More to come later, but the Wake County school system is defending the decision by the school board's Democratic majority to drop the choice-based student assignment plan in its response to AdvancED.

In this 28-page report sent today, Wake says the board majority's vote was based on “reasonable beliefs that there were demonstrable and substantial problems with the Choice Plan.”

“While four Board members believed that the Choice Plan remained viable and that any problems could be successfully addressed, five members came to the conclusion that a fundamental change in approach was needed,” according to the report.

UPDATE

AdvancED hasn't even reviewed the report yet. It's WRAL misinterpreting that Wake is telling AdvancED that it should find the complaint as being without merit.

The controlled-choice plan bit the dust officially on Tuesday with the 5-4 vote by the Wake County school board to move back to an address-based plan for the 2013-14 school year.

As noted in today's article, Democratic board members argued that the choice plan was too expensive to maintain. They argued the new plan was a good hybrid of the choice plan and a base plan while incorporating long-sought concepts such as grandfathering for all students at their current school.

But Republican board members argued the choice plan wasn't given a fair chance to succeed and that changing assignment plans again promoted instability in the community.

Barring any last-minute changes next week, it looks like the new year-round calendar option for Lynn Road Elementary base families will be Wakefield Elementary.

But the discussion on the issue during Tuesday's Wake County school board student assignment work session raises issues about the role year-round calendar options should play in the district. Should Wake continue to not offer year-round options that are considered more attractive than the base school?

The discussion also raised the prospect that the school system may at some point convert Wakefield Elementary back to a traditional calendar.

The procession of unhappy Wake County parents continued at Wednesday night's student assignment public hearing.

As noted in today's article by Colin Campbell, the meeting's location at Rolesville Middle School meant that several northern Wake parents objected to being assigned to the new schools. At the prior two hearings held in other parts of the county, only one of those affected parents spoke out.

For instance, Pamela Page of Wake Forest objected to sending her children to the modular campus being used by Richland Creek Elementary. She wants her children to stay at Jones Dairy Elementary.

The speakers at Monday's student assignment public hearing were largely unhappy with the Wake County school board.

As noted in today's article, several of the speakers, a crowd made up mostly of western Wake residents, complained about the choice plan being dropped. They weren't happy that choice plan's feeders aren't being guaranteed and that the calendar options are changing for some families.

"How can you not honor the promise made by the board before you?" said Apex parent Erika Phillips about not guaranteeing the choice plan feeders.

You could hear a lot more tonight from those who aren't officially being reassigned in the new Wake County student assignment plan.

As of early Friday afternoon, 28 people had signed up to speak at tonight's public hearing at Davis Drive Middle School in Cary. Twenty-one of the speakers are from western and southwestern Wake, none of whose students are among the 1,479 officially being reassigned in the plan.

This could mean, as was the case last week, that many of the people tonight are those who are affected by changing the feeders from the choice plan back to the 2011 base assignments or whose calendar options have been revised.

The 1,479 students are only those in the base nodes whose assignments from 2011-12 would be different in 2013-14. A hearing was added in Cary in case people in other areas of the county wanted to give feedback.

Wake County school board member Susan Evans has apologized, with a caveat, to having yanked the microphone away from colleague Deborah Prickett on Wednesday.

As noted in today's article, Evans called Prickett to apologize for having grabbed the microphone out of her hands. But Evans, along with fellow board member Jim Martin, contend that Prickett was out of order for having polled the crowd at the student assignment hearing if they're satisfied with the choice plan.

"I certainly want to admit that taking the microphone away from Mrs. Prickett was not an appropriate way to deal with her violation of the rules of order," Evans said.

It may not officially be called a "reassignment" by the Wake County school system, but you'd have a hard time telling that to the parents who attended Wednesday's public hearing on the assignment plan.

As noted in today's article, the largest contingent of speakers at the hearing were from the Durant Trails community. They were complaining about proposed changes in their year-round school options.

The majority of the speakers Wednesday were complaining about things that aren't counted in the 1,479 student assignment number in the plan. In addition to changes in calendar options, you've got changes in the feeders from what was in the choice plan.

Some of the most heated moments at tonight's Wake County student assignment public hearing took place after it officially ended.

Normally school board members don't talk during the hearings, but after the hearing ended those in the audience demanded their questions be answered. Board members assured the crowd they'd hear their concerns.

In one of the more contentious exchanges after the hearing, school board member Susan Evans yanked the microphone out of board member Deborah Prickett's hand.

Wake County school board member Jim Martin is proposing inserting a transfer selection priority to help families who feel their situation is "hopeless" at low-performing school.

During Tuesday's school board work session, staff was reviewing the selection priorities for the first transfer application period (page numbers 7-8 on this document). This would be the new period from Feb. 18 to March 1 when families could request a transfer to any school in the district that has space. Tansportation wouldn't be guaranteed.

Martin said he wanted to bring up the issue of helping students from low-performing nodes get into high-performing schools. He said the issue was raised by several of his constituents.