The future of the Wake County school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force will be up for discussion today.

The task force has been placed under the board's student achievement committee. The move had been opposed by task force chairman John Tedesco but approved by the new board majority.

The task force will discuss today the work accomplished, the work to be done, the role of sub-committees, interaction with other institutional committees, pros and cons of the task force format, relationship to the Board and the Student Achievement Committee and next steps.

Today's meeting will run from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Banks Road Elementary School, 100225 Chambers Road in Raleigh.

Does the Wake County school system need to adopt a school board policy on equity of educational resources?

The answer, at least as of last week's school board policy committee meeting, is no for now. The consensus of the majority and minority members of the committee is that they can put the policy on hold.

For now, the board will see if the mission, vision and core beliefs statement adopted last year will do enough to promote equity.

School equity, student transfers and athletics will be on the agenda for today's first meeting of the reconstituted Wake County school board policy committee.

Now chaired by board member Jim Martin, the committee will review the proposed equity policy and its R&P. Martin worked on the policy when he was a community member of the economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

The committee has slotted half of the two-hour meeting to talk about the revised transfer policy before it's referred back to the full board on Tuesday.

The return of Wake County school board standing committees begins this week.

School board chairman Kevin Hill has assigned the other eight board members to be a chair or vice chair of one committee and to serve on another committee. This comes after former school board chairman Ron Margiotta drew complaints when he assigned majority members to as many as five committees while putting Hill on only one committee.

All the committees have two Democrats and two Republicans. But Hill is an ex-officio member of all the committees so he could attend to break a tie.

Late Tuesday night, the Wake County school board voted 5-4 along party lines to pass on first reading the reinstatement of the student achievement, finance, policy and facilities committees.

Under the vote, which will still require a second reading for adoption, the committees would be reevaluated after six months. Left unresolved Tuesday was the future of the economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

Democratic school board chairman Kevin Hill proposed keeping the ED task force but rolling it into the student achievement committee. That proposal drew opposition from Republican school board member John Tedesco, who has headed the ED task force since its formation in 2010.

Wake County school administrators hope to get a grant to encourage community participation in an early childhood literacy initiative.

During Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting, administrators said they've applied for a grant from The Campaign For Grade-Level Reading.

The Campaign focuses on closing reading achievement gaps between low-income and middle-income students. A major focus of the group is for students to have reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

Thursday night's community mass meeting at Martin Street Baptist Church dealt with the new Wake County student assignment plan, getting mediation for the school board protesters and assailing the conditions at Walnut Creek Elementary School.

As noted in today's article, most the focus of the meeting led by the state NAACP and the Great Schools in Wake Coalition was on complaints about the assignment plan. The crowd of around 50 people, mainly supporters of the old diversity policy, were urged to contact school leaders to change the plan.

"If you let the plane fly in the air and you don’t make those course corrections that you feel need to be made in order to make it a more successful plan for all students so we have a fair and diverse and well-funded education for all students, then shame on us if we don’t advocate for the changes to make it happen," said Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

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.

Here's a taste of the kind of questioning that the student assignment plan could get from the new Wake County school board majority.

During last week's ED task force meeting, new Wake school board member Jim Martin grilled staff during a Q&A on how the new plan is being presented to parents. He was concerned that the choice process isn't being adequately explained to parents, especially those who are less educated.

After hearing the staff presentation about the community outreach efforts, Martin, who has been a citizen member of the ED task force, said they were "getting a lot of the 10,000 ft. story."

The new student assignment plan and an update on middle school math placement will be on the agenda of today's meeting of the Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force.

The task force will hear about efforts to do community outreach, particularly among low-income families, about the new choice plan. One of the concerns raised is making sure that poor families will have the same opportunity to participate in the choice process.

The task force will then get an update on middle school math placement, looking at the 20th-day numbers at individual schools. The discussion will take place while the new placement policy is in limbo seeing whether the new Democratic majority will take action.