews from Wendy Ford and Hilda McCullers for the District 1 vacancy on the Wake County school board.

Ford repeatedly stressed that she knew what the board was going through having served on a school board in upstate New York for 19 years. She said she's done everything the board now faces, including being involved in two superintendent searches.

Another thing that Ford frequently mentioned is that Wake needs to deal with competition from the popularity of charter schools, especially parents who are dissatisfied with the district.

The legislative changes being promoted by Wake County Commissioners to take over ownership of schools and to be able to give money to help build facilities for charter schools is drawing opposition from other districts.

In this blog post Friday in the Wilmington Star-News, Pressley Baird writes that at least some members of the New Hanover County school board don't want the Wake changes to spread to their district.

Officially, the changes that Wake commissioners requested as part of the 2013 Legislative Agenda would only affect Wake County. But state legislators are looking at making both ideas statewide changes.

Some of the groups who've spent the past three years fighting efforts to eliminate diversity from Wake County's student assignment policies are now focusing on statewide education issues.

As noted in today's article by John Frank and Lynn Bonner, several liberal advocacy groups have joined to form Public Schools First NC. Their goal during the legislative agenda that opens today is to counter "the growing threat to privatize and weaken North Carolina’s public schools."

Members of PSFNC include the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children, the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association and the N.C. Justice Center.