The Panther Creek High cheating incident and the school budget proposal dominated much of the discussion today's news conference held by Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata.

Tata said he stands behind how Panther Creek issued short-term suspensions and in-school detentions for the five students who were caught cheating. They were also required to take an alternative exam to see if they knew the material.

Tata was asked how fair it was for Panther Creek to give an alternative exam when some schools would give zeros for cheating. Tata pointed back to the ongoing grading practices review and how principals have autonomy to make decisions within the broad framework of board policy.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

For the second year in a row, the Wake County school system has been exempted from the legislative requirement that students get five more days and 25 additional hours of classes to the school year.

Wake was among the 91 school districts who received waivers last Monday for the 2012-13 school year from State Schools Superintendent June Atkinson. The State Board of Education, which initially balked at allowing waivers for the 2012-13 school year, decided earlier this month to give Atkinson the permission to grant them.

Wake, like most school districts, cited the need to train teachers on the common core on why they shouldn't have to add the extra days. In addition to providing more training time, Wake Superintendent Tony Tata says the waiver will save $1.4 million in transportation costs.

Interestingly, the state listed Wake as asking for a waiver from all five days. Wake initially only asked for a partial waiver.

Supporters and critics of Wake County's proposed math placement policy both sought the moral high ground during this week's school board discussion.

Critics of the policy argued that using too low a placement standard would do students a disservice and give them a weak math foundation. Supporters of the policy argued they were trying to promote equitable access to rigorous courses.

School board member Jim Martin got the discussion going Tuesday when he proposed a motion to indefinitely postpone the policy in favor of implementing this charge.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

How much change will take place at today's Wake County school board meeting as issues such as bell schedules, student assignment and the Panther Creek High lease deal are discussed?

Superintendent Tony Tata told reporters on Friday that changes are likely to be made to some schools in the bell schedule proposal based on the feedback from the online survey. How much change comes from staff and from individual board members remains to be seen.

The board is setting aside the first 90 minutes of the work session agenda that starts at 3 p.m. on the bell schedule.

As the Wake County school system moves to the common core for math, what role should teacher judgment play in placing students and what criteria should be used for placement in the super-advanced track?

As noted in today's article, the school board is supposed to discuss the math placement policy on Tuesday. A number of questions still have to be resolved, such as whether a policy is needed and whether an EVAAS probability predictor of 70 percent is the right floor for placement.

But another issue to be resolved is what to do about teacher judgment.

Wake County's new middle school math placement policy is getting some major revisions before it's voted on today by the school board.

The revised policy says that "placement criteria must be used when establishing course options for all students." But at the same time, it also removes language from the prior version that had prevented teachers from using professional judgment to place students in lower-level math courses than indicated by EVAAS.

Whether the placement criteria will trump teacher judgment or vice versa remains to be seen. I haven't gotten back a response to the question I posed to the school system on Monday.

UPDATE

Based on the changes since the last version, it's been changed from a second reading to a first reading tonight.

In line with the new common core standards adopted by the state, the Wake County school system will implement new math course names and sequencing for the 2012-13 school year.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, staff laid out how the new math sequencing, which in middle school would be used with EVAAs to place students, would look. Staff also gave new data that could put a different spin on the arguments used by critics who've said that using an EVAAS predictor score of below 80 percent is too low.

All five member school districts of the Triangle High Five are supposed to use the same sequencing and course names.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF REPORT FOR LINKS TO HANDOUTS

The Wake County school board will tackle a variety of issues at today's work session meeting.

First up is an update on the magnet school selection round results. Democratic school board members have complained that they didn't get the data, which shows an apparent big drop in applications, until after the last board meeting when they agreed to go forward with the new student assignment plan.

One thing to check is which magnet schools saw a noticeable drop in applications.

UPDATE

Click here for a school district press release that includes links to school-by-school and historical magnet school application results.

If the Triangle High Five has its way, Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties and the Chapel hill-Carrboro school system will have a uniform set of math course names and sequences.

As noted in today's article, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board will review the Triangle High Five proposal at tonight's board meeting. Ruth Steidinger, Wake's senior director of middle school program,s said the board would likely get the presentation in January.

Wake will need to decide relatively soon so that high school students can make their course selections for the fall 2012 semester.

Will the Wake County school system get permission to only add three and not five more days to the 2012-13 school calendar?

As noted in today's article, the state Board of Education will discuss today requests from this list of 69 school districts and four charter schools for waivers for next school year. Most of the 73 requests are for full waivers, but Wake is asking for a partial waiver.

Under Wake's waiver request, the district would add three days. The other two days would be used as teacher workdays. Click here for Wake's proposed 2012-13 school calendars should the waivers be approved.

UPDATE

Based on the talk at the State Board meeting today, it's not looking like school districts will get waivers on Thursday.