Does the Wake County school system need to have a policy for how law enforcement interviews and arrests students on campus?

The school board was scheduled to vote on giving this new policy approval on first reading on Oct. 30 until board member Jim Martin interceded. As a result, the policy was tabled for up to 90 days for further review by the policy committee.

Martin, chairman of the policy committee, had given the policy his approval at the Sept. 25 committee meeting. But he raised concerns after getting in contact with Jason Langberg, an attorney for Advocates for Children's Services, which works with students who are suspended and who are arrested.

It's going to take another month before Wake County school board members begin exerting a say on controversial proposed grading changes such as dropping the use of extra credit and limiting the penalty for work handed in late.

The school board's policy committee was set to begin discussion Tuesday about what grading issues to move from R&P and into board policy. This would allow the board to cut back or potentially block staff from implementing some proposed changes.

The committee ran out of time and agreed to discuss the grading policy and R&P on Aug. 28. But there were again some sharp discussion between board members and staff about the grading changes.

The Wake County school system is joining a nationwide effort to get children reading by grade level by third grade.

In a press release last Monday, the Campaign For Grade-Level Reading Communities Network announced that Wake had joined 124 communities in becoming charter members of the movement. The members had submitted action plans in March laying out how they would overcome the challenges that keep many low-income children from learning to read well.

As a charter member of the network, Wake County will have access to an online help desk, peer-learning opportunities, meetings with national experts and policymakers, and a foundation registry designed to expand and replicate successful programs.

Wake school administrators had announced at a February meeting of the school board's economically disadvantaged student performance task force that they had applied for a grant from the campaign.

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